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“Un projet de justice et de progrès social”: President Macron’s 2020 new year message to the nation. A linguistic viewpoint

  • David Banks

    David Banks is Emeritus Professor at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in France. He is former Head of the English Department, Director of ERLA (Equipe de Recherche en Linguistique Appliquée) and Chairman of AFLSF (Association Française de la Linguistique Systémique Fonctionnelle). His publication, The Development of Scientific English, Linguistic Features and Historical Context (Equinox), won the ESSE Language and Linguistics book award 2010. His research interests include the diachronic study of scientific text and the application of systemic functional linguistics to English and French.

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Published/Copyright: September 22, 2021

Abstract

President Macron’s New Year message on 31 December 2019 was given against a background of social unrest due to his proposed Pension reforms. He defended his policy reiterating the phrase “un projet de justice et de progress social”, but passing responsibility for resolving the crisis to his Prime Minister. The general analytical framework is that of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Macron uses first person singular (je) and plural (nous) subject pronouns to more or less the same extent but the singular form is used mainly with mental processes and the plural with material processes. There are in addition a large number of first person pronoun references other than those that function as grammatical subject: Macron manipulates the ambiguity of the plural pronoun to associate the general public with regard to responsibility for the government’s actions. Material processes are encoded more frequently as non-finite or as nominalizations where specification of the agents is not required, than as finite verbs. Obligation is attributed to the plural nous rather than the singular je. Thus Macron defends his policies while avoiding accepting personal responsibility for them.


Corresponding author: David Banks, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Bretagne Occidetale, 20 rue Duquesne, 29238 Brest Cedex 3, France, E-mail:

About the author

David Banks

David Banks is Emeritus Professor at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in France. He is former Head of the English Department, Director of ERLA (Equipe de Recherche en Linguistique Appliquée) and Chairman of AFLSF (Association Française de la Linguistique Systémique Fonctionnelle). His publication, The Development of Scientific English, Linguistic Features and Historical Context (Equinox), won the ESSE Language and Linguistics book award 2010. His research interests include the diachronic study of scientific text and the application of systemic functional linguistics to English and French.

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Received: 2020-04-14
Accepted: 2021-09-08
Published Online: 2021-09-22
Published in Print: 2022-05-25

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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