Le discours de la bioéthique: choix terminologiques en contexte

The press specialising in bioethics has ignited increasingly fierce debates on the first phases of life and provided information on scientific, legislative and sociocultural aspects of medicine. The bioethics website Gènéthique deals with the issue of conception in a wide perspective of scientific dissemination, presenting terminology which varies according to the writer. In the same online space, knowledge is spread by means of communicative strategies, which serve three principal aims: simple information; development of a dynamic relationship between knowledge and the subjectivity of the reader, filtered by an objective view of knowledge in order to 'problematize'; the organisation of the knowledge process through different points of view. These strategies also determine lexical choices. The analysis of some syntagmatic units surrounding 'vie', 'respect' and 'droit' has made it possible to deduce the position of the utterer in some forms of pro-life discourse.