national or international?

[Piller]

Dear all,

I think the creation of a language and gender association is a great
idea, and I'd like to thank the facilitators for all the work they are
putting into this. However, I share a concern that has already been
addressed by others: why a national list? In a field where many
theoretical debates have centered around the generalizability of
findings from the language use of white middle-class speakers of
American English, such a restriction seems even less appropriate than in
other fields.

A lot of feminist theory is strongly concerned with diversity these
days, and again I think that such a concern would call for an
international orientation of a professional organization dedicated to
language and gender. Actually, I can think of numerous reasons for an
international organizations: the strong contribution of French and
Italian scholars to feminist theory, globalization in the academic
community and elsewhere, the challenge of multilingualism to linguistic
theory and practice, etc.

Basically, what I am asking is to place the issue "national or
international" on your list of issues for debate. An organization such
as the International Pragmatics Association might serve as a model, in
this respect.

With my best wishes for the success of GALA, Ingrid Piller
--
	Dr. Ingrid Piller
Seminar fuer Englische Sprache und Kultur
Universitaet Hamburg
mailto:piller at uni-hamburg.de