Ekaterina Timofeeva

University of Jyvaskyla

Looking for social cohesion in the discourse of newspaper articles:

Santa Lucia’s holiday in Syracuse

Santa Lucia’s holiday in Syracuse, Italy, is considered to be one of the important events of the holiday cycle. In Syracuse, there are 97% of population Catholics and 24% of the population every year participates in the procession on the 13^th of December to honor their Saint.

Santa Lucia is a Patron Saint of Syracuse and there is a strong tradition of celebrating the holiday in this city. Being born in Syracuse, Santa Lucia makes part of Syracusaine identity and representing certain Catholic values which may indirectly influence Syracusaine society to live in accordance with Catholic values and norms.

Among the themes of contemporary Catholic Social Teaching one may encounter themes directly directed against dissolution of society and supporting its cohesion, such as community, participation in community life, and family.

The purpose of the study to discover explicit and implicit reference to the Catholic Social Teaching themes emphasizing social cohesion in the newspaper articles devoted to Santa Lucia’s holiday with the help of discourse analysis.

The study makes discourse analysis of newspaper articles on Santa Lucia’s holiday published in the period of celebration in 2005 by daily newspapers La Sicilia, Giornale di Sicilia, Gazzetta del Sud and Libertà. The methodology combines structural analysis of newspaper articles introduced by T.Van Dijk, semiotic analysis of photographs, based on R.Barthes and other semioticians and Critical Discourse Analysis introduced by N.Fairclough and adopted to the Italian language.