Plurilingual Laughter: Newspaper Front Pages and the Defeats of the Brazilian National Team in the FIFA World Cups 2014, 2018, and 2022 Risas plurilingües: portadas de periódicos y derrotas de la selección brasileña en los mundiales de la FIFA 2014, 2018 y 2022

Abstract

This paper seeks to analyze the discursive formations, as defined by Michel Foucault in his work The Archaeology of Knowledge (originally published in 1969), that were present in print journalism regarding the last three FIFA World Cups. In this case, we will address the eliminations of the Brazilian National Team in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil; 2018 in Russia; and 2022 in Qatar. We will focus our research corpus on the covers of Brazilian and foreign newspapers. We assume that newspaper covers contain cultural representations that are constructed through the relationship between verbal discourse (headline, title, caption) and visual discourse (photographs, illustrations). Hence the objective of understanding the discursive functioning of these covers and perceiving the relationships of interculturality, historicity and discursive materiality in relation to the reading public. To achieve our objective, we chose three specific matches as the subject of our research, namely those in which the Brazilian National Team was defeated in the round of 16. We managed to gather around 350 printed vehicle covers spread across the world; for a more in-depth analysis, we arrived at a corpus composed of 16 newspaper covers. We perceived that Brazilian and foreign media sought to deconstruct the linearities established by journalistic work through the presence of a disturbing element – ​​laughter – which allows to highlight contrasts that until now have not been reported in a more conventional register.