In Search of the Instituted Collective Actor. For a Genesis of Juridical Discourse : Semiotic Propositions

Abstract

This study, with a pedagogical purpose, seeks to show the analytical relevance of semiotics on the political-legal textuality. It focuses, to do so, on the discursive construction of the collective actant. And it applies to a thematic object whose emergence within societies is not yet legally stabilized: the global warming crisis. Therefore, the study begins by specifying the status of the collective actant in semiotics, then it proposes the analysis of a concrete case and submits for discussion some analytical concepts, showing the importance, within the semiotic field, of this collective actantiality problem. In a second part, we propose its juridical genesis through three textual "moments" of the climate crisis: firstly, the emotional embodiment projected on the collective to be sensitized (Greta Thunberg); secondly, the mythical narrativization that federates adhesion ("Friday for Future"); and thirdly, the collective in the process of being institutionalized through normative and legal discourse (Paris Climate Agreement, 2016, "Preamble" and articles 1 and 2).