Public policies and poverty in La Guajira, Colombia. An analysis of the role of epistemic resources

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze, from a linguistic-discursive perspective, the role of the epistemic resources employed in presenting the issue of poverty in La Guajira, Colombia. Specifically, it seeks to demonstrate how media discourse constructs knowledge surrounding this issue to produce, in argumentative terms, a discourse that is legitimized for audiences interested in the economic situation of this department located in the Colombian Caribbean. From our perspective, it is important to emphasize that the presentation of these resources in the media is essential for communicating the policies and programs implemented by the Government as a mechanism for public dissemination, thereby providing a fundamental basis for citizen participation and public opinion.

The corpus analyzed consists of documents retrieved from the Sinergia database of Colombia's National Planning Department (DNP), as well as newspaper headlines from El Tiempo, El Espectador, and El Colombiano. The analysis will draw on the conceptual framework proposed by Calsamiglia and Tusón (2012) and Otaola (1988) to examine the discursive strategies involved in the construction of knowledge, specifically epistemic modality and the evidential resources used to support knowledge claims, following Kotwica (2018). After identifying these strategies, we will examine, through a set of analytical categories, the functions that these epistemic resources perform in the discourses under analysis.