Abstract

FUNES, María Soledad  and  TRONCOSO, Muriel. They kill our girls in people’s faces: affectation datives as a fight symbol. Recial [online]. 2022, vol.13, n.21, pp.88-106.  Epub Sep 19, 2022. ISSN 2718-658X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.53971/2718.658x.v13.n21.37847.

Gender-based violence, understood as a structural matter that jeopardizes human rights and fundamental liberties, is a serious social issue in Argentina. Public demonstrations claiming justice for victims of femicides have become recurrent. Taking into account this scenario, the main aim of this work is to discursively analyse a popular song that is frequently chant in many demonstrations as a calling for justice due to femicides: “Señor/vecino, señora/vecina, no sea indiferente, nos matan a las pibas en la cara de la gente” (Mister/Neighbour/Miss, don’t be indifferent, they kill our girls in people’s faces). Our hypothesis is that the use of the dative pronoun nos in this song constitutes a dative of affectation that grammaticalizes a strategy whose communicational aim is to present femicides as a problem that involves the society as a whole and not only women, who are the direct victims.

The work is framed within the Prototype Theory in cognitive linguistics that states a conception of grammar as an emergent of discourse. In this perspective, signs are analysed accordingly to their use in order to find the motivation that leads the speaker to produce a specific form in a certain context.

Keywords : Popular chants; gender-based violence; Prototypical Cognitive Approach; personal pronoun; affectation dative.