What is Named ``Europe''? The Uses of Multireference and its Argumentative Stakes

Our paper deals with multireference and the actualization of the proper noun Europe in the context of the media. First, we analyze the stakes of multireference linked to both routine uses of metonymy in news telling as well as to the pragmatic issues of personalization. The paper then focuses on reported speech and on the uses of the ``modified proper noun'' which play on multireference in order to persuade and mobilize. In the last part of the paper, the actualization and the production of meaning are called into question in the light of their political context.