La description dans les textes officiels pour le collège (1985-2006) : une approche textualiste persistante

Since a new teaching and learning object in French language at secondary school level was introduced in 1996, a shift in terminology has taken place in the official texts, from text to discourse. The use of the term discourse goes along with a rationalist conception of the elements it is composed of (speaker, person addressed, situation of enunciation, functions and effects), and sticks (as far as the «descriptive discourse » is concerned, particularly), to an epistemic conception of the student. The analysis of two proposed series of lessons, is an incentive to pursuing very traditional activities, and on the other hand, to an application strategy whose outcome will be, from simple tasks to easy, then complex and even complicated ones, a fragmented knowledge. However, a reasoned elementation of the «description » object may contribute to constructing a scriptural competence.