A Semio-Communicational Analysis of Othering Social Plurality within the "Diversity's Rhetoric" in the French Organizations' Discourses ; L'altérisation de la pluralité sociale via la rhétorique de «la diversité» dans le discours d'organisations françaises :une analyse sémio-communicationnelle ; : Semio-comunicacional análisis del proceso de alterización de la pluralidad social dentro de la retórica de "la diversidad" en los discursos de las empresas francesas

Abstract

International audience ; This article aims to report on the way «diversity's contemporary rhetoric» is considering the issue of social plurality and, doing so, reconfiguresthe ins and outs. Its recurrent uses in different sorts of public discourses (the one about «corporate social and environmental responsibility») allows us to examine «diversity» in terms of what that concept intends to focus on. Our analysis is a political one and is situated within the field of information and communication sciences insofar as it aims to approach the mediations of «diversity» as a social concept.Thus, our intention is to seize the contemporary social sayings about «diversity» and to characterize the concept within its discursive and visual existence. Conveyed by several institutional discourses via expressions such as «promote», «respect» or even «include diversity», this formulation seems ambiguous. It appears as a desire to gather the plurality of all «differences» and it aims to represent the plurality ofsociety while trying not to separate different members who compose it. It includes several themes which are, moreover, equivocal: it is used in heterogeneous contexts to talk about anti-discrimination, tolerance, parity, anti-homophobia, or anti-sexism, anti-racism, disability, secularism, etc. Nevertheless, all these evocations crystallize the idea of variety, plurality, dissimilarities, and non-identity between all. We willquestion discourses which aim to reflect an enchanted «diversity» as rhetorical content according to a semiotic approach to discursive forms and editorial formats. We will be focusing on grasping what epistemology of the plural the French «diversity's rhetoric» is dealing with. Wondering which kind of pluralities «diversity» is intended to represented, we will point out that it is a discursive modality supporting semantic positive themes such as «combating discrimination» and «promoting differences» and «otherness» and linked to a multicultural conception of society.Globally, we would like to show that ...