Analyse contrastive de l’atténuation dans la presse écrite au Cameroun : cas de Cameroon tribune

Abstract

"A contrastive analysis of mitigation in the print media in Cameroon : The case of Cameroon Tribune" is a reflection that aims to highlight mitigation strategies in the print media, their illocutionary force from the point of view of intention and to underline cultural references in both French and English. To this end, we first collected mitigation statements in Cameroon Tribune, the target newspaper, in both languages, and then weighed them against Austin's speech act theory. The outcomes suggest that speech acts can also be performed through writing, with a view to informing and speaking with restraint, pointing out areas for improvement in public management and infrastructure maintenance, calling to order, ordering, and addressing taboo subjects in a muted way. Figures of speech prevail among the mitigation strategies namely euphemism, metaphor and litotes, followed by syntactic, lexical and semantic aspects. The cultural references, for their part, highlight recourse to biblical allusion, and lexical particularisms made up of Cameroonian expressions and sayings. One can notice that French, which is analytical and abstract, colors the discourse volumetrically, while English, being synthetic and imagery-based is less talkative.