Proceedings of the 16th Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs in Linguistics
Models and modeling in language sciences
Paris, 30-31 May 2013
Created in 1998, the Rencontres Jeunes Chercheurs (RJC) of the Doctoral School « Langage et langues » (ED 268, Sorbonne Nouvelle University - Paris 3) is an opportunity for junior researchers preparing for a Master's degree or a Doctorate, but also for post-doctorates, to present their work in paper or poster sessions.
Theme
How do we grasp the variety of reality without trying to establish a structure and formulate rules supposed to explain or describe the way it works? How do we understand a phenomenon without first trying to conceive its possible operations? Even if the use of an abstract framing is not always enough for comprehending a given linguistic phenomenon, psychological process or cognitive strategy, the construction and utilisation of models often appears necessary – just as it is necessary to question and revise existing models, in order to apprehend ever more finely grained phenomena.Because of the varied disciplines grouped under the heading “language sciences”, the very word “model” is to be understood in different senses. For instance, the psycholinguist proposing a model to account for the psycho-cognitive process of the reader does not conceive the model in the same way as the semiotician speaking about the “model reader” (Eco, 1979). In the same way syntactic models have different functions in natural language processing and in descriptive linguistics.
The many approaches of the varied disciplines lead to question regarding not only the notion of “model” but also the activity of modeling linguistic data, depending on descriptive, explanatory or predictive purposes. Thus, the various definitions of “model” are of interest, together with their application, their transdisciplinary potentialities and their possible transformations.
The questions of the relevance and limits of these models are also of interest, as is the issue of the very notion of “model”. According to the different approaches adopted by researchers, the model can be considered as a necessity, or an obstacle, as a sign of rigor or as a scientific bias. Is it a theoretical restraint into the empirical data must fit in with? Or is it an abstract construction required to understand the dynamics and functioning of a any given phenomenon or linguistic fact?