Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to account for the varying analysis and formalisations of a same advertisement text, “Mir Rose”, by Jean Michel Adam. First, we draw the methodological frame of this psycholinguistic approach of composing and understanding-memorizing texts. We refer to the notions of prototypical textual schema, semantic macrostructure and superstructure. Then we point out the differences between argumentative text and argumentative discourse. Last, we try to explain why it has been possible for Adam to analyse and formalise the same text first as a narrative one and a few years later as an argumentative one. We suggest that his narrative approach is not specific and textual “narrative” means here “temporal-causative sequence” or “problem solving”, i.e., deeper and more general psychological devices than those involved in processing narrative text per se. From Toulmin and van Dijk approaches of argumentation, we propose our own analysis and formalisation of “Mir Rose”, the psychological validity or plausibility of which should be tested in experimental tasks of reading-memorising