Mali kura : approche discursive et argumentative d’une formule

Inscribed within the theoretical framework of socio-political discourse analysis, this study takes as its subject a verbal sequence, Mali kura, which arose in the context of popular protest against the regime of Ibrahim Boubacar Kéita in 2020 and has become a common denominator of the discourses produced during the political transition underway in Mali. Using discursive data collected from the press and from the speeches of political actors from 2020 to 2024, we examine the formality of the sequence Mali kura. Linguistic description of the sequence’s two signifying forms (Mali kura, in bamanankan, and le Mali nouveau, in French) enabled us to establish their figment. Analysis of the sequence’s discursive functioning revealed its character as a social referent, through the notions of circulation, paraphrase, reformulation and lexicological productivity. As a social referent, it appeared that the sequence was given rhetorical and polemical modes of use. The study therefore concludes that the verbal sequence Mali kura/le Mali nouveau is a formula in Malian socio-political discourse during the period under consideration.