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Bertrand Pirat : “Debating a Name for the {Nouveau Parti Anti-Capitaliste}”

(Traduction : Fiona Simpkins, MCF Civilisation britannique,
UMR 5206)

Speaker : Bertrand Pirat, Ph.D, Triangle research centre, University of Lyon, Institut d’études politiques

bertrand.pirat@educagri.fr

Summary :

From the call initiated by the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire on 5th July 2007 for the creation of a new anti-capitalist party (“nouveau parti anti-capitaliste, NPA”) to the founding conference of the NPA in February 2009, it is possible to observe an ongoing process of partisan denomination. The creation of a debate on the name of the new party within the organisation itself, the temporary character of the name voluntarily maintained by the initiators of the project, and the media reception of the process suggest that partisan denomination may considered here as an element of political mobilisation in itself.

The description of this mobilisation process through denomination leads to considering the syntagm nouveau parti anti-capitaliste in discourse as a formula, that is as an utterance likely to be used by different political actors, yet remaining problematic for those who adopt it (Krieg, 2009). Operating a synchronous contiguity of discourse originating in militant, political, intellectual and journalistic fields as well as intra and extra partisan discussion forums - bearing the common characteristic of discussing explicitly and for itself one or more lexias - makes it possible to present the constitution of a circulation space in the formula and the, singularly political, work of negotiation that is performed on the signifier, the signified and the referent of each element of the formula.

The analysis in diachrony of a corpus of seventy one headlines of the weekly journal Rouge makes it possible to highlight the rival forms and uses of the formula (a/this/the new anti-capitalist party, NPA). The choice between its simple use or its formation into a proper noun demonstrates an unequal process of objectivity for the partisan phenonenon in its initial phase.

Keywords : formula, names of parties, NPA, political onomastics.