Cette étude s’intéresse à la pragmatique de la négation normative française ne...pasdans les débats présidentiels français. C’est en examinant la rétention deneet la suppression de ne dans l’interaction des candidats que nous essaierons de cerner sa fonction pragmatique. Concernant la suppression de ne, cet élément tombe plus avec certaines formes et certains contextes qu’avec d’autres et dans une assez large mesure dans des séquences formulaïques comme c’est pas. La particule neest par contre plus souvent retenue lorsque le contenu négatif est accentué, ce qui est se produit grâce à des éléments contrastifs –sémantiques et syntaxiques –du contexte. Ainsi, la fonction dite renforcée de la négation semble ramener le ne, ce qui coïnciderait avec d’autres études antérieures, entamées sur des corpus d’autres genres et style.

This study focuses on the pragmatics of French normative negation ne...pasin French presidential debates. It is by examining the retention of neand the loss of nein the interaction of candidates that we will try to identify its pragmatic function. Concerning the deletion of ne, this element falls more with certain forms and certain contexts than with others and to a fairly large extent in formulaic sequences like “c’est pas”. The particle neis on the other hand more often retained when the negative content is reinforced, which is produced thanks to contrastive elements –semantic and syntactic –of the context. Thus, the so-called reinforced function of negation seems to bring back the ne, which would coincide with other previous studies, undertaken on corpora of other genres and styles.

In 2019, the research network ROMPOL published a first volume in thefield of political discourse analysis: Political Discourses at the Extremes.Expressions of Populism in Romance-Speaking Countries. The main objective of that first edited volume was the study of the rise of populismin some Romance-speaking countries in Europe, primarily in Spain andFrance, and in Latin America, with the cases of Venezuela and Mexico.Important issues such as racism, ideologies and religions were treated through the prism of populism. In this new volume, that previouswork on the emerging populism in Europe and in Latin America hasbeen deepened and broadened, focusing this time on the expressionsof populism in Italy, France and Spain for the European region, and inBrazil for the Latin American region. Romance-speaking countries areworth studying and comparing because of all their similarities. Beingpredominantly Roman Catholic countries, they share religious valuesand beliefs. France, Italy and Spain are neighbors and have similar climates and therefore common lifestyles and social traditions. The French,Italian, Portuguese and Spanish languages all derive from Latin andshare many features that increase the mutual understanding betweenthe countries. France, Italy and Spain are all Mediterranean countriesand therefore share political issues related to their geographic location,of which immigration from North Africa is the most important. Boatrefugees and immigration in general have been one of the most centralpolitical questions during the last decades in Europe and particularlyin Mediterranean countries; this issue is commonly linked to the emergence of populist movements in this area.

This volume deals with the pragmatic dimension of negations and is oriented towards empirical studies of negatives’ meanings and functions in media and public discourses.

Negation is one of our most central phenomena in human language and we use it daily for a vast range of different purposes: for rejection, denial and for expressing non-existence. Negation is certainly one of the most multidimensional and complex units in language, semantically, cognitively and syntactically, as well as from a functional, pragmatic, perspective.

Depending of the theoretical framework, sentence negation in particular has been identified as a modal operator, a truth-value operator, a rhetoric device, a figure of thought, a polarity item and a marker of linguistic polyphony and as a linguistic unit with a variety of discursive and contextual meanings.

There remain, nevertheless, a large number of unsolved questions regarding negative forms of expressions and negative functions within specific languages, within different social settings and throughout the languages of the world. Thus, by bringing together scholars from different countries, with studies on different languages this volume aims to shed light and contribute to new knowledge about the forms and functionality of this universal phenomenon. Linguists and pragmaticiens generally agree that the use of negatives escapes logic and pure semantic description and is therefore best analysed with tools from cognitive and pragmatic theories.

Similar themes connected to negatives approached from different perspectives and examined in different languages offer a contrastive reading that actually enlarges the spectra of new knowledge presented in the books’s chapters.

