Political statements and nomination papers. Performance and the performativity of texts and media images in the context of the presidential elections of the Fifth Republic

This text considers media-covered political declarations in the light of speech act theory and performativity by using the following questions as a starting point: Is it possible to do things with words? Can we, in the sense of John Austin, perform an action thanks to language? The thesis addresses different situations of political declarations in order to inquire into political statements, as well as the images the media associate to them, from the perspective of the pragmatics of languages and semiology.The work first focuses on declarations from everyday life (declaration of poverty, artistic endeavours) before moving on to a thorough analysis of political declarations during the French Fifth Republic.It is thus revealed that, in order to do, a political declaration cannot be considered as isolated but should be heard and understood in accordance with the context that surrounds its utterance. It depends on languages, rituals, cultural references and on the media. Indeed, the latter both host and allow the declaration broad reception by the public. By itself, a political declaration is empty and its language cannot perform. It is therefore an object which exists as part of a web of connections