November 27, 2020
Open Access , http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess
Jacques Diedhiou, « The ethos in politics, in the Senegalese print media : discourse analysis and examining the debates on "Senegal's exceptionalism" facing a "monarchic devolution" », Theses.fr, ID : 10670/1.t68vdr
The following thesis intends to tackle the building up of ethos in the political discourse. Based on the argumentative approach of discourse analysis, it strives to highlight the main discourse strategies and/or that belonging to the argumentative rhetoric implemented by the orators in order to express the idea of some "Senegalese exception" deriving from common sense discourse, which sees Senegal as "West Africa's democracy reference". During the political transition period (2000 -2012), the president of the Republic was accused by the opposition and civil society movements to plan a takeover on behalf of his son. The debate and speeches on "monarchic devolvement" raised the issue of an "idealized Senegal". Theoretically, there is no such a preconceived senegalese ethos, but for the country's political stakeholders, it should exist. How, and to which end, do the latter proclaim themselves as the defenders of such an ethos ? The use of a wide corpus including two senegalese daily newspapers and continental weekly magazine, allowed us to observe that the "Senegalese exception" ethos which, beyond the institutional framework, is rooted in the historical and religious substratum, and is essentially used to create discursive and/or argumentative effects likely to make the Senegalese citizens adhere to the so held discourse