Enquête et description des langues à tradition orale

The experience resulting from several years of joint effort has led the members of a CNRS research group to draw up a guide for field research and for the working up of the data collected. Their objective is to move towards a simplification and standardization of future work so as to permit subsequent comparative analysis.

The first volume of this work is devoted to a methodological introduction to field work and to the analytical techniques which permit the formulation of a description. The theoretical framework is, in general terms, structuralist, but is presented so as to meet the practical needs of the field and to permit a complete description of real languages. From this theoretical outlook derive the postulates governing analysis and description: language is taken as a social phenomenon, it is examined essentially in its role as a means of communication, and it is taken to stand in a mutual relation with the study of civilization.

Volumes II and III provide two sets of linguistic and thematic questionnaires and guides to data gathering and analysis, which are intended to provide both the beginner and the practised researcher with the guidelines and indispensable reminders required for the study of unwritten languages and civilizations transmitted by oral tradition. Practical instructions are also given for tape recording and for collecting natural specimens; other contents include grammatical questionnaires concerning the verb and the utterance, and other questionnaires involving diverse aspects of ethnology and sociolinguistics.

BOUQUIAUX (Luc) et Jacqueline M.C. THOMAS (eds), 1971, 1976 (2e ed.), Enquête et description des langues à tradition orale, Paris, Selaf (NS 1), 3 vol., 950 p.

Réimpression en 1987 (encore vendu aux éditions Peeters)

Skip to content