Based on hypotheses within pragmatics and discourse analysis, the main assumption is here that forms of expressing negatives emerge and adjust constantly and in accordance with the cultural domain and the social setting of their appearance. This is why this volume focuses on the functions of negative expressions in specific domains and types of discourses.

 L’article ouvre le numéro sur les discours de la campagne présidentielle en France de 2022 suite à un colloque qui s’est tenu les 15 et 16 juin 2022 à l’Université de Stockholm en l’honneur de la professeure Françoise Sullet-Nylander.

The article opens the issue on the discourses of the 2022 French presidential campaign following a colloquium held on June 15 and 16, 2022 at Stockholm University in honor of Professor Françoise Sullet-Nylander.

The aim of this volume is to identify, explore and compare expressions of populism in the Romance-speaking part of the world. The volume includes studies from different academic disciplines such as discourse analysis, cultural and media studies.

Populist discourses are generally characterized by a deep polarization of positions and a disproportionate reliance on accusations. Populist discourses frequently reinforce existing antagonisms and undermine the traditional political argumentative style, based on the factual confrontation of opinions in the public space. Populist leaders often present themselves as the unfettered spokespersons of the people with whom they form a community of “us” in the struggle against “them”. This accords with the strong polarization mentioned earlier.

The rise of populist discourses in many countries over the past decades could be due to changes in political communication. The constant and overwhelming dissemination of information in all types of media, the consequent relativization of truth, as well as a less clear political division on a left-right scale, could favor political alternatives based on personality and the highly polarized messages we see today. The question of how to reach voters in today's media buzz is a much bigger question today than it was a few decades ago, and the exposure of faces and comments has increased exponentially, which in itself can promote a certain kind of politicians. In fact, there is a strong emphasis on the leadership of populist movements, which is also a recurring theme in this book, alongside the impact of the new media landscape on political discourses.

In this light, some of the recurring themes in the thirteen studies included in the volume are the denunciation – by populist voices – of the corruption of the so-called elites as well as their inability to solve concrete political and economic problems. It is also about the escalation and reinforcement of populist discourses as an expression – an act – of extreme criticism, even hatred, against traditional political leaders. These populist voices are looking for scapegoats and claiming proximity to the people, represented in the discourse as an authentic and uniform group. Other recurring themes are the emphasis on traditional values, national symbols, ethnicity, and nostalgia for a bygone era, which are effective subjects for eliciting feelings and fostering a sense of togetherness. The interplay between some of these issues is explored in more detail in the book. The chapters of the book indeed show to what extent populist discourses introduce a system based on characteristics such as unilaterality, through the designation of a threat and/or a common enemy, and on the strong focus on the rejection of the legitimacy of the adversary.

Cet article s’inscrit dans une série d’études consacrées aux débats présidentiels de l’entredeux-tours en France. Le débat politique étant l’événement discursif le plus emblématiquedes démocraties modernes, nous visons ici à comparer deux cultures politiques, celle de laFrance avec celle de la Suède, à travers une analyse des confrontations à la veille des électionsnationales des deux pays : Marine Le Pen et Emmanuel Macron en 2017 et Ulf Kristerssonet Stefan Löfven en 2018.En raison des différences entre les systèmes politiques, les mentalités et les traditionssocio-culturelles des deux pays, les modes discursifs des débats diffèrent de manièresensible ; on peut cependant affirmer que, dans chacun des débats, divers actes de langagesont mis en œuvre pour disqualifier l’adversaire, en particulier l’acte d’accusation.L’étude vise à décrire à quel degré et de quelle manière les candidats s’accusent l’unl’autre. Certaines accusations portent sur la mauvaise conduite conversationnelle del’adversaire, tandis que d’autres constituent de véritables « mises à mort symbolique » de sapersonne (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2017). En nous référant à ce que Goffman (1955) appelle« face threatening acts », utilisés pour attaquer l’image sociale de l’autre dans une interaction,nous nous intéressons aux images socio-culturelles menacées dans les débats politiques.