philosophy statement refreshment

[Chris Beckwith]

On the philosophy statement, Sally McConnell-Ginet's statement still
sounds great to me, with the exception of the one sentence that Sara
mentions in her message:

> > 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.

It's too bad we can't use GALA for good; I've grown fond of the acronym.
Any way to work an -S onto the end?  (GALAS also sounds festive and
happy!)  Why not just break all the 'rules' and add it anyway?! It doesn't
have to stand for anything.  It can just BE there because we like it!  Or,
we can add an -X, and assign it a variable value, depending on what any
speaker wants it to mean at any given time.  For example, today I'm happy,
so when I pronounce the acronym "GALAX" I mean "GALA--and I'm happy!"
Um, well, if that doesn't do it, consider the fact that a lot of societies
have unpronouncable, unaesthetic acronyms.  (I mean, I can think of so
many associations that have embarrassing-sounding, even gross, acronyms if
anyone actually pronounced them!)  I'm not sure we need to worry
too much about an acronym for the society or association.  The important
acronym really is the journal's, I would think, because no one wants to
publish in a journal that has a dumb-sounding acronym, right?  So if I may
be so bold, I would like to suggest that we consider journal names and
acronyms alongside the association name, but not worry too much about the
association's acronymn.

Chris

On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Trechter, Sara wrote:

> 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)
>