Le réseau de communication comme variable de base des dynamiques linguistiques

Résumé 0

In this article, we will examine how network structure has been historically integrated as an explanatory variable in research on linguistic dynamics. We will see how its late importation from sociology does not deny its early, logical implication in André Martinet’s assertions about convergence and divergence, as well as in several independent lines of linguistic research focusing on dynamics, communities, linguistic competition or, more precisely, the vitality and death of languages. This coincidence points to a possible emergence of a common body of theory around the demographic aspect of linguistic situations. We will present a proto model in which the concept of communication network allows to articulate the communicational dimension as a field distinct from the other determinants of linguistic dynamics, which are to be situated in an institutional and in a representational dimension that we will here restrict ourselves to delimitate. Functional linguistics, because of its focus on the communicative function, would have a pre-eminent role to play in the necessary and long-awaited configuration of a reading grid for the dynamics of any linguistic situation, thus facilitating scientific dialogue and finally fulfilling the wish formulated by Andrée Tabouret-Keller (2001: 21-28).