Non-sexist language in Spanish political discourse: an analysis of the language of Spanish politicians before and after an electoral campaign

Abstract

The current study analyses the speech of the five most important political parties in Spain, Mariano Rajoy who belongs to Partido Popular, Pedro Sánchez to PSOE, Albert Rivera to Ciudadanos, Pablo Iglesias to Podemos and Alberto Garzón to Izquierda Unida, before and after the elections which took place on December the 20th in 2015 according to six handbooks about how to use proper non-sexist language. The aim of this study is to test whether politicians adapt their speech according to non-sexist language and whether these speeches vary according to formal and informal situations and the moment in which the speeches took place, that is, before or after the elections. The pre-electoral speeches are obtained from two tv programmes and the post-electoral speeches are obtained from the Parliament. Once all the speeches have been analysed, they are compared to confirm when non-sexist language is used, and which politicians use non-sexist language. Regarding the results, Mariano Rajoy and Pedro Sánchez use non-sexist language depending on the context and the situation within the elections whereas Albert Rivera and Pablo Iglesias do not use non-sexist language. However, Alberto Garzón uses non-sexist language in formal and informal context and before and after the elections. Therefore, we come to the conclusion that Alberto Garzón is the politician who uses non-sexist language.