Re-writing operations and their effects of meaning

This chapter studies the effects of meaning generated by re-writing operations (insertions, deletions, replacements) in a corpus of social worker reports. Intended to describe the situation of a child and his or her family, these reports are produced within the framework of educational guidance and assessment orders. The proper functioning of the judicial process is therefore contingent upon the proper composition of these reports. In this context, we focus our attention on the modifications undertaken by the reports’ authors with a view to making the writing more precise or adjusting the intensity of certain expressions – a composition process that navigates between producing an effect of objectivity and producing an effect of subjectivity.