The Jargon of Repression

Notes on the Use, the Appropriation, and the Creation of a New Semantic Field in CCDTyE During the Argentine Civil-Military Dictatorship

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the jargon of the repressors based on the use, the appropriation and the creation of a new semantic field used within the CCDTyE during the last Argentine civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983). This study explores the language used by both perpetrators and victims in three Argentine fictional films: The Night of the Pencils (Olivera 1986), Garage Olimpo (Bechis 1999) and Cronicle of an Escape (Caetano 2006). These are films that, although they correspond to different “moments of the memory” (Zarco 2016), share the jargon used by oppressors to call themselves superior beings and, at the same time, victims as inferior beings. Similarly, it addresses the use of euphemisms to designate the different practices that were exercised on victims.