Propos d'étymologie sociale

There are at least three ways of unlocking meaning. The first of these might involve our involvement in language acquisition during our lives, in the form of learning and experience, the social unconscious ego, and perhaps also the inner self with its desire to act on the other: the unknowable.
The second is an historical approach. Meaning took on forms at a particular time, in particular mouths or at the tip of particular pens, in order to state or contradict, stir into action or to pacify, to build up or blank out the event; it results from interactions in situations where current and past discourse intersects. The third method lies in the text itself. Words never exist in isolation, but are surrounded and penetrated by their fellow words, the utterances in their vicinity and the habits with which they are associated.
On occasions, the texts published here raise the problem of socio-historical sources, on others, those of textual sources, and very often both of them. We employ different types of discourse and vocabulary analysis, including surface statistical investigation methods known as "political lexicometry". In each case, the aim is to find signs articulated in situation, their "origins" and “values” and the “function” they are called upon to fulfil. Because, for us, these are attainable sources of meaning.