A journal on gender and language?

[Mary Bucholtz]

I'm very grateful to Bonnie and Sara for writing such a strong proposal
outlining their ideas for a new journal on language and gender. The issues
that the reviewers raised are important to consider as we decide as an
organization how to proceed given Cambridge's decision not to go forward
with a print journal. My own feeling is that the field of language and
gender needs a journal in order to continue to grow and develop. My
responses to the specific concerns raised by the reviewers are below.

> (1)       The field would not necessarily benefit from a new, dedicated
> journal.  Such a journal could marginalize work in the area.

I don't see institutional recognition in the form of a journal as leading
to marginalization but countering it, especially if the journal is issued
by an academic press. Maybe this was more of a concern a decade ago (or
more), but language and gender has gained a lot of ground since then. While
the field is still far from central to most departments, in the past 10
years or so it has increased its institutional recognition in a number of
ways in linguistics and related disciplines.

More generally, I haven't ever seen a situation in which an area of
research didn't benefit by the creation of a specialist journal. Besides
lending legitimacy to a marginal field of study, a journal can help
consolidate related work that is conducted in disparate disciplines or
subfields. Certainly journals in other areas of linguistics such as
historical pragmatics (Benjamins), applied psycholinguistics (Cambridge),
clinical linguistics (Routledge), critical discourse analysis (Sage),
gesture (Benjamins), and humor (Mouton), to name only a few, have gained a
much higher profile for those fields and have attracted new readers and
researchers. The same is no doubt true for other disciplines in which
language and gender research is conducted.

> (2)       There is no shortage of first-rate outlets for publishing work
> on lg, and gender, and good work on language and gender has had no
> difficulty in being published in top-tier journals.  It would be
> difficult to convince scholars to publish good work in a new journal with
> little brand-name recognition, no track record or formal ranking when
> other outlets exist.

While it's true that the publication of language and gender research in top
journals has been booming in recent years, this seems to me to argue for,
not against, the need for a specialist journal--if that work is being
published in a generalist journal, it could just as easily be published in
a specialist one. Nor do I see any difficulty in recruiting authors to
publish in such a journal; one important role of the editorial board is to
do exactly that, and I know that Bonnie and Sara have planned to encourage
senior scholars to publish in early issues to raise the journal's profile.
Speaking for myself, I would be very eager to publish in a specialist
journal of language and gender published by a respected academic press. And
as the webmaster of the Language and Gender Page, I've received numerous
queries from scholars around the world who want to know if there is such a
journal where they could publish their work. Moreover, there's an abundance
of language and gender work being presented at conferences (not only IGALA
but many others as well), and much of it is appropriate for journal
publication.

It's also the case that not all language and gender articles fit well in a
general sociolinguistics or discourse analysis; some are aimed at
specialists and might not be as attractive to journals with a broader
mandate. Such articles are well suited for publication in a specialist
journal and currently have no other outlet.

> (3)       There is not enough outstanding work in the area to sustain a
> key journal.  Much of the strongest work is already being published in key
> journals, and work published elsewhere is not of the highest quality.
>
I have to disagree--although there is some weak research in language and
gender, I don't think the ratio is any higher than in other fields, and a
lot of useful, interesting work is currently being published within a
variety of approaches. One reason for the impression that the field isn't
producing strong work may be that our conferences tend to be run on
feminist principles of inclusion, and some presentations may be based on
work-in-progress or research by scholars or students who have little
support from their departments for the kind of work they're trying to do.
This seems to me to be one of the strengths of the IGALA conference--to
provide feedback to scholars so they can bring their work to publication.
An advantage of a journal is that the peer-review process allows for much
more in-depth feedback than a conference exchange allows (and I know that
many of us have been working on ways to increase and improve such
feedback). If we want more work of publishable quality, then a strong
journal review process is the way to achieve that goal.

As for the options Bonnie outlined, I'd be perfectly happy with an online
journal published by Cambridge, since academic publishing is headed in that
direction anyway and since it would make the journal available to a wider
and more international readership. I understand, though, that not all
departments consider such journals to be quite as legitimate as print
journals when it comes to hiring, tenure, and promotion, and so I'd also
support approaching another publisher, such as Sage, which has a wide
distribution, publishes in print and electronic versions simultaneously,
has affordable rates, and has a demonstrated commitment to politically
oriented linguistic research.

I don't see conference proceedings, working papers (online or otherwise),
or edited volumes  as a replacement for a journal. The first two raise
issues of limited circulation and availability, potentially lower quality
due to lack of peer review, less institutional legitimacy, and a need to
create and fund an infrastructure to ensure continuity. As for edited
volumes, they're increasingly difficult to publish due to academic
publishers' concerns that they aren't as marketable as single-authored
books. All of these are fine supplements to a journal, but none can do the
job of a journal in making available a wide range of current high-quality
work on a regular basis.

In short, I feel strongly that at its current stage of development our
field needs a journal in order to continue to grow. I appreciate the
concerns of those who feel otherwise, but I think the advantages far
outweigh any potential difficulties. Several years ago, the field didn't
have a professional organization either, and now, three conferences later,
I think it's clear that language and gender scholarship has benefited
greatly from the formation of IGALA--the field has become more
international, more interdisciplinary, and more dynamic. In order to
continue the momentum that the creation of IGALA has set in motion, a
journal of language and gender is the next logical step. I look forward to
hearing others' perspectives on this issue.

Best,

Mary

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Mary Bucholtz, Associate Professor
Department of Linguistics
3607 South Hall
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100
phone: (805) 893-5415
fax: (805) 893-7769
http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/
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