UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum
Annual General Meeting
Friday 16 September 2005
1.30-2.25
Room G25

Agenda

1	Apologies
2	Chair’s business
3	Minutes of meeting 10 September 2004
4	Acting Officers’ reports: 
a.	Convener
b.	Treasurer
c.	Communications Secretary
d.	Meetings Coordinator

5.	Upcoming Seminars and Colloquia
•	Open University, Sat 4 March 2006: ‘Methodological issues in linguistic ethnography’
•	?July 2006: Sociolinguistics Symposium 16 – ‘Ethnographic challenges & opportunities in language research’
•	?BAAL AM 2006

6.	Other activity 2005-06
7.	Elections (closing date for nominations: Friday 9 September)
•	Convener 2005-07
•	Treasurer 2005-07
•	Ordinary member 2005-07

8.	AOB

Minutes 
from
UKLEF business meeting
10th September 04
BAAL Annual Meeting – King’s College London.
Present: Richard Barwell, Jan Blommaert, Jim Collins, Angela Creese, Roz Ivanic, Vally Lytra, Marilyn Martin-Jones, Kate Pahl, Ben Rampton (chair), Karin Tusting (minutes). 
Apologies: Rosie Flewitt, Janet Maybin, Stef Slembrouck.
1.  Developments since the last AGM.
BR referred the meeting to the Convenor’s Report to BAAL July 04 which summarised the previous year’s activity (circulated and attached).
The organisation of the UKLEF SIG activities at the BAAL Annual Meeting was discussed, with some concern expressed as to the mechanism for ensuring that the papers identified as being part of the Linguistic Ethnography strand in fact represented the work of the SIG.  It was felt that there might be some confusion as to the relationship between the colloquium (which we had organised) and the individual papers (self-identified as LE, with the option for us to check whether we agreed with that identification).
It was felt that BAAL is currently in a period of transition regarding SIGs and this would probably be resolved in coming years.  In the meantime, we need to make sure labelling of sessions at the AM makes it clear which have been directly organised by the SIG and which are merely in the same topic area, and make sure the review process of the individual papers happens as it is designed to.  We agreed to clarify this at the BAAL AGM (note: in the event this proved unnecessary as the SIG co-ordinator went through the process in his report).
2.  Future activity.
Seminars
BR reported that the Co-ordinating Committee had discussed the possibility of shifting from one 2-day seminar a year focused on a particular topic with well-known key speakers, to two smaller 1-day events which focused more on members’ own work, for the following reasons:
- the 2-day seminars were a big organisational job, and it was becoming harder to find local organisers
- it was getting harder to find people to participate in them
- the themes were becoming increasingly specialised, and this could be putting people off coming and closing the group down
- shorter seminars with smaller groups of people could be less formal 
- we could open up more topics for discussion
- they would give better opportunities to get to know one another’s work
- more frequent meetings could generate more ongoing discussion
- they could be held in different parts of the country, enabling people to participate in local events
RI asked for clarification of the difference in character between a colloquium and a seminar.  The colloquium format was papers and discussion, in a seminar there was a broader range of papers and different format, with some small group discussions, methodological, theoretical and research project-based issues, and more time for discussion than at a colloquium.  MMJ felt it would be a shame to lose the intermediate events, in which discussions have been very rich, and less rushed than often happens at a colloquium.
The possible format for such a one-day event was discussed, with the idea that they should be less structured in terms of a given ‘theme’, but without losing the possibility for extended discussion.  Possibilities included:
- An unstructured event in which people would be invited to take an hour to present and discuss issues in their current research.  This would require five or six people to come with issues to discuss.  It was felt that given people’s busy schedules, it might be hard to get a group together for a completely un-themed event.
- An event where a group of researchers in one locality discussed their own research and issues raised by this with a wider audience.
- A combination of the two, with some slots to discuss research from a local group or around a particular theme, and some slots kept ‘open’ for people to bring their current issues.
Themes could be generated from a call for interest on the email list, or suggested according to local interests.
We are planning a trial one-day meeting in Birmingham.
Other future activities
Other possible future activities include:
- a day with the BSA Sociology of Education group, potentially a data session in which different analytic approaches were taken with the same piece of data
- next year’s BAAL Annnual Meeting colloquium, a call will go around the email list for ideas
- BR floated the idea of a big conference in 2007, linking in with our international networks in Europe, the US and Canada (and perhaps beyond)
- The question ‘What is linguistic ethnography?’ has been raised recently.  In response, the Co-ordinating Committee have begun work towards the formulation of a ‘position paper’.  We are working on a starting-point for this, a few paragraphs based on what has come out of discussions in the past four years, and we will circulate this for discussion on the list.
- Following the position paper, we have been talking about putting together an edited collection of papers from the group, either as a journal special issue or as a book.

