Mots. Les langages du politique, n°107/2015

To be authoritative, for institutions as for experts, means to produce a discourse that can be trusted, or that looks true, because it shows expertise and knowledge, in order that the hearers "spontaneously" trust it and "naturally" agree with it. Against Pierre Bourdieu (Language and symbolic power, 1993), who claims that “authority comes to language from outside”, this issue of Mots. Les languages du politique invites us to explore the linguistic dimension which strengthens the impression of the obviousness of such discourse. Our hypothesis is that in every institution – in the broad sense of “legitimized social group” – (Mary Douglas, How institutions think, 1986) different types of discourse co-exist: in some of them the interaction looks like symmetric conversation, in others, such as debates, polemics and controversies, it clearly conflicts, others sound consensual and homogeneous, displaying norms of thinking and acting that look natural thanks to tradition, expertise or unquestionable guarantors… This latest form of discursive organization is the one which is the aim of this issue, and it is analyzed in public institutions as well as in religious ones or in the media.