Tourette, Eric, ed. 2023. Les idées linguistiques des moralistes. Paris: Honoré Champion (Moralia). 200 p. ISBN 9782745360120
Publisher’s website

Observer comment vivent les hommes implique d’observer comment ils parlent : il était sans doute inévitable que l’analyse morale se tournât vers les questions linguistiques. Les moralistes ne sont-ils pas confrontés à l’usage, au même titre que les grammairiens ? Et les uns comme les autres ne posent-ils pas fatalement la question de la légitimité des normes ? De fait, il suffit de parcourir les œuvres respectives de Pascal, de La Bruyère, de La Rochefoucauld et de beaucoup d’autres moralistes pour constater à quel degré la question du langage les préoccupe : un langage qui s’avère souvent malmené ou perverti, où les mots ne signifient plus ce qu’ils sont censés signifier, où la communication se fait difficile. Ce n’est pas un hasard si l’abbé de Bellegarde imite avec le même naturel, au même moment, les remarques respectives de La Bruyère et de Vaugelas : c’est que du « remarqueur » au moraliste les affinités sont nombreuses, comme le goût des monstres, l’éclatement de la parole, le refus de légiférer… Le colloque dont le présent volume réunit les actes était donc l’occasion de nouer un dialogue entre spécialistes de littérature et spécialistes de linguistique. Ainsi apparut une vraie réciprocité des préoccupations pour les auteurs étudiés : si les moralistes au sens strict empiètent manifestement sur le terrain des grammairiens et des rhéteurs, en retour ces derniers abordent régulièrement de pures questions de morale.

Dagostino, Carmen, Marianne Mithun & Keren Rice. 2023. The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America: A Comprehensive Guide, Vol 1. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. 767 p. ISBN 9783110597981.
Publisher’s website

This handbook provides broad coverage of the languages indigenous to North America, with special focus on typologically interesting features and areal characteristics, surveys of current work, and topics of particular importance to communities. The volume is divided into two major parts: subfields of linguistics and family sketches. The subfields include those that are customarily addressed in discussions of North American languages (sounds and sound structure, words, sentences), as well as many that have received somewhat less attention until recently (tone, prosody, sociolinguistic variation, directives, information structure, discourse, meaning, language over space and time, conversation structure, evidentiality, pragmatics, verbal art, first and second language acquisition, archives, evolving notions of fieldwork). Family sketches cover major language families and isolates and highlight topics of special value to communities engaged in work on language maintenance, documentation, and revitalization.

Savatovsky, Dan, Mariangela Albano, Thi Kieu Ly Pham & Valérie Spaëth, ed. 2023. Language Learning and Teaching in Missionary and Colonial Contexts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 496 p. ISBN 9789463728249
Publisher’s website

This volume assembles texts dedicated to the linguistic and educational aspects of missionary and colonial enterprises, taking into account all continents and with an extended diachronic perspective (15th–20th centuries). Strictly speaking, this “linguistics” is contemporary to the colonial era, so it is primarily the work of missionaries of Catholic orders and Protestant societies. It can also belong to a retrospective outlook, following decolonization. In the first category, one mostly finds transcription, translation, and grammatization practices (typically, the production of dictionaries and grammar books). In the second category, one finds in addition descriptions of language use, of situations of diglossia, and of contact between languages. Within this framework, the volume focuses on educational and linguistic policies, language teaching and learning, and the didactics that were associated with them.

Waugh, Linda R., Monique Monville-Burston, John E. Joseph, ed. 2023. The Cambridge History of Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 900 p. ISBN 9780511842788. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511842788
Publisher’s website

The establishment of language as a focus of study took place over many centuries, and reflection on its nature emerged in relation to very different social and cultural practices. Written by a team of leading scholars, this volume provides an authoritative, chronological account of the history of the study of language from ancient times to the end of the 20th century (i.e., ‘recent history’, when modern linguistics greatly expanded). Comprised of 29 chapters, it is split into 3 parts, each with an introduction covering the larger context of interest in language, especially the different philosophical, religious, and/or political concerns and socio-cultural practices of the times. At the end of the volume, there is a combined list of all references cited and a comprehensive index of topics, languages, major figures, etc. Comprehensive in its scope, it is an essential reference for researchers, teachers and students alike in linguistics and related disciplines.