Discursive Analysis and Institutional Changes

Abstract

Founded on the French tradition of Discourse Analysis studies, this article aims at presenting one possible path for probing linguistic matter and reaching the discourse established therein. It deals with the inauguration speech delivered by an official from a higher education institution in São Paulo, in which faculty members were informed about the ongoing process of changes. Ducrot’s “polemic negation” (1984) rises as the basic tool for revealing the nuances in meaning which come to re-signify the concept of change.