Documentary linguistics

Documentary linguistics is a subdiscipline of linguistics that aims to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a speech community.

• "The aim of a language documentation is to provide a comprehensive record of the linguistic practices characteristic of a given speech community... This... differs fundamentally from... language description [which] aims at the record of a language... as a system of abstract elements, constructions, and rules." (Himmelmann 1998:161-195)

Reference

• Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 1998. Documentary and descriptive linguistics. Linguistics 36.161-195.