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This article provides a short survey of contemporary notions that allow, in the framework of the social sciences and the humanities, for an analysis of the ways in which a speaking or acting subject manages a social interaction through the production of an appropriate self-image. It thus presents notions borrowed from various disciplines (presentation of self, impression management, corporate image, branding) in their connection to rhetorical ethos as defined in the classical tradition, and stresses in this context the specificity of language studies. The approach of argumentation in discourse to ethos is presented and partly illustrated in a sample of political autobiography (Ségolène Royal’s post electoral book).