Construction de l’image de soi ou intermittence de l’énonciateur : un modèle d’analyse d’un discours politique dans Paroles de président – Jacques Chirac (1995-2203) et le discours présidentiel sous la Ve République par Damon Mayaffre (2004)

Abstract

In Damon Mayaffre’s book – a real model of objective analysis to its highest point – the data given by the computer and organized in tables, graphs and diagrams sustain lexical and grammatical descriptions, remarkably detailed, having at a starting point only a small number of words (generally around ten) which are either over–used or, on the contrary under-used in comparison to the average frequency in the corpus constituted by the discourses of five presidents (1958-2003). The lexicometric method and the computer-based analysis allow to select and measure in terms of size and figures and therefore to explore in a precise, systematic, objective and exhaustive way this enormous corpus standing for 816 discourses (1,544,505 words). Let us have an example : a word such as the adverb ‘naturally’ which occupies the first place in the list of Chirac’s lexical particularities (with an over-using index of +23), as Mayaffre shows us, is the very argumentative basis in Chirac’s discourse. Chirac cultivates the ethos but he enhances its efficiency by suggesting it and never by imposing it; in this way, his entire discourse tends to rebuild the image of a strong president. Our concept of the speaker’ intermittent presence in discourse seems to find a convincing confirmation and illustration in the concept of ethos, while remaining, nevertheless, clearly distinct.