«The interplay of greetings and promises. Political encounters between the Warao and the new indigenous leadership in the Orinoco Delta, Venezuela»

Juan Luis Rodríguez
«The interplay of greetings and promises. Political encounters between the Warao and the new indigenous leadership in the Orinoco Delta, Venezuela»
Pragmatics, vol. 22, n.º 1, 2012

Pragmatics | Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) | Universiteit Antwerpen | BELGIUM


Extracto del apartado Conclusión de la publicación en PDF. Ver las referencias en la publicación original del texto.

«In this paper I have shown that part of the rhetorical effectiveness of political speeches in the Orinoco Delta depends on their trans-semiotic nature. The Warao expect political performances to open the possibility of sustained relationships with politicians by linking political speeches with meaningful future events. This is achieved by the use of promises. By paying attention to these trans-semiotic links and their interpretation we can understand the relationship between the here and now of political speech and a broader context that goes beyond the speech event in time and space. This approach can also help us link various semiotic events with the specific ideologies that pervade them.

»The examples presented here show that in the Orinoco Delta the trans-semiotic process sets the standard for evaluating political speech. Those speeches in which politicians make no promises do not circulate in the same way as political speeches from legitimate authorities who make promises. The absence of promises creates a trans-semiotic gap between the speech and any future meaningful interaction. This is the case illustrated by the examples of Salazar and Hernández during the Tucupita meeting in January 2008. In contrast, Minister Nicia Maldonado makes promises in a way that fulfills her audience’s expectations, making them look forward to future events in which their relationship will continue through the distribution of political gifts. This is not to say that promises made by high-ranking politicians are believed and produce automatic support. Promises are only signs of a possible durable connection with high-ranking politicians. They have to be followed by the distribution of political gifts in order to close the trans-semiotic gap.

»These three examples also show that the display of fluency in Warao as an emblem of identity is insufficient to make political speeches that create a durable link with the public. As the first example in this paper shows, even a greeting in a completely unknown language (Ye’kuana in this case) is welcome if the politicians make a transition to meaningful promises in their speech. In contrast, Salazar and Hernández, two Warao- speaking politicians, failed to make this transition and therefore failed to link their speeches with any future involvement with their audiences. They could frame their discourse within familiar Warao genres of speech (e.g. monikata isia dibubukitane) but their performances offered no hope of future engagement with the Warao leaders present in Tucupita. These examples demonstrate that the Warao’s involvement with new indigenous leaders is mediated by the ideological demand of continuous engagement. This semiotic ideology pervades the interpretation of performances and semiotic events in the politics of the Orinoco Delta.»