BAAL Special Interest Group

LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHY FORUM (LEF)

NOTES FROM BUSINESS MEETING
Saturday 8th September 2001
3.00-3.30 Whiteknights Hall, Reading

Present: David Barton, Angela Creese, Julia Gillen, Charmian Kenner, Deirdre Martin, Marilyn Martin-Jones, Janet Maybin, Ben Rampton (Chair), Brian Street, Karin Tusting

1.	Relations with BAAL
The colloquium we had organised on ‘Rethinking the Ethnography of Communication’ (following a proposal at our BAAL/CUP Seminar at Leicester in March 2001) had been well attended (c. 50-60 people), and we were delighted that this year’s BAAL AGM had agreed to accept the Linguistic Ethnography Forum as a Special Interest Group (SIG) within BAAL.  David Barton was writing a paper for the BAAL Executive on the organisation of SIGs, and would also report to the LEF.

2.	A name?
There wasn’t time for any extended discussion of the name for our grouping, but there was general agreement that, faute de mieux, we should stick with ‘Linguistic Ethnography’, a name we’ve now become quite accustomed to/comfortable with.  We also agreed that we should continue to call ourselves a ‘Forum’ - the ‘Linguistic Ethnography Forum’ (LEF) was a more euphonious title than eg the ‘Linguistic Ethnography Special Interest Group’ (LESIG).

3.	Future activity

3.1	Meeting in Aberystwyth in 2002
Marilyn Martin-Jones has very generously offered to explore the possibilities of hosting an LEF meeting in Wales (either at Aberystwyth or Gregynog).  After some discussion, we agreed that 
•	we should aim for the end of April 2002 (26-27), with a view to inviting Penny Eckert who will be visiting the UK at this time
•	the development of dialogue remained central, and so there should not be more than 40 participants
•	(a) half of the time (eg two half-days) could be spent on themes or readings agreed in advance, with (b) the other half devoted to the leisurely presentation of original research papers (by people other than those who presented at the ‘Rethinking EoC’ colloquium)
•	possible themes and readings mentioned here (and previously) for the pre-focused part of the meeting (= a) included: revisiting the classics; what are the classics?; Paul Willis’ introduction to the first issue of the Journal of Ethnography; phenomenological antecedents; the British tradition of linguistic ethnography (eg Bloch, Parkin); Bernstein’s ‘Languages of Description’ (mediated by Gemma Moss); curricula for teaching linguistic ethnography; team vs individual ethnographic research

3.2	Session at BAAL Annual Meeting, Cardiff 2002
The form of any meeting next year at the BAAL AM in Cardiff will depend to quite an extent on the way that discussion of SIGs develops within the BAAL EC over the next 6 months.  Since Julia Gillen, David Barton and Ben Rampton are members of the EC for 2001/2002, LEF will be kept abreast of (and be able to feed into) this discussion, though at the Reading business meeting reported here, there was a feeling overall that LEF would hope for more than just a single 1 ½ hour slot.  The themes and organisation of our input to 2002 BAAL AM could be discussed at greater length in the Spring of 2002.

3.3	Other activity
There was general agreement that we were not yet in a position to offer a BAAL postgraduate summer school on ethnography in 2002.  There was some discussion of whether funding might be sought for a seminar series (from the ESRC, Leverhulme, Nuffield), but decisions on this were deferred.

4.	Resources
Unfortunately, there was no time to discuss the development and use of the website, our data-base of research interests, and a possible bibliography.  Karin Tusting has acted as our website coordinator hitherto, and she and Julia Gillen agreed to confer on this.   

5.	Links with other bodies
Discussion of links with other bodies - eg the British Sociological Association Language Study Group, the Journal of Ethnography, the US Linguistic Anthropology of Education Group, the Penn Ethnography Forum - was also deferred.

6.	Further discussion
Discussion of all the issues should continue through our email list, and Brian Street and Ben Rampton volunteered to provide any necessary summarising and coordination when and as the discussion becomes voluminous.

Ben Rampton
11 September 2001