Language Dynamics

What difference does it make to call someone an “enemy” rather than an “opponent”? Who is the “we” politicians talk about? Why use the passive rather than the active in “Mistakes were made”?

This seminar investigates language dynamics — the processes of variation, change, and strategic use of language — using political discourse as a case in point. It explores how linguistic choices reflect and shape power relations, identities and ideologies. Emphasis is placed on how political actors use language to persuade, legitimize, include, exclude, or reframe public issues — and how such uses evolve over time and across contexts.

Students will engage in both close reading and large-scale analysis of English-language political texts. Through detailed examination of individual speeches, they will study deliberate lexical choices, pragmatic framing strategies and discursive positioning. In addition, they will learn basic corpus-assisted methods to compile and analyze collections of political texts, enabling them to trace patterns of lexical and semantic change as well as rhetorical shifts over time.

By the end of the seminar, students will be able to:

1. Analyze how language varies, changes, and is strategically used in political discourse
2. Engage with key theoretical approaches to discourse, such as Critical Discourse Analysis and framing theory
3. Examine the internal dynamics of individual political speeches through close analysis
4. Apply corpus methods to investigate discourse patterns and changes over time
5. Design and carry out an original research project that combines language data analysis with critical interpretation of political meaning

SESSION 1

- Contrôle continu :

·         1 tâche sur corpus avec compte-rendu oral (20 %)

·         1 fiche de préparation de projet de recherche avec compte-rendu oral (30 %)

·         1 projet de recherche écrit sur un sujet choisi par l’étudiant.e (3-5 pages) (40 %)

·         Participation et engagement (10 %)

·         1 corpus task with oral report (20%)

·         1 research project preparation worksheet with oral report (30%)

.          1 final research paper (3-5 pages) (40%)

.          Participation and engagement (10%)

- Contrôle dérogatoire

Épreuve orale (proposition d’une problématique de recherche et d’une méthodologie adaptée à partir d’un ou plusieurs extraits de discours). Durée : 30 min (20 min de préparation + 10 min de passage).

Oral exam presenting a research question and an appropriate methodology based on one or more speech excerpts.
Duration: 30 minutes (20 minutes preparation + 10 minutes presentation).

SESSSION 2 : Épreuve orale sans temps de préparation. Durée 10 min. Oral exam with no preparation time

ANGLAIS niveau C1

Charteris-Black, J. (2018). Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Palgrave Macmillan.

Gillings, M., Mautner, G., & Baker, P. (2023). Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies. Cambridge University Press.

Lakoff, G. (2004). Don’t Think of an Elephant! Chelsea Green.

Partington, A. (2017). The language of persuasion in politics: An introduction. Routledge.