The expression como Dios manda. Linguistic and Rhetoric Analysis of its use in Political Communication

Abstract

This article consists of four sections. Sections 1 and 2 provide the introduction. In section 3, we describe the form and functions of the expression como Dios manda with reference to the analysis of its two lexical components and to lexicographical treaties on Spanish. In section 4, we analyze the functions of this phrase in a corpora of general Spanish examples from the Corpus of Reference of Current Spanish. Finally, section 5, the most extensive in this article, consists of the pragmatic and rhetorical analysis of the phrase como Dios manda in the discourse of Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s Prime Minister. The analysis allows us to demonstrate the enormous rhetorical functionality of this expression in Spanish political discourse.