Pragmatic-enunciative approaches to definition

In this new area of research, we propose to reflect on the enunciative and discursive uses of definition, as well as their pragmatic and functional implications. These reflections, conducted mainly on written corpora (political, political-religious, scientific and literary), will also be extended to oral corpora. Starting from a consideration of the relationships between the terms of the definition, the implicit (epilinguistic) or explicit (metalinguistic) nature of the defining statement, and its possible dialogical dimension, we will ask ourselves in which contexts and from which pragmatic perspective(s) the definition is used by speakers. Our work will focus on three dimensions of the definition: 1) from a structural point of view, in what preferred form does the definition appear depending on the discourse (simple or dislocated attributive statements, appositives, parenthetical phrases, etc.), and more generally, how is the definition marked in discourse?; 2) from an enunciative point of view, what image does the speaker construct of himself when he defines, and what are the underlying enunciative positions (with the phenomena of interdiscursive or interlocutory dialogism involved)?; 3) Finally, from a pragmatic point of view, what is the figural dimension of the definition and its discursive aims (to clarify, reformulate, reshape conceptual boundaries, teach, argue)?

This area of research will also involve interaction with the Logometry team, particularly in the context of joint thesis supervision, focusing on the study of recurring definitional patterns (such as ‘X is Y’). Together, we will examine the role played by this type of definition in political discourse, particularly during elections, by discussing the perspectives of enunciativists and discourse analysts, and we will attempt to automatically detect certain types of definitional statements that form patterns.

Planned achievements: editorial follow-up to the first study day organised in October 2015 (Define: what for?); organisation of a symposium; participation in the interdisciplinary research area Otherness and Globalisation at MSHS-SE (Borders, Mobility and Co-development project, led by A. Brogini (CMMC) and S. Potot (URMIS), on religious otherness); participation in the European scientific consortium on radicalisation and its prevention (coordinated by S. Alava, Toulouse 2) by working on the language sciences project Terrorism and hate speech in a globalised world led by C. Moïse (Grenoble-Alpes); supervision of a thesis on ‘Oratory definition in the discourse of the League in the 16th century’; participation in the Idex projects ‘TEXT#’ and ‘Alteremo’ submitted to the Académie 5.