Linguistic Ethnography Forum

CONVENOR’S REPORT
to 
BAAL Executive Committee
July 2004- July 2005

1.	Aims
The UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum (LEF) was set up in March 2001, and we aim
•	to bring together researchers conducting linguistic ethnography here and abroad, and 
•	to explore a range of past and current work, to identify key issues, and to engage in methodologically and theoretically well-tuned debate.

2.	Organisation
From September 2005, all members of the Coordinating Committee will be elected for (twice renewable) terms of 2 years.  The CC currently consists of:

Convenor: 					Prof Ben Rampton (ben.rampton@kcl.ac.uk) 2004-2005
Treasurer:					Dr Richard Barwell (richard.barwell@bristol.ac.uk) 2004-05
Communications secretary: 	Dr Karin Tusting (k.tusting@lancaster.ac.uk) 2004-06
Meetings coordinator: 		Dr Angela Creese (a.creese@bham.ac.uk) 2004-06
Ordinary members:			Dr Janet Maybin (j.maybin@open.ac.uk) 2004-06
Dr Vally Lytra (vally.lytra@pobox.com) 2004-05

3.	Email list and membership
Our email list is counted as our membership, and members are asked every year if they want to continue on the list.  Membership currently stands at 160, of whom approximately a quarter are based abroad.   There were 146 members in July 2004, and 129 in July 2003.  

4.	Web-site
We continue to maintain a website, which we regularly update with news of forthcoming events and details of recent ones.  See http://www.ling-ethnog.org.uk

5.	Finance
Our balance currently stands at £842.25, and auditable accounts for 2004-2005 have been submitted to the BAAL Treasurer.

6.	Activity during 2004-2005

6.1	Publications
In January 2005, the Coordinating Committee produced a discussion document which explored some of the origins, affiliations and distinctiveness of linguistic ethnography in the UK (UK Linguistic Ethnography: A Discussion Paper, at http://www.ling-ethnog.org.uk).  This was circulated to everyone on our mailing list, as well as to 80-90 researchers world-wide.  The text certainly didn’t try to tie all the issues up (and it didn’t represent a consensus even within the Coordinating Committee).  But it has provoked quite a lot of useful discussion, both here and abroad.  It provides the point of departure for our colloquium at the 2005 BAAL Annual Meeting (see 6.2 below), and although these debates are very rewarding in themselves, more formal publications may emerge in due course.

