D’ AILLEURS , point d’orgue dans la stratégie discursive de Marine Le Pen

Abstract

The strategies used by Marine Le Pen to conduct/manage her verbal exchanges is a topic that has been little researched. Another little studied and related topic is the adverbial phrase d’ailleurs (moreover, by the way) which is extremely common in her interviews. Indeed using both recent and older interviews given by Le Pen, this study examines the adverbial phrase in terms of its discursive and interactional functions. Our investigation shows that the phrase serves as a mise en relief (underscoring) for Le Pen’s denunciations, conclusions, and explanations. Moreover, the phrase d’ailleurs plays a fundamental role in the politician’s interactional strategy, enabling her to achieve proximity with the audience, to manage the turns to disqualify her opponents, and to project herself as a credible president (‘presidentiable’). Le Pen’sfrequent use of the phrase may merely reflect an individual speech preference but does point a discursive strategy. This study encourages more research into other discursive genres and politicians in order to test our hypotheses.