When the image of others is at the service of the image of oneself. Emmanuel Macron’s electoral ethos: between valorization and devaluation of the Other.

Abstract

This contribution is concerned with the question of the identity construction in the electoral discourse. It focuses more particularly on the presence of the Other (adversary/people)in this discursive genre and the central role, this latter, plays in the making of the self-image of the speaker. A brief pragmatic analysis of Emmanuel Macron’s last three electoral discourses (2017) highlighted all the discursive strategies through which the other is staged in the discourse. In the end, the obtained results allow to conclude that the other in the speech of this candidate represents the raw material by which he forges his ethos.