Female Sociolinguists

[Penny Eckert]

I agree with Miriam that this kind of thing ends up as a weird popularity
contest or worse - now we know who happens to be in some people's radar
today, and the more names that pile up the more glaring the omissions. But
above all, I think that Emma's request has resulted in a nice object
lesson in academic politics. The name request is at the heart of the old
boy system - Harvard uses it to initiate searches, CASBS uses it to
develop a list of potential fellows - and we know how badly (or how well,
depending on your perspective) it works in those kinds of cases.

pe

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"It hurts too bad when you only have a linguist to talk to."
Marie Smith, last speaker of Eyak.

"I like to change my fourth wife every year." Saleh al-Sayeri.

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Penelope Eckert                              phone: (650)725-1564
Professor, Department of Linguistics         fax:   (650)723-5666
Director, Program in Feminist Studies
Stanford University
Stanford CA 94305-2150
http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert