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46 | 2012
Typologie et description linguistiques

Interfaces et interactions
Linguistic Typology and Description: Interfaces and Interactions
Edited by Caroline Imbert and Nathalie Vallée
Lidil, n° 46 (2012)
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196 p. - 16 €
ISBN 978-2-84310-236-3

The functional-typological approach has been historically developed by applied linguists working primarily on lesser-studied or unstudied languages. Today, this approach lays the foundations for a new working method in typological linguistics, that of the “typological description” of languages. This descriptive strategy, referred to herein as “typodescription”, requires meticulous work on first-hand data and a possible and required interaction between the theoretical framework, typological knowledge, and language description. Should comparisons between languages be comparative, contrastive, or typological? Should it come before or after the description? Is it necessary or incidental? What does it contribute to descriptive linguistics? Over the last two decades in France a vision of description has been conceptualised and developed in which theory, typology, and description itself are no longer part of a “pre-” and “post-” hierarchical relationship in which one of them takes precedence over the other. In this issue, we aim to provide a diverse audience (descriptivists, specialists in didactics, theorists, acquisitionists, including those in the field of French as a Foreign Language) with an insight into this approach developed by fieldwork linguists who are involved in both descriptive linguistics and language documentation. We will also aim to give a voice to the typodescriptivists’ varied heritage, which can be seen through their contributions. These contributions form an outline, from South America to Asia and through Europe and Occitania, where each linguist will tell us about their fieldwork language and their data and clarify their ways of approaching it. It is worth noting the presence of young linguists in this issue: we, Caroline Imbert and Nathalie Vallée, considered it important to add the voices of young PhD students and post-doctorates to the voices of seasoned researchers. Our call for papers encouraged these young researchers to enlighten us with their work; their heritage from both their theoretical and descriptive point of view as well as their certitudes and their questions regarding what typology contributes to their descriptive approach.

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