Adhering utterances

ABSTRACT

This article aims at drawing attention to a wide range of discourse manifestations that proliferate around us and which I propose to group together under the term “adherent statements”. They have so far been ignored by discourse analysis because they are associated with all kinds of objects (a T-shirt, a bottle, a car, a human body...) and we generally prefer to study purely verbal data. Indeed, the study of these adhering utterances implies challenging a deeply rooted presupposition that words and things must be rigorously separated. After explaining the “adherence” relationship between the utterance and its “support”, and emphasizing how this utterance modifies the identity of this support, I highlight the various parameters that must be taken into account when dealing with these adhering utterances. Secondly, I analyze two very different types of utterances: statements with an ecological purpose (on a garbage can or on a lawn), and statements made by demonstrators at political rallies.

Keywords:
discourse analysis; adhering utterance; support; demonstrator