ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on semantico-pragmatic aspects of cognitive descriptive devices used by locutors to convey spatial route descriptions to an interlocutor. It analyses the differential use of these devices depending on the locutors' model of their interlocutor. To do so, two types of complementary analyses were conducted, manual and automatic analysis. Route descriptions were formulated by locutors very familiar with the environment that the route was to traverse. Interlocutors were with knowledge (K) or without any knowledge (NK) concerning this environment. Using a distinction between levels of descriptive segments, the manual analysis revealed a differential specification of goals and means in the descriptions for K and NK interlocutors. Automatic analysis first served to refine a second, related result of manual analysis, i.e. the differential use of toponymie references according to interlocutors' knowledge of the environment. It furthermore revealed the use of different Discursive Styles for K and for NK interlocutors.
