Entre Russie et Pologne : sur les différences de construction du sens social dans le discours de la presse écrite d’information

The aim of this article is to examine the social meaning of two proper names – Russie and Pologne – in French press discourse. Assuming that the social meaning of a given concept is constructed in the nomination process, it seems justified to examine the ways proper names – traditionally considered to be associated with specific referents – receive their social meaning through the act of nomination. The study of social meaning seems possible with the reconstruction of the so-called designational paradigm, which is a list of reformulations of the initial word. This study deals with two kinds of reformulations of country names: those that derive from a geopolitical vocabulary and those that derive from a geographical vocabulary. Comparing the role and functioning of these, we can assume that they serve two different discursive strategies: the westernisation of Russia and the orientalisation of Poland. The observation of the role and the function of these reformulations shows that the social meaning of both geographical names is no more than a discursive construct.