6.2	Meetings
Following the policy discussion reported in our last Annual Report, we have expanded the range of formats for LEF meetings, and this year, instead of a two-day residential seminar in the Spring, we have been organising a number of one-day events.  Our calendar of past and forthcoming meetings is as follows:
i)	10 September 2004:  A day-long colloquium at the 2004 BAAL Annual Meeting in London,  covering two linked themes: ‘Time, the global and the local: Theoretical and methodological explorations’ (with papers by 5 researchers mainly based in the UK), and ‘Ethnographies of communication in multilingual spaces’ (papers by 5 researchers in Europe & the US).  
ii)	Saturday 26 February 2005: A one-day event on ‘Ethnography in Multilingual Urban Settings’, held at the School of Education, Birmingham University.  There were three presentations, focusing on researcher-researched relations, the professional identities of bilingual primary teachers, and the racialisation of language in British political discourse.  
iii)	Saturday 18 June 2005: A one-day event held in the School of Education, University of Bristol, with papers and a good deal of wide-ranging discussion around ‘Studying children’s language and practices and cultures outside school’, ‘Insider researching – is an identity crisis inevitable?’, and ‘Ethnographic-style bilingual interviews’.
iv)	Tuesday 13 September 2005: A one-day event on ‘Bakhtin, language and discourse’ held at King’s College London, jointly organised by the KCL Discourse and Social Interaction Network (www.kcl.ac.uk/dsi).  Presentations on “Journey with Bakhtin on the path of linguistic anthropology”, on ‘Speech genres  and ‘evaluation’ in socialisation and identity”, and a ‘what would Bakhtin say?’ data session.
v)	Thursday 15 September 2005: A colloquium entitled “Linguistic ethnography and the social sciences” to be held at the 2005 BAAL Annual meeting in Bristol.  Using our discussion paper as a point of departure (6.1 above), the aim is to situate linguistic ethnography in a wider academic context, and the scheduled contributors from outside LEF are Margaret Wetherell (discursive psychology), Martyn Hammersley (sociology & education), Lukas Tsitsipis (linguistic anthropology), and Alison Sealey (applied linguistics & critical realism).
vi)	Saturday 4th March, 2006: A one-day event to be held at The Open University, Milton Keynes, on “Methodological issues in Linguistic Ethnography”.  
vii)	We are also currently discussing the possibility of holding a linguistic ethnography workshop at Sociolinguistic Symposium 16 in Limerick in 6-8 July 2006.  The theme of this will be “What counts (and doesn’t count) as ethnography in language research”, and if this comes off, it will be the 14th that we have organised since our inception in 2001.  

7.	ESRC Consultation
During the year, the ESRC carried out a consultation on its data strategy, and in conjunction with the Literacy Research Centre at Lancaster University, Karin Tusting responded on LEF’s behalf. 

8.	BAAL
Our identity as a BAAL Special Interest Group continues to be of enormous value to us, and this year we are particularly grateful to the BAAL Executive for its generous agreement to waiving the Annual Conference registration fee for speakers invited to our September colloquium.

Ben Rampton
on behalf of 
UK LEF Coordinating Committee
(Richard Barwell, Angela Creese, Vally Lytra, Janet Maybin, Ben Rampton, Karin Tusting)

11th July 2005

UKLEF Report of Acting Treasurer to AGM
September 2005

1. FINANCIAL SITUATION TO YEAR END 31 MAY 2005

1.1	At the end of its last accounting year (31st May 2005), UKLEF had reserves of £817.25.
1.2 The 2-day seminar of April 2004 (King’s) contributed £38.79 to reserves.
1.3 The 1-day seminar of February 2005 (Birmingham) contributed £179.60 to reserves.

2. BANK ACCOUNT

2.1 The UKLEF current account is held with NatWest. Charges are now incurred amounting to £60-£100 per year. The co-ordinating committee therefore agreed to move to the Co-operative Bank, since they charge no fees to voluntary societies.
2.2 I am in the process of transferring the account, which should be completed by the end of 2005.

3. GENERAL FINANCIAL SITUATION

3.1 The decision to organise 1-day rather than 2-day events has significantly reduced the financial risks of UKLEF activities, since 2-day events involve the large expenses of catering and accommodation. 1-day events are much cheaper to run, resulting in lower participant fees and lower financial risks. Current reserves are sufficient to fund the full cost of at least two 1-day events, should circumstances lead to cancellation. It is anticipated that over time, 1-day events will contribute modestly to reserves, although individual events may incur small losses, depending on particular local circumstances.

Richard Barwell
Treasurer
September 2005

UKLEF Report of Communications and Membership Secretary to AGM, 16 September 2005

