Propos d'étymologie sociale

Based on the simple idea that language is first and foremost a social product born of the conflicts in which it has played a militant, conciliatory and protective role, this collection of articles and chronicles provides a partial outline of a vocabulary called on during social dissension, namely industrial action.
The reader sees how, in the 19th century in particular, symbolic conflict resolution emerged, either in the form of tentative consensus on meaning, taboos and innovations in language or through vague words which tear apart semantic content and contradictory appropriations. There is no term from this field which does not also constitute an issue in terms of polarisation, modalisation, coloration or exclusion. Condemnation of subterfuge and coalitions, the swallowing up of people and workers, stigma towards strike-breakers, the patient organisation of fraternities, compagnonnages (apprenticeships), mutual societies, labour exchanges and confederated syndicalism, proclaiming the Day of Reckoning and then the Night of Reckoning, the use of slang for the purposes of dissent or the revival of popular language against the general trend...
Ultimately, uncertainty over naming (association, strike) tends to overshadow the rooting of vocabulary within social representations and to lead us to believe minimal and abstract dictionary definitions. It seems obvious today that the myth of a neutral language really did exist. Words are not weightless grains of sand blown about by the winds of time. They are the wind and time.