Pour une approche linguistique des représentations sociales

Abstract

Bernard Py: Towards a linguistic approach of social representations. The concept of social representation is currently used in all human sciences, although with different meanings, which vary according to the kinds of research methods and theoretical framework used. We have decided to closely correlate social representations to the speech. Then comes the question about the status of what we have come to name social representation: is it an abstract object deprived of any effective reality, a speech object, or a social object? Social representations originate, scatter, change, dilute and disappear within and through the speech. Their purpose is to give a meaning to daily life circumstances and thus allow decision-making, debate and communication. They may adopt rather complex speech structures, such as two-level structures, depending on whether they are merely used by the speaker as a reference, or whether they depict an experience or personal beliefs. We conclude the article with a short analysis of relevant data.