Le forum de discussion: espace public des temps modernes

Abstract

Discussion forums on the web concern a large number of subjects such as domestic life (recipes and cooking), intimate life (pregnancy and sex life) or intellectual life (scientific subjects, school homework). Our study focuses on the analysis of the messages exchanged on the forums alfemminile.com, aufemminin. com, skuola.net, doctissimo.it and doctissimo.fr and its aim is therefore to examine, from a linguistic point of view, a type of network communication, discussion forums. While the research falls within the scope of analyzing the specifics of computer-mediated communication (CMO), it also helps to identify the diversity of writing practices with regard to the standard. Moreover it allows us to enrich our knowledge on the situation of text production, on writing, on reading text but also on the fictitious identity adopted by users such as genderswapping. This work, in a more general framework, will make it possible to know the trends in writing, which now integrates different semiotic forms, and finally to reflect on the influence of the medium on the very nature of the messages and the limits of this influence.