As part of a research project on discourses of authority on language in Acadia, this study takes as its starting point a body of important scientific contributions to Acadian linguistics. The article focuses on the actions mobilized by scholars to constitute the object that they intend to describe, a series of selective operations that condition or even constitute the object being studied. The analysis of this scholarly discourse uses the tools of critical sociolinguistics to analyze facts, processes and events. It is through the work devoted to describing it that a given set of linguistic practices is instituted as a language variety. The role research plays in constructing linguistic objects has already been reported, but remains poorly documented. This article intends to shed light on this process. The study focuses on major projects in Acadian linguistics, from Geddes’ 1908 doctoral dissertation to Perrot’s in 1995, as well as Massignon (1962), Flikeid (1984), and Péronnet (1989). Insofar as these works have played a predominant role in defining linguistic practices as Acadian, they allow us to consider various methodological postures and shed light on some of the issues involved in the choices made to describe a language variety.