L’affirmation de l’autorité du locuteur par i’impératif (exemples empruntés aux fables de Jean de La Fontaine)
Imposing the Addressee’s Author Ity by Means of the Imperative (With Examples From Jean De La Fontaine’s Fables)
Persuading the interlocutor to do something is what the addressee has in mind. This process depends on the relations between the speakers. Out of many acts of language performed by the imperative (to order, to advise, to ask, to menace) we shall point out the ones which express the addressee’s authority.
In this paper, we want to identify the linguistic means which make these acts possible. We shall insist upon the use of the verbal imperative from which renders the dominant / dominated relation in most of the cases. In order to emphasize the complexity of such a phenomenon, we shall mention certain linguistic elements having imperative value. These elements reinforce the addressee’s authority in front of the interlocutor.
We have chosen examples from Jean de La Fontaine’s Fables because in his lines we have detected various aspects showing both exerting the power and imposing the addressee’s will.
Keywords: authority, imperative, addressee, interlocutor, order.
