Langues et discours en situation de guerre : une approche sociolinguistique et pragmatique

Abstract

This article on the basis of a double sociolinguistic and pragmatic approach examines the way in which war marks the destiny of languages. The example chosen for this study is the Kurdish language. Kurdish is an Indo-European language spoken by a population distributed in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey and affected by a conflictual situation from the First World War to the present day. The consequences of the war are manifested on the evolution of the language on several levels: a fragmentation in its linguistic structures as well as in its writing systems, a geographical and political dispersion of its speakers and a decline of its intergenerational transmission. The study also shows how language can be a weapon of war, especially in terms of naming the Kurdish alterity in discourse and the argumentation of war.

Keywords

• war
• language
• discourse
• sociolinguistic
• pragmatic