Argumentative Strategies in Contemporary French Military Discourse

Abstract

The article is devoted to military discourse which manifests professionally oriented communication thus reflecting the specificity of military forces being a state binding and social institution. The discourse is regarded as a text within certain social conditions of its production and interpretation, and its analysis lays on language units and stylistic means that reflect character features of military discourse. The in-depth discourse analysis was aimed at distinguishing concepts from the military sphere, stating axiological dominants and ways of argumentation that could characterize military communication of the institutional type, in particular, the speech of Colonel Nicolas Le Nen which was addressed to the 27th Mountain-Jaeger Battalion on August, 25, 2008 was in the focus of the present study. It is stated that the speech presents intra-corporation type of communication typical of the institutional military discourse types, it's marked with: deictic element, lexical units that point to key concepts of the discourse context, some peculiar stylistic features of professionally oriented communication, including argumentation types structured on a classical rhetoric tradition (ethos, logos, pathos). It is proved that modern military communication of the institutional type could be characterized as stylistically restrained and modest, sets of language means represent classical rhetoric models that serve for implementing aims in communication.

Keywords

• discourse
• military discourse
• French military discourse
• discourse analysis
• argumentative strategies
• text
• verbal behavior
• French language