The sequential level in the debated on state of the nation. 1. The president’s speech

Abstract

The sequential discourse level has received to date scant attention on the part of scholars next to other discourse levels such as the sequential or the suprasentential one. The sequential discourse level, which concerns each and every facet of discourse, deals with its architectural unity and sets out to shed light on a number of issues concerning its general organization in terms of content, its parts, structure, and so forth. This paper examines the sequential discourse level in the light of the discourse of power, in particular the opening speeches made by the presidents of the Spanish Government in the debates on the State of the Nation in the present century, or, more precisely, in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010. The research presented here is thus a first step towards an understanding of the different topics, sections and structure of the speeches in question.