The Palace of La Moneda: From the trauma of the Hawker Hunters to the therapy of the signs
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Pedro Santander
Pedro Santander (b. 1967) is a Professor in the School of Journalism at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile) 〈pedro.santander@ucv.cl〉. His research interests include discourse theory, discourse analysis, and media research. His major publications include ‘Matar al Padre: Análisis del discurso de la sociología en dictadura’ (2003); ‘El Acceso invisible a las noticias de la televisión’ (2004); and ‘El Acceso a las noticias de TV como estrategia política’ (2004).
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Enrique Aimone
Enrique Aimone (b. 1962) is Professor of Semiotics in the School of Journalism at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso 〈Enrique.aimone.g@ucv.cl〉. His research interests are in semiotics.
Abstract
The objective of this article is to analyze and interpret a series of semiotic-discursive interventions that have occurred in the seat of the Chilean government, the Palace of La Moneda. Underlying these observations is the conviction that the Palace of La Moneda is not only an architectural construction but also a material object that must be read as a sign; that is, a representation of aliquid pro aliquod.
This analytic observation will be centred on the years of President Ricardo Lagos' government (2000–2005), because it is the period in which a series of semiotic actions can clearly be identified; these actions have impacted La Moneda and, underlying this impact, a strategy of sense production can be found. These actions are considered legible, the bulk of which makes up a syntax that results in a global sense or semiosis, whose objective is to change what the representation of this Palace means to Chile from the 1973 coup d'état on. According to the above, there are semio-discursive operations of sense investiture (Verón 1984) that the above mentioned government carries out in its political practice and that are in direct relation to the tragic history of September 11, 1973.
The theoretical body of psychoanalysis has been used to hold that after the coup d'etat the governmental palace represents a trauma understood as a wound in the memory. Changing the value of that sign by means of semiotic operations accounts for both the importance of semiosis in the political practice and the motivated character of the signs.
About the authors
Pedro Santander (b. 1967) is a Professor in the School of Journalism at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile) 〈pedro.santander@ucv.cl〉. His research interests include discourse theory, discourse analysis, and media research. His major publications include ‘Matar al Padre: Análisis del discurso de la sociología en dictadura’ (2003); ‘El Acceso invisible a las noticias de la televisión’ (2004); and ‘El Acceso a las noticias de TV como estrategia política’ (2004).
Enrique Aimone (b. 1962) is Professor of Semiotics in the School of Journalism at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso 〈Enrique.aimone.g@ucv.cl〉. His research interests are in semiotics.
© Walter de Gruyter
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- On ‘semiotics’ as naming the doctrine of signs
- The Homeric Hymn to Hermes: A journey across the continuum of paradox
- ‘Read my hands not my lips’: Untrained observers' ability to interpret children's gestures
- Application d'une méthode de linguistique textuelle au livre de Ruth
- Connotations in semiotic systems of visual art (through the example of works by M. A. Vrubel)
- Dyadic versus triadic sign models in functional and object-oriented computer programming paradigms
- Life and semiosis: The real nature of information and meaning
- The cybersemiotic model of communication: An evolutionary model of the threshold between semiosis and informational exchange
- The semiotics of ‘difference’ in Roentgen diagnosis
- Mythic algebra uses: Metaphor, logic, and the semiotic sign
- An interview with Peter Ladefoged
- An interview with Elizabeth Closs Traugott
- A note on life as meaning-making machinery
- The Palace of La Moneda: From the trauma of the Hawker Hunters to the therapy of the signs
- A multiculturalist approach to discourse theory
- Formal conditions for the significance-effect
- Decoding speech prosody in five languages
- From Umwelt to Mitwelt: Natural laws versus rule-governed sign-mediated interactions (rsi's)
- The contribution of G. W. Leibniz's ‘cognitio symbolica’ theory to current debates on knowledge and communication management
Articles in the same Issue
- On ‘semiotics’ as naming the doctrine of signs
- The Homeric Hymn to Hermes: A journey across the continuum of paradox
- ‘Read my hands not my lips’: Untrained observers' ability to interpret children's gestures
- Application d'une méthode de linguistique textuelle au livre de Ruth
- Connotations in semiotic systems of visual art (through the example of works by M. A. Vrubel)
- Dyadic versus triadic sign models in functional and object-oriented computer programming paradigms
- Life and semiosis: The real nature of information and meaning
- The cybersemiotic model of communication: An evolutionary model of the threshold between semiosis and informational exchange
- The semiotics of ‘difference’ in Roentgen diagnosis
- Mythic algebra uses: Metaphor, logic, and the semiotic sign
- An interview with Peter Ladefoged
- An interview with Elizabeth Closs Traugott
- A note on life as meaning-making machinery
- The Palace of La Moneda: From the trauma of the Hawker Hunters to the therapy of the signs
- A multiculturalist approach to discourse theory
- Formal conditions for the significance-effect
- Decoding speech prosody in five languages
- From Umwelt to Mitwelt: Natural laws versus rule-governed sign-mediated interactions (rsi's)
- The contribution of G. W. Leibniz's ‘cognitio symbolica’ theory to current debates on knowledge and communication management
