let's go

[Ines Shaw]

I think Janet Bing raises an important issue regarding interdisciplinarity,
and that its scope needs to be determined as it is directly relevant to the
philosophy of GALA.

Like Janet, I have a concern with what happens when scholars from a wide
range of disciplines encounter linguistics.  A linguistics-based study of
mine was once reviewed by people in literature who told me that others had
already said what I was saying; I checked out every source, and without
exception, they were all literary, which made it look as if they did not
read the whole manuscript; then, perhaps,their familiarity with linguistics
was based on its humanities-broad meaning.  In fact, this broad meaning
reflects the understanding of linguistics I have encountered among some
academic colleagues in the humanities and other areas.  Although
linguistics training is spreading, there are still many in academia who are
unfamiliar with it as the study of language per se.

In addition, given the existence of OSCLG and the Berkeley Women & Lg.
Group, I am inclined to think that GALA could have a focus on linguistics
and its related branches.  It seems to me that the research orientation
problem that Janet encountered will not be avoidable regardless of the
branch of linguistics involved since some people view such orientations
(theoretical, empirical, quantitative, qualitative) as quite distinct.

On the other hand, in principle, there are advantages to a broader scope of
interdisciplinarity.  However, despite the rhetoric favoring
interdisciplinarity one encounters sometimes, in reality, I think true
interdisciplinary work is very hard to do and be accepted because 1) the
institutional system is set up and reinforces disciplinary distinctions and
boundaries; 2) interdisciplinarity is often talked about or used as
synonymous with multidisciplinarity; 3) it takes a lot more time to become
knowledgeable about a subject under study when we have to examine it from
different disciplinary lenses, and 4) institutions rarely support or
rewards true interdisciplinarity.

In conclusion, we may be really talking about multidisciplinarity rather
than interdisciplinarity.


Ines Shaw


Linguistics & Women's Studies
North Dakota State University
& Tri-College University

*          *            *             *             *            *           *
We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.
							--Anais Nin
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At 09:59 AM 2/24/99 EST, you wrote:
>I agree that there needs to be some discussion of whether the
>possible new organization would be interdisciplinary.  OSCLG is
>supposed to be interdisciplinary, but, in fact, the
>prevailing discipline is speech.  The Berkeley Women & Lg. Group is
>also interdisciplinary (but friendly to linguists).  I favor an
>interdisciplinary group, but I can imagine some potential problems.
>For example, if there's a conference and people are judging abstracts
>or if there's a journal and they're refereeing articles, chances are,
>some of those judging won't understand the conventions of other
>disciplines.  I recently ran into this when I sent an abstract to a
>psychologist who is running a panel I'm interested in being on.  She
>hated the abstract because she does empirical work and I don't.  In
>her opinion, the paper described wasn't really 'research' as she
>defines it..
>
>Are others of you thinking in terms of interdisciplinary?
>
>Janet Bing
>Dept. of English
>Old Dominion University
>Norfolk, VA 23529-0078
>(757) 683-4030
>FAX (757) 683-3241
>
>