Pour une approche à l’enseignement des langues spécialisées en diachronie: la langue de l’économie et du commerce dans l’œuvre de Barthélemy de Laffemas

A new discipline, political economy, and its nomenclature were born in France between the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th century. Barthélemy de Laffemas, the first tailor of Henry IV, can be considered a forerunner of the new economic science. Because of his commerce and his business contacts, he quickly realized the difficult economic situation of France during that period and he looked for several solutions which he exposed in his texts. The teaching unit suggested has both cultural and linguistic aims in relation to a specific field of specialisation. It is organised in four phases: an introduction to the writer; an introduction to his economic work; an examination of some pages taken from his essays and an analysis of their linguistic features; a detailed study of some key-terms by means of a thematic glossary. Laffemas’s economic work helps analyse the birth and the development of the new discipline and its language.