{"id":3694,"date":"2008-05-29T08:36:29","date_gmt":"2008-05-29T08:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2008\/05\/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print\/"},"modified":"2011-02-05T07:49:19","modified_gmt":"2011-02-05T07:49:19","slug":"all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2008\/05\/all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print\/","title":{"rendered":"All the news that’s fit to print"},"content":{"rendered":"

The May Newsletter of the Australian Linguistic Society has just come out and can be viewed here<\/a>. As usual it includes information about conferences, workshops, research grants awarded to members, recent publications, and the odd flashback to ALS doings of the last century. Then there is the “News from …” section where stories submitted by Linguistics Departments around Australia are presented; the May edition includes Macquarie University, University of New England, Australian National University, and the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology at La Trobe University.<\/p>\n


\nIt is interesting to see what Siew-Peng Condon of RCLT<\/a> reports on. There is one paragraph about Sasha Aikhenvald being made an Honorary Member of the LSA (recognition normally given to older scholars without a regular income who get put up for this category of membership so they can get the journal Language<\/i> for free). The rest of the report is names of visitors and fieldwork plans by students and post-docs.
\nInterestingly, what’s missing from the “News from the RCLT” is anything about the series of rather newsworthy changes that have taken place there over the last few months: Bob Dixon is no longer Director, and in his place as Acting Director is Professor Roger Wales<\/a>, former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dixon is now named<\/a> as “Founding Professor”. Former Deputy Director, Sasha Aikhenvald is now “Academic Co-ordinator”. [details of titles amended – thanks for pointing this out!<\/em>]
\nIt will be interesting to learn how these changes will affect the mission and research directions of RCLT, which has had such an influence on the Australian linguistic scene over the past 12 years, especially in terms of attracting grants, students, post-doctoral researchers and visitors. Also of interest would be any developments in the approach to language typology and the description of poorly known languages that has been a focus of the work done there to date. Perhaps all the data and metadata collected by researchers at RCLT will start to make its way into digital archives, such as Paradisec<\/a> and ELAR<\/a> at SOAS where it can be accessed by other researchers and the published claims made about it can be tested. Maybe we will see a different view of the role of digital technologies in recording and analysing endangered languages from that which has been espoused<\/a> by the former director of RCLT:<\/p>\n

“A word addressed to junior colleagues who think that it will improve their work to immerse it in the latest electronic technology. Don’t. Because it won’t. I worked on the Jarawara grammar as I did on previous grammars of Dyirbal, of Yidi\u0272, of Boumaa Fijian (and of English). I used pencil, pen and spiral-bound notebooks, plus a couple of good-quality tape recorders. No video camera (to have employed one would have compromised my role in the community). No lap-top. No shoebox or anything of that nature.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThere may be other changes. The range of refereed journals and publishers where RCLT researchers submit their work may be broadened. Perhaps different theoretical models will be debated and discussed.
\nNow that’s something I’d like to read about in a future ALS Newsletter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The May Newsletter of the Australian Linguistic Society has just come out and can be viewed here. As usual it includes information about conferences, workshops, research grants awarded to members, recent publications, and the odd flashback to ALS doings of the last century. Then there is the “News from …” section where stories submitted by … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linguistics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3694"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4526,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3694\/revisions\/4526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}