Our History

ALTAE has been the name of our laboratory since 1 January 2025. It is the result of two successive unit mergers. Firstly, the Centre Interlangue d’Etudes de Lexicologie (CIEL attached to the Department of Intercultural Studies and Applied Languages) and the Linguistique Interlangue et Linguistique Anglaise unit (LILA attached to the Department of English and American Studies) merged in 2005 to form the CLILLAC unit (Centre de Linguistique Inter-langues, de Lexicologie, de Linguistique Anglaise et de Corpus). In 2008, this unit in turn became home to the Atelier de Recherche sur la Parole (ARP, attached to the Linguistics Department). After these amalgamations, the CLILLAC-ARP unit was formed, bringing together research and teaching staff from these three departments.

At the Department of English and American Studies, research focused on syntax, semantics, discourse analysis (written and spoken), modelisation, contrastive analysis, phonology, phono-syntax, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and didactics. Antoine Culioli’s Théorie des Opérations énonciatives provided a unifying framework for this research. For a detailed history of the Department of English and American Studies, formerly the Institut d’anglais Charles V, follow this link, in French (see also the documentary L’expérience Charles V). At the Department of Intercultural Studies and Applied Languages, research focused on lexicology and its connection to syntax and semantics, terminology, neology, corpus linguistics, languages for specific purposes, translation studies and linguistic policies in a number of languages, including English, German, Spanish, French, Turkish and Vietnamese. At the Linguistics Department, research focused on speech, macro-syntax of speech, phonetics, phonology, phonosyntax, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics and language didactics in a wide range of languages, including Asian languages.

Until 2013, the departments were located at different sites: the Department of English and American Studies at the Institut Charles V, the Department of Intercultural Studies and Applied Languages on the Jussieu campus (former site of the Université Paris Diderot, and current site of the Sorbonne Université) and the department of Linguistics at Chevaleret (in the 13th arrondissement). As of 2013, all the unit’s teaching and research staff, doctoral students and the non-teaching staff were brought together in the Olympe de Gouges building on the Paris Rive Gauche site, at the Grands Moulins campus of the Université Paris Cité. This strategic relocation has undeniably strengthened collaboration and coherence between the various members of the research group.

Since its merger in 2005 and until December 31, 2024, Natalie Kübler, professor at the Department of Intercultural Studies and Applied Languages, directed the research group for 10 years, and Agnès Celle, professor at the Department of English and American Studies, for 5 years, alternating between the roles of director and deputy director, accompanying and making possible this merger under the direction of Alain Dechamps, the group’s first director. The research group was structured around two main axes and one transversal axis:

Axis 1: Semantics, Discourse, Speech

Axis 2: Languages for specific purposes and Discourses, Translation studies, Interculturality

Transversal axis: Data policy and interoperability of written and spoken corpora