Essai de logopolitique. Langue, politique, historicité

Abstract

This article reflects on the place of language in the writing of history. The first part recalls the recent influence of linguistics on historians, and critically evokes the main works inspired by it. The second part defines the specific project of “logopolitics”, which proposes three combined approaches: formalist, which consists in working on the initial concept of a notion; discursive, which, by bringing to light the conflicts of a “moment”, analyses the construction of a dominant discourse; praxeological, which studies the relationships between words and the political practices of the different players. In the third part, the author recalls some of the conclusions reached, using this method, in her book on res publica: in particular, she shows how the definition of this originally indeterminate notion was a key issue in the political conflicts of the late Roman Republic, and how res publica served as a principle of legitimacy for emperors, particularly against any internal threat, before being used as a civilizational concept from the 3rd century AD onwards.

Keywords

• language
• conceptual history
• res publica
• Political history
• Roman history