Caution: living may be hazardous to your health

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the language strategies used by a multinational company in the tobacco business aiming at legitimating its product – the cigarette, which is stigmatised by society – and also at presenting a good image of itself to the general public. The object of analysis is an article published in the company’s house organ, directed to its employees but with a larger circulation. The theoretical framework is that of the Discourse Analysis, as pursued by the French school, and deals with the concepts of intertextuality (Maingueneau, 1987) and the implicit1 (Ducrot, 1984).