Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 06:49:20 CST
From: salikoko mufwene mufw[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MIDWAY.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject: Re: your mail
In Message Wed, 21 Dec 1994 10:06:15 -0500,
"William A. Kretzschmar, Jr." billk[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]atlas.uga.edu writes:
The claim that ADS could attract younger members through LSA also seems
to me to be far less clear than is supposed. In the current LSA program
there is a sociolinguistics session on Sunday AM but little else that I
would go to the meeting for. One of Walt Wolfram's students is giving a
paper in that session, but neither he nor anybody else of the 8 other
speakers listed is currently a member of ADS. This to me argues that LSA
participation is foreign to ADS, and that the people there even in a
related field do not see ADS as interesting or important to their
careers. If there were a few ADS members in the group, I would be all in
favor of linking up with LSA to try to collect the rest---but I just
don't believe that having our meeting with LSA would create a sea-change
in the views of younger scholars.
Just a minor correction, Bill. In the preliminary program, only the
papers selected by the Program Committee of the LSA are published. Other
concurrent meeting programs are included in the last program, which one gets
upon registration. What you say also applies to the Society for Pidgin and
Creole Linguistics, which has been meeting with the LSA for the past five
years and has greatly benefited from the association. Some of out more
theoretically oriented papers attract attendants from the larger LSA
membership.
To complement Dennis (Preston), I came to ADS from theoretical
linguistics. Some of the present membership may have come from the same
background, especially among who are not quantitatively oriented. I think
diversity in the kind of work published in AMERICAN SPEECH and the papers
presented at ADS meetings will determine in part whether or not there will
be new members from theoretical linguistics. Overall, scholars explore and
join associations that have something to offer them. Several theoreticians
look for associations that may offer them interesting new materials to work
with. So the consideration to add to the long list from Dennis is where,
between MLA and LSA, is there the kind of professional diversity that is
likely to enrich ADS in membership and professional diversity. I bet the LSA
comes first.
Sali.
Salikoko S. Mufwene
University of Chicago
Dept. of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
s-mufwene[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]uchicago.edu
312-702-8531; fax: 312-702-9861