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The corpus used for this research consists of four categories of sources: publications and studies from linguists, discourses from media actors such as jour‑
nalists and journalism teachers (professional journals, handbooks of journalism, books about journalism, etc.), archives of a central journal of intellectuals
(La Revue générale) and 1.302 online comments posted by readers on five news websites. Even though current discourses - and online comments in
particular - consider the“poor quality”of language and the presence of mistakes as a recent phenomenon, this study reveals that this kind of criticism can
be found throughout the history of journalism, both outside and inside the profession. For example, a Belgian handbook of journalism published in 1983
quotes Voltaire denouncing, as early as 1739, the language mistakes made by journalists and their impact on language evolution. Furthermore, normative
expectations are constant. We organized the discourses about the status of the language of journalists around four interlinked key notions: the reflection
of the language of society; the influence on the language of society and on language evolution; the social role in terms of language; and the professional
obligation.These notions will be developed in the presentation.These criticism and expectations may reveal a“communication contract”which is constantly
challenged. Moreover, the quality of language is never defined by the authors who seem to consider an implicit conception of what good language is. As
a result, the contract contains some blurred dispositions. CHARAUDEAU, Patrick. Les médias et l’information. L’impossible transparence du discours. Bruxelles
: De Boeck, 2011 (2
nd
ed.). HIGGINS, Michael. Media and their publics. NewYork, Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2008. LE CAM, Florence and RUELLAN,
Denis (eds.). Changements et permanences du journalisme. Paris: L’Harmattan, "Communication et civilisation", 2014. RAYMOND, Diane and LAFRANCE,
André A. Norme et médias. Montréal : Les publications du Québec, 2001.