Date:  Wed, 21 Dec 1994 18:51:47 -0500

From:  "Peter L. Patrick" <PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.BITNET>

Subject: Re: Where o where?



I would like to throw in my 2 cents with the suggestion by Allan

Metcalf that ADS reconsider meeting with NWAV. More than either MLA

(which I have never attended, and have no plans to attend) or the LSA

(which I have attended a half dozen times, but lately return to mostly

because the Society for Pidgin & Creole Lx meets concurrently), NWAV--

without or without the "-E"-- is a fixture on my calendar and most of

the ADSers that I have come to know personally. It has a configuration

of interests that seems congenial to ADS: not only dialect research

and social variation in general, but the aforementioned Ps and Cs &

AAVE, Southern speech, language contact and change, phonetics of vowel

shifts, style and register, and linguistic attitudes, as well as the

ever-expanding area of discourse analysis.

    It isn't entirely the fault of linguists in other areas if we

don't make LSA or 'Language' our home too-- if we want to belong we

shouldn't keep writing those venues off-- but it does seem there's not

enough mutual interest lately to make LSA an ideal choice (though I

can't personally see much reason for going with MLA at all). But if we

want a medium-sized conference with a congenial crowd, and one with a

strong contingent of open-minded activist younger linguists and grad

students, why not NWAVE? It also has the advantages of being early in

the year (late October) before all travel money is spent, and of being

relatively cheap (expensive hotel rooms are not the only choice for

people who want to be part of the action). Philosophically, the

mixture of strong empirical values for language as it is used by

social beings, and the openness to theoretical approaches that has

characterized recent NWAVEs might be invigorating without being too

threatening.

    Can we reconsider?

        --peter patrick