The American Society of Geolinguistics

Last updated

The American Society of Geolinguistics is the oldest organization devoted exclusively to research in the field of geolinguistics with the definition given by the Society to the term geolinguistics, currently being: "An academic discipline involving the analysis and implications of the geographical location, distribution and structure of language varieties within a temporal framework, either in isolation or in contact and/or conflict with one another, being originally conceived of by Mario Pei as being a branch of linguistics which would be used to do objective-oriented research on real-life language issues and where interdisciplinary approaches would be acceptable." [1]

Geolinguistics has been identified by some as being a branch of linguistics and by others as being an offshoot of language geography which is further defined in terms of being a branch of human geography. When seen as a branch of linguistics, geolinguistics may be viewed from more than one linguistic perspective, something with research implications.

Mario Andrew Pei (1901–1978) was an Italian-American linguist and polyglot who wrote a number of popular books known for their accessibility to readers without a professional background in linguistics.

Contents

Mission

The Society's slogan is "Geolinguistics for the Americas and elsewhere". The mission statement of the Society states that "The mission of the Society is to gather and disseminate up-to-date knowledge concerning the world`s present-day languages, dialects, and other language varieties in the context of their distribution and use, their relative practical importance, their perceived usefulness and actual availability from economic, political and cultural standpoints, their genetic, historical and geographical affiliations and relationships, and their identification and use in spoken and written form. The Society, as such, has varying degrees of interest in linguistic geography, languages in contact and conflict, language planning and policy, language education and the broader aspects of sociolinguistics." [1]

Organization

Membership

Membership in The American Society of Geolinguistics is open to anyone but is not a pre-requirement for submitting articles for publication.

Presidents emeriti

Past and present presidents emeriti of the Society are Mario A. Pei, William F. Marquardt, Fedor I. Nikanov, Abraham Tauber, Mimi (Mary F.) Delcuve, Allen Walker Read, Irving Linn, Jesse Levitt, William C. Woolfson, Max Oppenheimer, Jr., Marcelle Altieri, Kenneth H. Rogers, Alexander Milic, Margaret Bryant, Etta Sibalis, Frances Lyman, Abraham Taffel, Gloria Taylor, Leonard R. N. Ashley, and Julius Balbin. [2]

Leonard R. N. Ashley is an American writer on the English language. He was for many years professor of English at Brooklyn College.

Officers and directors

Its officers consist of a president, a first vice president, a second vice president, a secretary, and a treasurer. The officers are assisted by a board of directors. The Society's activities in the United States are taken care of by its secretary in New York. The secretary has authority which includes the management of all domestic conferences and publications. Conferences and publications committees which seek to promote the work of the Society outside of the United States exist under the authority of the Society's president, though, with regard to foreign publications, the secretary and president act together as joint editors in chief. [3]

History

The American Society of Geolinguistics was founded in January 1965 by Professor Mario Pei. Monthly meetings were held to discuss to discuss different languages and their relationship to where they were and to the effect this might have on neighboring areas. Geolinguistics was used to describe this area of academic interest. The word was not originally associated with the idea of language map-making, but had been suggested to him during World War II by a student of his who suggested to him that a new academic discipline was needed which should be called ‘geolinguistics’ by analogy with ‘geopolitics.’” [4] In 1974 the Society began publishing its journal Geolinguistics. In 1985, it held its first international conference under the initiative of its president (now President Emeritus), Professor Leonard R. N. Ashley, in New York. [5] In 2015, by the initiative of Professor Wayne Finke of Baruch College (City University of New York), it held its first international conference abroad in Tokyo and dedicated the proceedings of this conference to its long-serving president, Leonard R. N. Ashley. [6]

Conferences and meetings

Domestic

The Society holds an annual luncheon in New York for officers and other members.

International

International conferences, open to members and non-members alike, have been held in New York since 1985 and since the beginning of the 21st century on an annual basis. Similar conferences have likewise been held in Tokyo on an annual basis since 2015.

Publications

Geolinguistics, the journal of the American Society of Geolinguistics, has been published since 1974. Conference proceedings have been published since 1987 for international conferences held in New York and since 2015 for international conferences held in Tokyo.

Related Research Articles

Leonard Bloomfield was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics. He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, the description of Austronesian languages, and description of languages of the Algonquian family.

Mario Alinei was an Italian linguist and professor emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987. He was founder and editor of Quaderni di semantica, a journal of theoretical and applied semantics. Until 1997, he was president of Atlas Linguarum Europae at UNESCO.

Linguistic Society of America A learned society in the US concerned with Lignuistics

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for the field of linguistics. Founded at the end of 1924 in New York City, the LSA works to promote the scientific study of language. The Society publishes two scholarly journals, Language and the open access journal Semantics and Pragmatics. Its annual meetings, held every winter, foster discussion amongst its members through the presentation of peer-reviewed research, as well as conducting official business of the Society. Since 1928, the LSA has offered training to linguists through courses held at its biennial Linguistic Institutes held in the summer. The LSA and its 3,600 members work to raise awareness of linguistic issues with the public and contribute to policy debates on issues including bilingual education and the preservation of endangered languages.

Sandra G. Harding is an American philosopher of feminist and postcolonial theory, epistemology, research methodology, and philosophy of science. She taught for two decades at the University of Delaware before moving to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1996. She directed the UCLA Center for the Study of Women from 1996 to 2000, and co-edited Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society from 2000 to 2005. She is currently a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Education and Gender Studies at UCLA and a Distinguished Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at Michigan State University. In 2013 she was awarded the John Desmond Bernal Prize by the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).

