“Ya No Nos Maten”: A Discourse Analysis of the Song “Querida Muerte”

Abstract

Violence against women in Mexico has surged over the last five years. Within this context, the song Querida Muerte (Dear Death) (2019) portrays the harassment experienced by Mexican women. Moreover, this song narrates some dangerous events that some women might have encounter living in Mexico. In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is implemented as an approach for the examination of the song, applying the Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model by Halliday. The findings of this study demonstrate that this discourse was created as a demand for social justice and as an expression of the extent to which women are tired of being scared and in constant threat. The analysis based on the SFL model reveals that this song mostly uses declarative clauses, present tense, and negative adjectives.