Amplifying and contradict with the unspeakable. A case study in the Colombian armed conflict

Abstract

During the first year of the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos in Colombia, Víctor Julio Suárez Rojas, alias Rodrigo Briceño or ‘Mono Jojoy’, commander of the guerrilla FARC, was killed. In this paper I examine that case from the spechees of president and the insurgent group. The aim is to reconstruct the resources and ways through which the speeches build relationships of political opposition. The case is studied on the theoretical basis of contemporary rhetoric and polemical discourse. The paper represents and describes the rhetorical amplification as the main method of structuring of political discourse in both texts analyzed. Then I describe the operation of the rhetorical strategy of "said unsaid", this is the explicit enunciation of what the adversary can not and should presumably say in public space (Olave, 2015). I argue that the amplification and unsayability are functional to the construction of the political opposition in the discourse. This type of resources shows the important role of the muted in the polemics interactions between FARC and government.