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Using a corpus of professional writing based around the “rapport éducatif” report genre, we have studied the language resources developed by special-needs professionals as a way of reconciling the paradoxical imperatives – helping and controlling – which are central to their activity. These resources render possible a compromise position, which oscillates between the two positions. Common phenomena such as the euphemism are analyzed, but also less usual ways of reconciling contradictory viewpoints and of creating ambiguity, which may allow two utterances tending towards opposing conclusions to both be actualized. Through these forms, the professionals adopt and assert a comprehensive standpoint which is in keeping with the constraints of the genre (preserving addressee face, explaining the behaviors of people in treatment).