Towards an ergonomic linguistics: Application to the design of controlled natural languages

This article proposes to define a "new" discipline within applied linguistics: ergonomic linguistics. The article addresses issues concerning language use within organizations, focusing on human-oriented controlled natural languages (CNLs) whose role is to limit the problems encountered with natural language, in professional contexts in particular. An ergonomic linguistics approach involves first taking into account real linguistic productions and analyzing them with corpus linguistics methods, and then evaluating the efficacy of linguists' recommendations using cognitive evaluation or acceptance tests. Two projects concerning human-oriented CNLs that adopt an ergonomic linguistics approach are presented, the first in the space domain and the second in aeronautics.