Email list
There are currently 167 members subscribed to the ling-ethnog email list, hosted by jiscmail.  There continues to be a steady trickle of new subscribers (1-2 a month), each of whom is asked to send the communications secretary a paragraph describing their research interests in linguistic ethnography to ensure that spammers do not get access to the list.  The email list is used to publicise events and circulate reports, and we have had positive feedback from several members unable to attend events who have appreciated the ongoing electronic contact.
Website
The website (www.ling-ethnog.org.uk, currently hosted at Lancaster University) serves as the group’s principal form of publicity beyond the email list and also serves as its archives.  Reports of meetings are posted up and there are a selection of papers, including the group’s recent discussion document.
International contacts
The question of how to maintain communication links with academics from outside the UK has been raised at previous AGMs.  This is being addressed in a range of different ways.  Around a quarter of members on the email list are based outside the UK.  The majority of our events involve invited speakers from abroad.  And the discussion document was circulated for interest and comment to a range of academics both in the UK and abroad, many of whom responded with detailed feedback.
Future plans
The Co-ordinating Committee have been discussing the possibility of developing a series of working papers in Linguistic Ethnography, perhaps to be posted up on the website for discussion as work-in-progress on the way to a more formal publication.  We are still in the process of discussing the need or desirability of an editorial or review process for such papers.  We have also discussed the possibility of pursuing to publication some of the themes which have been discussed in UKLEF events, including potentially the colloquium “Linguistic ethnography and the social sciences” at this year’s BAAL Annual Meeting.  These plans are still very open and we would be interested in hearing from people who might be interested in being involved on the editorial side.

Karin Tusting, 14 September 2005.

UKLEF Report of Meetings Coordinator to AGM (2004 – 2005)
September 2005

1.	UKLEF have organised three one day events in the last financial year and one colloquium.   All members of UKLEF EC have participated in the organising of these events.  The move from two day seminars to one day events have proved to be successful with numbers attending high (30 participants for two events) and costs low.  Past events (seminars and colloquium) and future events are summarized below.

i.	One Day Seminars (2005)

Three events have taken place so far:

o	Ethnography in multilingual urban contexts: (Local organiser, Angela Creese, Birmingham University).  19th February, 2005.  30 participants.  Four speakers (Peter Martin, Angela Creese, Jean Conteh, Adrian Blackledge).  Cost, £15 BAAL members, £20 non BAAL members, £10 students
o	Open theme: (Local organiser, Richard Barwell, Bristol University). 18 June, 2005.  11 Participants. Three speaker slots (Barbara Majer, David Poveda, Melanie Cooke, James Simpson, Celia Roberts, Mike Baynham).  Cost, £15 BAAL members, £20 non BAAL members, £10 students
o	Bakhtin, Language and Discourse: (local organisers, Vally Lytra and Ben Rampton and Alexandra Georgakopoulou, ULKEF with the King’s Discourse & Social Interaction Network, Kings College London ).  35 participants.  Three speaker slots (Lukas Tsitsipis; Janet Maybin; Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Ben Rampton and Lauren Small). 

ii.	Colloquium at BAAL annual conference (2005): Linguistic Ethnography and the Social Science. Presenters: Professor Lukas Tsitsipis (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki); Dr Alison  Sealey (University of Aston; Margaret Wetherell; Martyn Hammersley (Open University).  50 -60 people attended the event.  The theme of the colloquium was reactions from leading researchers from sociology, psychology, linguistic anthropology and applied linguistics to UKLEF position paper and to reflect on the issues it raised from their own disciplinary perspectives.  

iii.	Forthcoming events:

a.	One day seminar: Methodological issues in Linguistic Ethnography (local organiser, Janet Maybin).  4th March, 2006 
Place: The Open University, Milton Keynes. 
b.	SS16 Colloquium (July 2006): Ethnographic Challenges and opportunities in language research: Presenters: 

•	Alexandra Georgakopoulou (King’s College London): In search of context in language research: The ethnographic advantage

•	Theresa Lillis (Open University): Researching academic literacy as a social practice: Developing a text-oriented ethnography

•	Francesca Bargiela (Nottingham Trent University): Liminal ethnography in the attempt to study segregated organisations

•	Frances Rock (Roehampton University): Ethnography and forensic linguistics

•	Celia Roberts (King’s College London): Dealing with large audio/video data sets ethnographically: Beyond pick’n’mix?

c)	BAAL (2006) UKLEF ‘track’ of papers.

2.	With the one day events, the Meetings Coordinator’s role has changed.  The role is no longer to oversee events but to collect information from local organisers on the event programme, costings and participants.

Angela Creese, October 2005