Palavras mágicas ou liberdade de expressão? : uma abordagem linguística da configuração do pedido explícito de voto

Abstract

The present article aims to demonstrate the subjectivity in the inference process made by magistrates in cases of “magic words”. The chosen area is linguistics and the subareas are discourse analysis, semantics and pragmatics. The theme of the article is the concept of “magic words” used by the Electoral Justice, in the context of early or extemporaneous electoral propaganda, to designate words or expressions that may constitute a request for votes outside the period allowed by law. For this, three cases extracted from the Electoral Justice's case law database were examined, that is, the analysis was restricted to judgments and decisions, which are publicly available, and therefore the names of the parties were not omitted. The conclusion of this article is that, although the Electoral Justice understood that, in the cases analyzed herein, the request for votes was configured through “magic words”, from the perspective of semantics, pragmatics and discourse analysis, there was extrapolation in the interpretation of events, as the candidates only used freedom of expression to publicize their own candidacy and ask for political support, which is not necessarily the same as asking for votes.