L’analphabétisme au sein d’une communauté linguistique minoritaire : la construction du sujet en problème social (1984-1998)

Abstract

Fifteen years of media discourse (1984-1999) on illiteracy in the Acadian community (Canada) depict how such a theme eventually becomes a social problem. This case study investigates the emergence of the discourse that transforms illiteracy into a public issue. Focusing on the discursive evolution of the topic, I draw on the theories of Felstiner, Abel and Sarat (1980) and Cefaï (1996) to display the different phases through which the curriculum of a socially constructed public problem emerges. In doing so, I highlight the rhetorical means used to dramatize illiteracy as a social problem.

Keywords

• Acadie
• illiteracy
• media discourse
• public problem