The construction of opinion in Javier Marías: rhetorical-argumentative analysis of the columns published by the author between 2009 and 2013

Abstract

This article has as object of study the columns written by Javier Marías between the years 2009 and 2013 in the weekly space “La Zona Fantasma”, located in the last page of El País Semanal, a Sunday supplement in the News Paper El País. For study purposes we have used an analysis of content based on the Aristotelian Rhetoric and its posterior renovation by Charles Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, exposed in their Treaty of Argumentation. The methodology followed allowed to identify the particularities and characteristics in relation to topics, approach, structure and language the author uses. The qualitative contribution consisted of the conclusions about the data obtained. This analysis focuses on the reflection around the topics, the construction of the author´s Ethos and the interpretation of the results due to the context that frames eventually, the years the column is written.