La formule « l’armée, le peuple et la Résistance »

• Main Author: Pascale Asmar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Publications de l’Université de Provence 2017-10-01
• Series: TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage
• Subjects: formula; Hezbollah; controversy; discourse; written press; consensus and conflict
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/tipa/1947

A formula is “a set of formulations which, because of their use at a given moment and in a given public space, crystallize political and social issues that these expressions contribute at the same time to building” (Krieg-Planque, 2009). “The army, the people and the Resistance” (al-jaych, al-cha'b wa al-mouqāwama) is a formula that follows the criteria researchers (Faye; Fiala & Ebel; Krieg-Planque) have set to define for this kind of expressions: it shows a crystallized character, it enrolls in a discursive dimension, it functions as a social referent, and it displays a polemical aspect.The article aims at extracting the political issues underlying the linguistic facts and specifying what we have called a linguistic “coup de force” by showing how the use of coordination makes it possible to change the meaning of the components of the formula, thus contributing to the legitimization of Hezbollah. The article also focuses on the role of the media in circulating the formula.The emergence of this formula, as in the case of all expressions of its kind, is difficult to identify since its first use is not always traceable. However, the first use is most probably attributed to Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah in the aftermath of the 33-day war in 2006. This war opposed Hezbollah to Israeli forces and led Hezbollah to face instability and accusations. The purpose of this expression is to legitimize Hezbollah's military action and its self-proclaimed status of “Resistance” and to reinforce its coordination with the army after having destabilized it. However, this formula is associated to a number of political issues which are concretized by forms of language: 1) The political and linguistic vagueness of the formula, which is expressed through the impreciseness of the three words that compose the formula: “the army”, “the people” and “the Resistance.”2) The ambivalent relationship between the Lebanese army and Hezbollah which is synthetized through corpus examples, showing on one hand the enrolment of Hezbollah and its Resistance within the framework of the Lebanese State, and on the other hand its independence of action and decision.3) The last, but most important issue is the legitimization of the status and role of Hezbollah within the Lebanese state. Through explicit coordination (or implicit juxtaposition) between the three elements, of which two are considered as legitimate elements of the State (“the army” and “the people”), Hezbollah aims to legitimize its action and status as the Resistance. This legitimization “[attributes] acceptability to social actors, actions and social relations within the normative order” within a framework of “controversial actions, accusations, doubts, critique or conflict over groups’ relations, domination and leadership” (Martin Rojo & van Dijk, 1997: 560-561).After analyzing the three main issues that the formula carries, we tackle its polemic aspect which makes it quite impossible to appropriate it without risking a stigmatization, justifying the use of the press of forms of reported speech while glossing over its linguistic adequacy, before moving to examine the changes the formula undergoes in media discourse.