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.

Mistake, error and correction in Language Sciences

Using the terms “mistake”, “error” and “correction” within the framework of Language Sciences brings to mind, at first, a close link between linguistics and normativity. Moreover, the problem of the norm is complex in several ways, and must be analyzed. One can distinguish (a) a descriptive norm, determining the normality through statistics (Canguilhem, 1966), and (b) a prescriptive norm, defining the correct form in use. Thus, the notions of mistake, error and correction appear to have diverse aspects that all the disciplines of linguistics can deal with.

On the other hand, the semantic boundary between mistake and error can be discussed. Following a conventional distinction, mistake is described as a deviation in the speakers’ language that occurs when the speakers, although familiar with the rule, fail to perform according to their competence, whereas error is defined as a deviation resulting from ignorance of the rule. With this in mind, making errors can be regarded as an inherent phenomenon in language production, since it results from complicated cognitive and motor activity, while correcting could then restore the faulty utterance. Distinguished from mistake, the meaning of error does not entail spontaneous self-correction, since it results from the speaker’s ignorance and, therefore, could not be emended without confrontation with a still unknown and yet broken rule (Auroux, 1998).

These notions can be dealt with in different ways: the nature of mistakes or errors, as well as the potential formulation of corrections by the speaker himself or by someone else, could concern many fields of Language Sciences (first and second language acquisition, languages teaching, phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, psycholinguistics, etc.)

However, if we approach mistake and error independently, both words can have very different meanings. In philology for instance, a scribe’s error should be analyzed in another way when it results from an initiative in correcting a mistake in the copied manuscript. This editing is regarded as an error, because it shows a difference in relation to the original text, but it can also be regarded as a correction, in so far as it restores a “correct” form after identifying an initial mistake. Hence identifying an error or a mistake and verbalizing a correction are not actions which are peculiar to teachers or grammarians. However, their works are still especially studied from the viewpoint of the history of linguistic theories. Indeed, discussions among linguists often bring about corrections which affect both linguistic and metalinguistic discourses. Mistakes, errors and corrections can therefore be thought of as essential parts of grammatical discourse itself.

The diverse relations between the three terms which we would like to consider from a linguistic point of view offer many possibilities of scientific investigation in all fields of Language Sciences. The RJC 2014 invite the participants to think about the notions of “mistake”, “error” and “correction” and their present relevance: the participants can study the relations between these three terms, describe their treatment and look into the methodological questions and historical issues that they raise in Language Sciences. We will particularly welcome presentations in the following fields:

       - first and second language acquisition
       - discourse analysis
       - linguistic anthropology
       - language and culture pedagogy
       - textual genetics
       - history of linguistic ideas
       - general linguistics
       - historical and comparative linguistics
       - morphology
       - philology
       - phonetics
       - phonology
       - pragmatics
       - psycholinguistics
       - rhetoric
       - semantics
       - sociolinguistics
       - syntax
       - NLP
       - translation studies
       - linguistic typology

References:

AUROUX, Sylvain (1998), « 3. La linguistique est une science normative », in La raison, le langage et les normes, Paris, PUF, pp. 221-289.
CANGUILHEM, Georges (1966), Le normal et le pathologique, PUF, 221 p.
 
Scientific Committee:

José Ignacio AGUILAR RIO, Angélique AMELOT, Nicolas AUBRY, Nicolas AUDIBERT, Michelle AUZANNEAU, Violaine BIGOT, Maria CANDEA, Mariella CAUSA, Francine CICUREL, Matteo DE CHIARA, Geneviève DE WECK, Jeanne-Marie DEBAISIEUX, Claire DOQUET, Serge FLEURY, Cécile FOUGERON, Jean-Marie FOURNIER, Emmanuel FRAISSE, Florentina FREDET, Stéphanie GALLIGANI, Cedric GENDROT, Kim GERDES, Anna GHIMENTON, Daniel GILE, Yana GRINSHPUN, Jean-Patrick GUILLAUME, Olivier HALEVY, Pierre HALLE, Rouba HASSAN, Agnès HENRI, Frédéric ISEL, Raphaël KABORE, Takeki KAMIYAMA, Dominique KLINGLER, René LACROIX, Florence LEFEUVRE, Cécile LEGUY, Aliyah MORGENSTERN, Catherine MULLER, Jean-Paul NARCY-COMBES, Gabriella PARUSSA, Claire PILLOT-LOISEAU, Konstantin POZDNIAKOV, Christian PUECH, Nicolas QUINT, Christine RAGUET, Sandrine REBOUL-TOURE, Annie RIALLAND, Francis RICHARD, Rachid RIDOUANE, Anne SALAZAR ORVIG, Didier SAMAIN, Pollet SAMVELIAN, Dan SAVATOVSKY, Valérie SPAËTH, Sofia STRATILAKI, Isabelle TELLIER, Jacqueline VAISSIERE, Andrea VALENTINI, Daniel VÉRONIQUE, Patricia VON MÜNCHOW

Organizing Committee:

Viola ALLEGRANZI, Laura DOURDY, Ophélie GANDON, Fanny IVENT, Muriel JORGE, Janina KLEIN, Charlotte KOUKLIA, Marie ODOUL, Shaghayegh SAJED, Laetitia SAUWALA, Lin XUE, Xianchi ZHANG

 

Submission

Proposals for oral presentations should be typed in Times New Roman 12, simple spacing, in the form of a summary of 1000 words at most (including references) and proposals for posters in the form of a summary of 500 words (including references). In the case of phonetic transcriptions, please use the SILDoulos font here.

Propositions are to be sent to the Organization Committee by e-mail (rjc.ed268.p3@gmail.com), in .rtf format. They should be sent twice:

The first one will be named "anon_NAME_rjc2014.rtf" (for example: ''anon_SMITH_rjc2014.rtf'') and will contain: 

Title
Fields of research
5 keywords
Summary
Type of presentation (oral presentation or poster)

The second named "NAME_rjc2014.rtf" (for example: ''SMITH_rjc2014.rtf'') will contain the following information, besides the previous ones: 

Personal data (last name, first name, e-mail and personal postal address)
University
Level of study (master / doctorate / postdoc; specify the number of years for the doctorate)
Research supervisor(s)


Only one submission will be examined for each participant.

The languages for oral presentations and posters are English or French. Oral presentations will be allocated 20 minutes + 10 minutes for questions. Poster authors will be invited to give a short oral presentation of their work.