Communication runs the risk of becoming a kind of empty signifier that only comes into existence through the semantic habitat it calls forth and elicits, or through the investment of researchers, each according to his or her own vision of the world and approach. Quite simply, it's a polysemous concept, giving rise to a kind of intellectual imagery that brings together phenomena of various kinds, taken from linguistics, semiology, literature, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, psychology and so on.