Costa Rican citizens and their attitudinal representations of the events and processes elapsed during the 2018 elections

Abstract

The study of the speaker’s attitude towards an entity or proposition can reveal their value system and their communities’. In the 2018 electoral context, linguistic evaluation can offer a window to understand the profile of the Costa Rican citizen, their beliefs, positions and motivations. This research analyzes the citizen attitudinal representations about the processes and events that shaped the electoral campaign from interviews conducted throughout the country. In the sampling, we included men and women from different geographical areas, ages, educational levels and political affiliations. Using the linguistic categories of the appraisal theory’s attitude system, we assessed the evaluative statements about the constitutive elements of the electoral process, including the political environment, the traditional parties, the current and previous electoral campaigns, the debates, election days, and the results of both rounds. We identified mostly negative attitudes towards the political environment. Regarding the processes and events that had taken place, a high attitudinal intensification in voters’ perceptions is evidenced, which is proportional to the success of their candidate of preference. Political spaces are well received by most citizens; however, they strongly criticize how they were used by the media and presidential candidates. It is concluded that, in a highly polarized scenario, what united citizens was their discomfort towards the 2018 electoral process