L’IMPLICITE COMME STRATÉGIE DISCURSIVE DANS LE DISCOURS PUBLICITAIRE

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the study of the implicit as a discursive strategy in advertising discourse. Special attention is granted to functioning mechanisms of the implicit in the context of discursive interaction. An act of language is not always explicit and the intention underlying it is not always accessible, its meaning being always dependant on extra-linguistic factors (context, knowledge and interests of the interlocutors). Today what is said becomes less important than how it is said. What is not stated directly (the implicit contents) represents a major aspect of the communicational process sometimes able to state more and produce a stronger effect than an explicit message. The implicit phrase does not make the speaker liable directly for what s/he stated. Nowadays, in the advertising discourse, we are witnesses to a real art of manipulating the implicit based on innuendoes about the quality of the product which, in the event of a lack of proofs can be denied (I did not say that). At the same time, the implicit is inside and outside language, expressed or not. The speaker resorts to the implicit when, in the current communicative practices, there is not enough evidence to prove what is wanted to be said, when one hesitates to make direct remarks for which the speaker could be held liable. Innuendoes, allusions, the polyphonic dimension of messages are practiced in the advertising discourse. The implied contents can be classified into presupposed and understood. The direct correspondence: signified – signifier is almost always an illusion because the elements of an arbitrary system of conventions cannot provide an infinity of extra-linguistic circumstances through one-to-one equivalence.