on the notion of ethos: analysis of some of Javier Milei’s “figures”

Abstract

Dominique Maingueneau has concentrated on the issue of ethos in numerous writings. Through a detailed study of diverse corpora and considering semiotically distinct genres (visual images, iconotexts, oral and written discourses from different fields), he has paved the way for both theoretical reflection and analytical practice. The present article is indebted to this investigative trajectory. In this case, we focus on the ethos associated with some of the “figures” of Javier Milei, the main representative of the Argentine far-right. Firstly, starting with one of La Libertad Avanza logos, the wig, which metonymically refers to the politician, we will reflect on the ethoi it enables and will delve into the photographic pose in which the hair prominence is complemented by other positional, gestural, and clothing attributes. Then we will consider the ethos constructed by means of pictorial representations derived from the photographic series. Secondly, we analyse a digression in an institutional speech delivered in Argentina in front of entrepreneurs. This discourse constructs the figure of the entrepreneurial employee, which coexists with those of the hero or the prophet, thus evidencing the need to address different audience profiles. Thirdly, we examine a fragment of the speech delivered at the UN assembly, in which the ethos sought to be constructed is that of a confident subject, emphasising the deployment of their own word. However, the fact that journalists pointed out a television series as of a source text of that speech leads our analysis to highligh another figure, that of the plagiarising simulator.