Strategie argomentative dei leader politici italiani nelle lettere ai giornali

Political discourse, in years marked by the transition from the Second to theThird Republic, appears to be dominated by the imperative of animos impellere. As recent studies on Italian political language have pointed out, political leaders achieve this objective by increasing their contentious tone and substantially lowering their linguistic register, especially in face-to-face interaction or in the social media. An exception to this trend can be found in the letters written to newspapers by political leaders to clarify their political positions or to reply to polemical positions expressed by the newspaper itself. Those letters are short argumentative texts, addressed to a wide audience, particularly suitable for political positioning or repositioning in crucial moments of the debate or in view of possible changes in the political situation. This article examines the letters of four protagonists of Italian politics (Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Renzi, Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini), with reference to the discourse analysis.