Trudgill in Vocabula

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 01:48 PM 6/17/2003 -0400, you wrote:


>But as policy wonk for Academic Computing at Wayne State I should point out
>that it is indeed illegal to copy journal articles and distribute them
>indiscriminately, and I'm very surprised that your local copy centers do
>this--national chains like Kinko's routinely seek permission from
>publishers in the construction of course packets.  The use of copyrighted
>materials in teaching is very much a live issue (the recently passed TEACH
>act deals exactly with the topic in using such materials in on-line
>courses--references available on request) and is extensively known and
>discussed on our campus.
>On the other hand, quoting from copyrighted materials in order to comment
>on them is considered 'fair use' and perfectly legal.
>
>Geoff

I may not have been clear on this:  The copy centers allow personal copying
on the coin machines from sets of materials left at the desk on "reserve";
the university library does the same thing.  If we faculty want bound
packets to be made up for our classes ahead of time, the copy centers write
the publishers for permission and pass the cost for their time and labor on
to the students.  For this reason most faculty leave loose-leaf sets of
materials on reserve.  The library too has assured me that this is allowed
for "educational purposes."

Therefore, I'd take issue with your use of the word "indiscriminately"; we
reproduce pieces for specific scholarly purposes, not for fun, and this
includes the Trudgill article.  We use the _Language Myths_ book in one of
our undergraduate courses, and in both undergrad and grad courses we
regularly discuss issues of dialect and usage, as all linguists do.