From the President
Laura Janda

ICLA News
Board term 2007-2009

To members, April 5, 2008

Dear members of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association,

I have three pieces of news to share with you:

1. Announcement of the dates for our next conference
   
2. (Near)Completion of our membership email list
   
3. Proposed Single-Transferable Vote System
   

Conference dates for ICLC 11

The dates for our next conference have now been finalized. ICLC 11 will be held at the University of California at Berkeley, U.S.A., July 28-August 3, 2009, in conjunction with the Linguistic Society of America Institute. Eve Sweetser will head the ICLC organizing committee. This information is also available at: ICLC Conferences. Of course we will all look forward to being reunited with our colleagues in Berkeley.

ICLA membership email list

Thanks to the efforts of Ad Foolen, with assistance from other members, we now have a functional email list of our membership, making it possible for us to target messages specifically to our members, in keeping with our Constitution (Article 6). Given the dynamic nature of email, no list will ever be definitive, and this list is not entirely without gaps, but is complete enough to serve as a good basis for the future maintenance of such a list. All members can help out by remembering to inform Ad Foolen (a.foolen AT let.ru.nl) of updates in their email addresses. [also: let Ad know if you see any names on Missing members' addresses that you can provide emails for. --Webmaster] Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this achievement.

Voting procedure

Suzanne Kemmer and David Tuggy have prepared a description of a voting procedure that we propose using for future ICLA elections; the text is available on the page Single-Transferable-Vote System. This voting procedure is efficient and fair and will help us to streamline our democratic process during meetings. I would like to recommend that members familiarize themselves with this process in advance of our next conference.

Otherwise, I wish you all a lovely Spring (or Fall, for our antipodean members). It always seems to me that Spring is the most challenging semester, perhaps because of all the projects that have to be finished, theses and dissertations defended, etc. by what is for many of us the end of the academic year. Congratulations to all of us for carrying on!

Best wishes,
Laura Janda

To members, Feb. 16, 2008

Dear ICLA Members,

I hope that this message finds you all well.

I am pleased to report to you that the Board has received and accepted a proposal to hold the 2011 ICLC in Xi'an, China. [Proposal was attached to letter. If you wish to read it contact Ad Foolen at a.foolen AT let.ru.nl]

This proposal has been formulated in response to a motion approved by the Assembly of members at ICLC 2007 in Krakow. In bringing this motion before the Assembly, the Board recommended that ICLC 2011 be held in China provided that the two Chinese organizations, The China Association of Cognitive Linguistics and China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics, could present a joint proposal for the conference. These two organizations have risen to this challenge and provided their proposal, which the Board has approved, thus giving substance to the motion passed by the membership in July.

I wish to thank all of our members who have worked to help the ICLA plan for the 2011 conference. Thanks are also due to everyone who participated in the discussion concerning a conference in China on the listserv and ICLC 2011 Blog.

Best wishes in 2008!
Laura Janda

To members, October 2007

On behalf of ICLA I would like to thank Elzbieta Tabakowska and her able team in Krakow for hosting our conference in July 2007. The hospitality of our Polish colleagues made it possible for over 500 of us to gather and exchange ideas and plan for the future of the organization. It would, of course, be impossible to summarize all that took place at the conference; my purpose is merely to highlight the news that is most relevant to ICLA.

First, there was a Jubilee celebration at the Krakow conference, commemorating seminal events in Cognitive Linguistics in the period 1987-89. During this celebratory event, four linguists were honored for their foundational roles in Cognitive Linguistics and in the ICLA: René Dirven, George Lakoff, Ronald Langacker, and Leonard Talmy. Laudationen were delivered by: Martin Pütz (for René Dirven), Klaus-Uwe Panther (for George Lakoff), Suzanne Kemmer (for Ronald Langacker), and Eve Sweetser (for Leonard Talmy), followed by a beautiful and mysterious call on a ram's horn, the traditional way of sounding the "Jubilee" in ancient times.

Second, the ICLA Governing Board met in Krakow. Among the many items on the agenda were the following:

• request for affiliation from the China Cognitive Linguistics Association
  • approved
• two proposals to hold ICLC 12 (2011) in China, one for Shanghai and one for Beijing
  • conditionally approved, pending resubmission as a unified proposal
  • reports on budget, the journal Cognitive Linguistics, and progress in planning ICLC 11 (Berkeley, CA, USA, July 28-August 3, 2009)

Elections were held at the business meeting of the ICLA Assembly, and Maarten Lemmens, David Tuggy, and Arie Verhagen were voted in as our Regular Board Members. (David was re-elected; he served as Regular Board Member in 2005-2007). Ad Foolen is continuing as a member of the Board and our Secretary-Treasurer. Our Ex-Officio Members are Ewa Dabrowska (Editor of Cognitive Linguistics), Klaus-Uwe Panther (Past President of ICLA), and Eve Sweetser (Organizer of the next ICLC in Berkeley in 2009).

A question was raised about whether it is appropriate for ICLA to hold a conference in China given the human rights record of the country. Because we were unable to hold a discussion of this issue at the ICLA Assembly meeting, a blog has been set up at ICLC 2011 Blog , and all members are encouraged to participate in the discussion there. We are particularly eager to receive input on this issue before a final decision on the 2011 conference is taken and will be closing the blog for further discussion as of November 1, 2007, so please get your comments in before that date.

Since the conference, the Board has been busy with a number of issues, summarized briefly here:

1. Our Chinese colleagues have been asked to submit a single joint proposal for the ICLC in 2011, and we are expecting to receive this proposal in November 2007.
2. Meanwhile we have been working on an alternative proposal in order to ensure that there will be an ICLC in 2011.
3. Given the fact that the organization and the conference have grown, we are examining measures to improve the logistics of the conference, communication with the ICLA membership, and procedures for ICLA Assembly meetings. We are also considering various suggestions for future conferences, such as ensuring a more varied selection of plenary speakers.
4. We would like to put in place appropriate policy and funding for Sign Language interpretation at our conferences.

I thank all of our members for their contributions to the success of our conference and our organization. I invite all of you to share your ideas concerning these or any other issues with me. I plan to post quarterly updates on news from ICLA, and welcome all suggestions.

Yours truly,

Laura A. Janda

ICLA News 2003-2005
ICLA News 2005-2007
ICLA News 2007-2009 (this page)

Updated 21 May 2008

© 2002-present ICLA; all rights reserved.
Site admin information and contact