eLanguage and historical linguistics

[Joseph Salmons]

Thanks, Claire, for raising this. 

Speaking as the editor of one of the few existing journals dedicated to language change, I personally would welcome the development of a new e-journal and/or print journal in the field. Yes, we at Diachronica are being pretty much overwhelmed with submissions, far more than we can publish, and this is generally work of high quality -- it's material that deserves to be out there.

The new LabPhon journal might be one model for how to move forward, and it's consistent with what you suggest. I don't know exactly, but I believe they assembled a committee to discuss things, develop a focus, work with possible publishers, etc. Agreeing to join a group of 10-12 people would be less taxing than taking the lead alone. (I don't have time to lead the effort either -- thanks to the traffic at Diachronica, largely -- but I'd appreciate at least knowing what's happening.)

A key issue will be finding the right focus -- something that differentiates any new journal sufficiently from Diachronica, FLH and other outlets. For instance, at Diachronica, if a paper doesn't make a pretty directly theoretical contribution to understanding language change (along with careful empirical angles, of course), its chances of acceptance drop dramatically. It would be great to have a general historical journal that doesn't insist on that -- where a good analysis of historical data would be welcome on its own terms.  

Another issue may be that some might have concerns about creating an e-journal (such as eLanguage) rather than a print journal, but that too could presumably be talked through. 

Let's hope your message will generate some discussion on the list about how to move forward.

Joe

On Jan 17, 2010, at 9:52 AM, Claire Bowern wrote:

> Dear all,
> I'd like to bring histling subscribers' attention to the LSA's eLanguage cojournal site (http://elanguage.net/). eLanguage is set up as a set of "cojournals" (that is, independent journals with their own editorial boards and referee process), but with a single web host and related infrastructure. 
> 
> It would be great if historical linguistics had its own cojournal. Some informal discussions I've had would indicate that there's considerable interest in a new historical journal, that the current outlets for historical journal publications have no shortage of quality submissions and that a new publication would not hurt them, and that it would be a good way to raise the profile of our field.
> 
> Would someone be interested in taking this on? Information about proposing a cojournal can be found here: http://elanguage.net/propose.php Perhaps a small group of histling subscribers would be interested in getting together to put a proposal together? (note, I'm not volunteering; unfortunately, I just don't have the time.)
> 
> Claire
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Histling-l at mailman.rice.edu
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Editor, Diachronica
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University of Wisconsin 
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http://diachronica.org

joseph-salmons.net





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