The Slavic Linguistics Society (SLS) supports the international community of scholars and students interested in the systematic and scholarly study of the Slavic languages. It aspires to be as open and inclusive as possible; no school, framework, approach, or theory is presupposed. As Roman Jakobson declared (paraphrasing Terence), Linguista sum; linguistici nihil a me alienum puto `I am a linguist; I consider nothing linguistic foreign to me’.
Governance
The SLS was born in December 2004 from a roundtable at the annual meeting of the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL). Prof. Steven Franks (Indiana University) organized the roundtable and subsequently served as the first Chair of the Slavic Linguistics Society’s Executive Board.
The SLS is governed by an Executive Board consisting of six members selected for three-year staggered terms. Current Board members:
- Catherine Rudin (Wayne State College), Chair, through 2013
- Marc Greenberg (University of Kansas), through 2014
- Laura Janda (University of Tromsø), through 2015
- Sylwester Jaworski (Uniwersytet Szczeciński), through 2015
- Vladimir Plungian (Institute of Linguistics, Moscow), through 2014
- Andrea Sims (Ohio State University), through 2013
The organization’s bylaws are available here.
Activities
Conferences
Since 2006 the SLS has organized an annual scholarly meeting, in coordination with host institutions. Meeting locations rotate between North America and Europe. Past meetings:
- SLS-1 (2006): Indiana University (Bloomington, IN, USA)
- SLS-2 (2007): Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Typologie und Universalienforschung (Berlin, Germany)
- SLS-3 (2008): Ohio State University (Columbus, OH, USA)
- SLS-4 (2009): University of Zadar (Zadar, Croatia)
- SLS-5 (2010): University of Chicago (Chicago, IL, USA)
- SLS-6 (2011): Université de Provence (Aix-en-Provence, France)
- SLS-7 (2012): University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS, USA)
The following meetings are planned:
- SLS-8 (2013): Uniwersytet Szczeciński (Szczecin, Poland)
- SLS-9 (2014): University of Washington (Seattle, WA, USA)
Journal
The SLS has adopted the Journal of Slavic Linguistics as its official journal. A subscription to the journal is included with an SLS membership.
Mailing List
The SLS has also established an e-mail distribution list (called ‘SLAVICLING’) for propagating inquiries and information of interest to the field. The mailing list is hosted at the University of Texas by Gilbert Rappaport, and is open to anyone who is interested in Slavic linguistics. Membership in the Slavic Linguistics Society is not required.