“The world is male and must remain so”

Abstract

Based on Text Linguistics, we aim, in this article, to analyze the argumentative load in discriminatory statements made by judge Edilson Rumbelsperger Rodrigues, from the Sete Lagoas – MG district, in 2007. For that purpose, we chose to evaluate the adjectives, manifestly affective and revealing of enunciator’s ideological positions, and the adverbs, which confer property to the enunciation qualities, subjects, and events, marking the speaker's degree of engagement and strengthening arguments, contents, meanings, and underlying convictions, when both are mobilized as persuasive skills in defense of outsourced points of view. It is an attempt to justify evaluative perspectives and to lead to a conviction about the proposition that society should be governed and maintained in male molds, since the break of this male prevalence and control and the consequent female independence make men emotionally fragile, foolish, dependent, and conquered, which is why they cause imbalance, disharmony, and chaos to society – traditionally patriarchal –, above all when a law (Maria da Penha Law) is created, which exclusively protects women from aggression and violence. Finally, the adjective and the adverb regulate and guide speeches interpretive orientation, their meanings and acceptance.