After an initial emphasis on the integrational theory of grammars till the mid-1970s, work in IL has been characterized by a steady and continuous refinement of the integrational theory of language based on empirical data from typologically diverse languages, avoiding basic revisions as they occurred in Chomskyan generative grammar.
[9] The general orientation of Integrational Linguistics places this approach within a 'New Structuralism' that combines careful attention to methodological soundness, emphasis on actual language description, and a cognitive outlook that leaves language structure outside the mind (Lieb 1992);[10] at the same time, IL is closest among modern approaches to Western grammatical tradition.
[3] Rather, IL conceives linguistic entities as interrelated, "multidimensional" objects, which are typically modelled as set-theoretic constructs.
[2] Given these characteristics, the common but rather constrained distinction between 'formalist,' 'functionalist,' and 'cognitivist' schools of linguistics does not apply to IL, which exhibits features of all three kinds of approaches.
In syntax and morphology, the Integrational Theory of Language centers around a formally explicit, consistent, and vastly enriched version of theoretical conceptions underlying actual grammar writing since antiquity, embedding them in a broader scientific context that comprises linguistics and its neighboring disciplines; and the Integrational Theory of Grammars applies modern means to account for the intricacies of actual descriptive work.
As such, it was opposed to the general orientation of linguistics in the sixties and early seventies where language variability was programmatically disregarded.
[17] In 1972 Lieb founded a research group at the Freie Universität Berlin for further developing a general syntax as part of a theory of language.
[3] So far, the following languages have been or are being studied from an integrational point of view: German, English, Latin, French, Russian, Polish, Chinese, Burmese, Yinchia, Guaraní, Aweti.