How can corpus linguistics help improve requirements writing? Specifications of a space project as a case study

The specific purpose of this doctoral research is to improve the writing of requirements at the French Space Agency (CNES) by proposing a set of linguistic rules - referred to as a Controlled Natural Language (CNL) - that engineers should follow when writing out specifications in French. CNLs for technical writing do already exist, but if they are reviewed from a linguistic point of view, they are found unsatisfactory and too constraining, because some of the rules they impose lack relevance or are not compatible with the way engineers actually specify large-scale systems. In this research abstract, we will present a methodology based on corpus analysis aimed at improving existing rules and suggesting new ones that are inspired by existing data. We will also consider requirements extracted from specifications written at CNES to demonstrate its feasibility.