philosophy statement refreshment

[Trechter, Sara]

This posting is a request for 1) working out possible alternatives for an
acceptable *wording* of a philosophy statement in light of our philosophy
vote and 2) for an organizational name that reflects that philosophy.  A few
weeks ago, we voted where to go with a basic statement of philosophy and its
relationship to feminism.  As a reminder, Gala-L voted for:

	2)  Include an overt philosophical statement for GALA which
	emphasizes the promotion of feminist research and goals among other
things 	which may or may not conflict with 'feminist' goals, such as the
study of queer 	language, gendered language and ethnicity, gender and race.

As stated at the time, this brief sentence was not intended to be *the*
philosophy of Gala-L only the wording for the vote.  Several postings at the
time expressed concerns about being inclusive enough for future generations,
of non-western or non-Anglo people, language and masculinity folks, queer
theorists, feminists and non-feminists. And, Sally McConnell-Ginet posted a
possible wording for the philosophy statement:

	GALA is an organization that seeks to promote research on the
interaction
	of gender and language.  This field of scholarly inquiry began
developing
	in response to feminist concerns about the ways in which sex, power,
and
	language connect to one another; research has often had not only a
	theoretical but a practical aim, seeking to understand the
linguistic
	underpinnings of male dominance in order to dismantle male
privilege.
	Queer theorists have brought the linguistic dimensions of
sexualities and
	heterosexism into the picture.  Critical studies of language and
racial
	identities, ethnicities, and masculinities have also expanded the
field far
	beyond what was included under the early "women and language
"rubric.  GALA
	is being started to help foster more regular productive exchange
among
	scholars of language and gender with many different research
emphases and
	orientations and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds.

Some discussion (2 postings) ensued about whether to include:

> research has often had not only a theoretical but a practical aim,
>seeking to understand the linguistic underpinnings of male dominance in
>order to dismantle male privilege.

Now is the time to discuss this proposed statement further, propose
suggestions for changes or compose alternatives, and create possible names
for the organization.

When the facilitators first began this list, we considered SGLA (Sexuality,
Gender and Language Association) SiGnALS (Sexuality, Gender and Language
Society?) finally opting for the name "Gender and Language Association List
(GALA-L)."  We thought of this as an interim name since at the time, we did
not know what the subsequent organization of the society might be. We did
know that we probably wouldn't be able to keep GALA as a name because GALA
has been in use since 1993 as the acronym for the European conference
Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition.

Now that there is a notion of what GALA might look like based on the
philosophy statement vote, naming seems more feasible. We invite proposals
for names that reflect the inclusive statement of philosophy.

This should be fun.

Kira, Sara, Mary, Megan

Dr. Sara Trechter
Asst. Professor Linguistics/English
CSU, Chico
Chico, CA 95929-0830
(530) 898-5447 (office)
(530) 898-4450 (fax)