The International Planetarium Society, Inc. (IPS) is the global association of planetarium professionals. Its nearly 700 members come from 35 countries around the world. They represent schools, colleges and universities, museums, and public facilities of all sizes, including both fixed and portable planetariums. The primary goal of the IPS is to encourage the sharing of ideas among its members through conferences, publications, and networking. By sharing their insights and creative work, IPS members become better planetarians.

Murray Bowen was an American psychiatrist and a professor in psychiatry at Georgetown University. Bowen was among the pioneers of family therapy and a noted founder of systemic therapy. Beginning in the 1950s he developed a systems theory of the family.

Gregory Pence American philosopher

Gregory Pence is an American philosopher.

Language geography branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements

Language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language(s) or its constituent elements. There are two principal fields of study within the geography of language:

  1. "geography of languages", which deals with the distribution through history and space of languages, and/or is concerned with 'the analysis of the distribution patterns and spatial structures of languages in contact'.
  2. "geolinguistics" being, when used as a sub-discipline of geography, the study of the 'political, economic and cultural processes that affect the status and distribution of languages. When perceived as a sub-discipline of linguistics which incorporates contact linguistics, one definition appearing has been 'the study of languages and dialects in contact and in conflict with various societal, economic, ideological, political and other contemporary trends with regard to a particular geographic location and on a planetary scale'.
  3. Various other terms and subdisciplines have been suggested, but none gained much currency. including
Leonard Swidler American theolgian

Leonard J. Swidler is Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1966. He is the co-founder and editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies (quarterly). He is also the founder/president of the Dialogue Institute, the senior advisor for iPub Global Connection a book publisher, and the founder and past president of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (1980–).

Haruko Hatoyama Japanese political matriarch

Haruko Hatoyama was a Japanese educator of the Meiji, Taishō and Shōwa periods, and the matriarchal head of the prominent Japanese Hatoyama political family which has been called "Japan's Kennedy family." She was a co-founder of what is today Kyoritsu Women's University. Her husband was politician Kazuo Hatoyama.

International Association for Philosophy and Literature

The International Association for Philosophy and Literature (IAPL), founded in 1976 by Hugh J. Silverman, brought together thinkers and scholars working in a wide range of disciplines concerned with the study of philosophical, historical, critical, and theoretical issues. The IAPL was dedicated to the exchange of ideas and to the enhancement of scholarly research in the arts and the humanities. The IAPL provided an opportunity to engage in discussion at the intersections of philosophical, literary, cultural, textual, visual, medial, art, and aesthetic theories. With its focus on interdisciplinary topics and commitments, the IAPL played a role in the articulation of vital and exciting recent developments in philosophy, literature, and the arts.

Donald A. Crosby American theologian

Donald Allen Crosby is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Colorado State University, since January 2000. Crosby's interests focus on metaphysics, American pragmatism, philosophy of nature, existentialism, and philosophy of religion. He is a member of the Highlands Institute of American Religious and Philosophical Thought (HAIRPT) and has been a leader in the discussions on Religious Naturalism.

Roderick Samson Mabomba was an important library leader in Malawi. He worked hard to make Information Science not only an important subject to study in Malawi but also to bring libraries to the attention of the Malawi government. He spoke at numerous conferences, presenting his papers to show the world a view of libraries from Africa, giving them a voice.

Luciano L'Abate was an Italian psychologist working in the USA. He was the father of relational theory and author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 55 books in the field of American psychology.

American Association for State and Local History organization

The American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) is a non-profit association for state and local history, with a primary focus on history professionals, history volunteers, museums, historical societies, and other history-related organizations and public history professionals. Since 1964, it is headquartered in Nashville, TN, and currently has about 6,000 members. The organization has ten full-time staff members. AASLH provides leadership and support for its members who preserve and interpret state and local history to make the past more meaningful.

William Marshall Grange is Professor of Theatre at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Emerging Media Arts. His research publications are mostly concerned with the history of German-language theater and German-language literature. He has published several books, and is the author of numerous book chapters, articles in scholarly journals, reviews of both books and productions, and has presented dozens of papers at scholarly conferences both in the United States and abroad.

Mitchell K. Hall is professor of history at Central Michigan University. Hall is a specialist in the study of peace and war, and the Vietnam War. He was editor of the journal Peace & Change, and is a past president of the Peace History Society.

Geolinguistic organizations may be divided into academic associations, research institutes, and academic journals.

References

  1. 1 2 "Geolinguistics Information - Mission Statement". American Society of Geolinguistics. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  2. ↑ Levitt, Jesse, et al. (1987). Geolinguistic Perspectives, p. VIII. Lanham, MD: University Press of America Inc.
  3. ↑ "Geolinguistics Information - ASG Organization". American Society of Geolinguistics. Retrieved 16 October 2017.
  4. ↑ Levitt, Jesse, et al. (1987). Geolinguistic Perspectives, p. 5. Lanham, MD: University Press of America Inc.
  5. ↑ Levitt, Jesse, et al. (1987). Geolinguistic Perspectives, p. 3. Lanham, MD: University Press of America Inc
  6. ↑ Finke, Wayne and Kitabayashi, Hikaru (2015). Multilingual Perspectives in Geolinguistics. Raleigh, NC: Lulu Press, Inc.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.