Date:  Fri, 23 Dec 1994 10:46:24 -0600

From:  "Timothy C. Frazer" <mftcf[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UXA.ECN.BGU.EDU>

Subject: Re: your mail



Dennis, thats a good summation. Blessings on all of you who are

travelling. I'm staying here in the so-far-not-so-cold midwest, where I

biked 10 miles yesterday and wanted to do more. I hope someone is saving

all of these comments. Thy say a lot about various visions of the

future of ADS, and would be very interesting for someone writing a

history of the society in years hence. Feliz navidad!



Tim





On Fri, 23 Dec 1994, Dennis.Preston wrote:



> Friends of ADS:

>

> My friend and colleague Bill Kretzschmar has, I believe, helped close this

> conversation before we toddle off to San Diego.

>

> Indeed, we (at least he and I) appear to be 'deeply divided' on the question

> of the ADS as a linguistic society or something else. I believe, however,

> that I have better characterized why I believe what I believe. I have cited

> articles from Lg and presentations at LSA which are of obvious importance

> and interest to ADS members; Bill has countered by offering the observation

> that he has the same opinion of Lg that I have of PMLA, but he has not

> detailed why the linguistic (indeed even variationist and dialectological)

> interests of LSA are of little importance to ADS, its aims, and its members.

> In short, he does not explain why the presentations and articles I list are

 not

> important, nor does he provide any detail about the importance of (P)MLA

> to our enterprise. He does note that he 'stands with lexicographers' in this

> preference, but I do not know who these lexicographer are or what

> information they are getting from the MLA. They would learn a great deal

> more about their enterprise from LSA (for whom I once taught an entire

> course on lexicography in America at an LSA Summer Institute).

>

> In short, although I am a great admirer of Bill's important and innovative

> work in American linguistic geography, I cannot find convincing arguments

> in his responses which would persuade me to believe that I would benefit

> more from the study of literature in my work as a dialectologist and

> sociolinguist than I do from the study of linguistics. I will continue to read

> Lg (especially the most recent issue, which I did not have in hand when I

> wrote my last entry in this discussion, since I note its lead article is Nancy

> Dorian's 'Varieties of variation').

>

> The 'deep divisions' between us, then, appear to be old ties, emotional

> links, departmental loyalties, and even, as I suggested before, matters of

> convenience. Those are not paltry things; some engage the emotions of

> many of our members, and they must not be treated lightly. I have not

> meant to detract from the applied, philological, literary, and other interests

> of our membership. Those are all important concerns to language variation

> study, and I hope the contributions of scholars in those areas continue, but I

> would be unhappy to see those issues predominate in a Society which I

> believe to be committed to the study of language in a scientific mode (i.e.,

> linguistics).

>

> As Tim Frazer rightly points out, we run the risk of losing some of our

> English department faithful if we change our meeting to coincide with that

> of LSA. Do we not run the same risk if we change to another time? Will

> English department oriented ADS members flock to another meeting which

> does not offer the extensive, bonus program of LSA? Why not do our

> English department members a favor by allowing them to say locally that

> there is another reason not to go to MLA. Their professional obligations lie

> elsewhere, and their departments should recognize that. (I have been an

> English Department linguist for most of my professional life, and I have

> always pressed that distinction on chairs, colleagues, and administrators.

> We might aid younger [and perhaps less aggressive young people than I

> was] by withdrawing one more excuse from those who control local

> funding to send people off to a literary conference.)

>

> On the other hand, Bill is not the only participant in this discussion who

> doubts that young LSA-oriented variationists will be attracted to ADS. I

> agree that that is not a given, but I have not heard any argument which

> suggests that scads of young MLA members are panting for dialectology. In

> fact, that has been the model for some time, and it has not proved a good

> recruitment ground. I cannot guarantee you that LSA will swell our

> numbers, but I can observe that MLA has not.

>

> I continue to encourage you, therefore, to press your representatives (and

> press yourself, if you attend) to link our Society most securely to

> linguistics. I have paid careful attention to the arguments to the contrary,

> and, although I have heard misgivings about the emotional impact on some

> of our stalwart members (misgivings which, I assure you, I do not take

> lightly), I have heard no good arguments against the linguistic nature of our

> enterprise nor convincing characterizations of the fertile recruitment grounds

> at MLA.

>

> Perhaps most importantly, I am troubled by the prospect of a separate

> meeting as a compromise among those who are 'deeply divided.' If we are

> divided, let us resolve it for the good of the Society, not to assuage the

> feelings of one group or the other. I sincerely believe that nothing could

> provide a worse jumping-off place for our next 100 years than the

> establishment of a meeting time which would attract neither part of our

> traditional membership and, almost by definition, do nothing to encourage

> the involved participation in Society policy and leadership among the next

> generation of scholars. We will need new leaders as well as new members,

> and they will come from those who can attend an accessible main meeting.

>

> Dennis R. Preston

> <22709mgr[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]msu.edu>

>