Manuel Torres-Sahli Español

Manuscript under review · 2026

Epideictic ageism: Political rhetoric and economies of worth in parliamentary debates on older age

Manuel Torres-Sahli*, Cristian Tileagă

* Corresponding author: Manuel Torres-Sahli.

Status: Under peer review.

A draft is available from the corresponding author on request.

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Abstract

How do members of the Chilean parliament construct the social worth of older people through praise? This article examines instances of what we term epideictic ageism: the reproduction of age-based inequality through praise that first sets older people apart as a category, an act of othering, and then confines their worth to the domestic register by foreclosing the alternative registers the same epideictic genre makes available. We examine the epideictic dimension of these legislative debates, combining Billig's rhetorical psychology and Boltanski and Thévenot's economies of worth with rhetorical and political theories of epideictic speech and symbolic reassurance. Through close rhetorical analysis of parliamentary interventions from debates on a 'fourth age' bill (2017; debated 2019) and a National Day of the Older Adult (2013), we show that MPs locate older people's worth predominantly within what Boltanski and Thévenot call the 'domestic common world', valuing them as workers, parents, and nation-builders, while the civic, industrial, and inspired worlds are left unspoken. The domestic register recurs across speakers from several parties (right, centre-right, centre, and left), which is consistent with its operating as a feature of parliamentary epideictic speech rather than as a partisan position. Chile's contested pension system and post-dictatorship democratic context make parliamentary praise a theoretically motivated site for examining how epideictic speech constructs moral standing. This rhetorical confinement offers symbolic recognition while backgrounding substantive policy engagement, potentially narrowing the grounds on which older people can claim social inclusion.

Keywords: epideictic rhetoric, economies of worth, rhetorical psychology, ageism, parliamentary discourse, Chile

Cite as

Torres-Sahli, M., & Tileagă, C. (2026). Epideictic ageism: Political rhetoric and economies of worth in parliamentary debates on older age. Manuscript under review. https://manueltorressahli.com/papers/epideictic-ageism

@unpublished{Torres-Sahli.Tileaga2026Epideictic,
  author = {Torres-Sahli, Manuel and Tileag{\u{a}}, Cristian},
  title  = {Epideictic ageism: Political rhetoric and economies of worth in parliamentary debates on older age},
  note   = {Manuscript under review},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://manueltorressahli.com/papers/epideictic-ageism}
}