Nobel on the front page: the Nobel physics prizes in French newspapers

Abstract

We have examined the manner in which the main French daily newspapers reported the announcement of the Nobel physics prizes given to P. G. de Gennes in 1991 and to G. Charpak in 1992. We found that their enunciative strategies could be distinguished according to two independent criterial whether or not the enunciator presents itself as familiar with scientific matters, and whether or not it attempts to explain the scientific content of the discovery. The different combinations of these strategies correspond to different relationships proposed by the newspapers to their readers. Different theories of scientific discovery also appear: discovery as the work of a team and an institution, or as the invention of a matchless individual.

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References

Goldsmith, M. , 1986, The Science Critic: A Critical Analysis of the Popular Presentation of Science (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).

O 17 October 1991 (postdated 18 October for Le Monde) and 15 October 1992 (16 October for Le Monde).

Cheveigné, S., and Veron, E., unpublished paper.

Dated 17 October 1991 (18 October for Le Monde) for de Gennes and signed Jean-François Augereau and Jean-Paul Dufour (Le Monde), Guy Benhamou and Dominique Leglu (Libération), Jean-Luc Nothias (Le Figaro), Arnaud Lévy (France Soir), and Maryline Baumard (Le Parisien). Dated 15 October 1992 (16 October for Le Monde) for Charpak and signed Jean-François Augereau (Le Monde), Dominique Leglu (Libération), Jéróme Strazzulla et Laurent Mossu (Le Figaro), Arnaud Lévy (France Soir), and Jean Darriulat (Le Parisien). In the original study, we also examined the daily La Croix-l'Evénement, L'Humanité and le Quotidren, and the weekly Le Point, le Nouvel Observateur and L'Express. The report, in French, is available from the authors.

The study of enunciation mechanisms, which is a central issue in contemporary linguistics, is at the point of convergence of two conceptual traditions: a French tradition through the work of Benveniste, Ducrot and Culioli, among others, and an Anglo-Saxon tradition, represented mainly by the development of the `speech act theory' in the work of Austin, Stawson and Searle, among others.

In this study, we are analysing the texts 'in production'. A study 'in reception' would be possible and no doubt interesting. In that case we would be examining the discourse of `real' readers in reaction to the texts. For a theoretical discussion of the relation between the production and the reception approaches, see Veron, E., 1987, La sémiosis sociale. Fragments d'une théorie de la discursivité (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes).

Bateson, G. , 1973, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (London: Paladin Granada).

Veron, E., 1988, Presse écrite et théorie des discours sociaux: production, réception régulation. La presse. Produit, production, réception (Paris: Did$er Erudition), pp.11-25.

Veron, E. , 1992, Reading is doing: enunciation in the discourse of the print media. Marketing Signs, 14-15.

10.

We use the following abreviations to identify the quotations: Le Monde—M; Libération—L; Le Figaro—F; France Soir—FS; Le Parisien—P. The initial PGG refer to the articles on Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and GCh to those on Georges Charpak. The quotations have been translated as closely as possible to the orginal text—sometimes at the cost of elegance in English.

11.

See in French a special issue of Langue Française (1982) 53, or Jacobi, D., and Schiele, B., 1988, Vulgariser la science: le procès de l'ignorance (Paris: Champ Vallon).

12.

Nelkin, D. , 1987, Selling Science: How the Press covers Science and Technology (New York: W. H. Freeman), p. 9.