GLOW Linguistics

Our third GLOWing lecture will be by Viola Schmitt on March 15, 15:00 CET (10:00 EST, 14:00 BST, 19:30 IST – note the daylight savings change mismatch!) She will be discussing with Marcel den Dikken on what’s exciting about Semantics.

The Zoom-link for the lecture will be distributed to all GLOW members via e-mail a day before the lecture. If you’re not a GLOW member but you still want to attend via Zoom, you can sign up HERE. To make sure you receive the Zoom link, please sign up at least two days before the lecture. Like the previous times, the lecture will also be live-streamed on YouTube!

After two townhall meetings, we decided on a revised format for the GLOW colloquium.

HERE are the new guidelines for organizing a GLOW conference, reached by the GLOW board after taking into consideration the issues and suggestions raised at the town hall meetings. The conclusions reflect, on the one hand, the need to keep up a venue for substantial (and hence long) contributions in generative grammar and, on the other hand, make GLOW significantly more inclusive—make it more accessible to junior scholars and to non-core approaches to generative grammar.

GLOW proceedings: looking for task force!

The questionnaire results as well as the town hall discussions have revealed that the community finds it important to have GLOW proceedings. We agree with this assessment, and while no definitive decision has been made, the board has agreed on an initial concept, sketched and motivated below. To develop the details and reach a concrete procedure for the GLOW proceedings, we would like to form a task force to handle this further. If you are interested to be part of the task force (note this will not bind you to be involved in the actual proceedings later), please let us know.

Proposal: 

Although Glossa (special collections called “GLOWing papers”) is considered a good venue, there are significant limitations in the number of submissions, which in turn poses a challenge of the selection process; note that the community is skeptical about the GLOW board deciding on which papers should be included in the selected proceedings.

Taking the above into account and considering that GLOW is to become a more inclusive conference, the GLOW board would like to support a more inclusive proceedings model, too, along the lines of SuB, WCCFL, or SALT. More particularly, what we have in mind is a sizeable collection of short papers (say, up to 15 pages), non-reviewed, but copyedited, published online and diamond open access (free to both author and reader, accessible via a stable repository), within about a year from the conference. The publisher would be the organizing institution, the editorial team could be composed of senior and junior scholars; for the latter this would be an opportunity to gain experience. The editors would only check the papers for copyediting and stylesheet adherence, the editing itself would be up to the authors. This is basically the model applied in the Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung. We are aware that a non-reviewed publication is worth less than a reviewed one, let alone a journal publication. However, as has been pointed out multiple times, good papers have a high chance of finding their way into journals even without GLOW proceedings. And while non-reviewed publications often “score” less points in official evaluation systems, their quality is easily recognized by peer experts, which in turn can translate to higher chances in the job market for junior people. Finally, speed and inclusiveness are the benefits which we think outweigh the downsides.

Many things have happened in December. We had a wonderful GLOWing lecture by Charles Reiss and discussant Hedde Zeijlstra (thanks again!), and two very productive town hall meetings with the GLOW community where we heard many interesting ideas about what GLOW could be doing to strengthen generative linguistics. Thank you all for coming to these events and providing your input.

The main points of discussion of the town hall meetings were as follow.

GLOW manifesto

• Who are we? How do we define ourselves?
• What unites us? What creates the “We” feeling?
• What is our collective expertise?
• Where do we see us/generative linguistics in 10 years?

GLOW as a learned society, trade union, political organization

• Strengthen generative linguistics
• Engage in lobbying (funding agencies, other organizations) 
• Outreach, Networking
• Financial and educational support
• Expand geographically
• Connect with other organizations: SLE, CIPL, NYI Universe, summer schools, ConSOLE
• Provide hub for resources: online lectures, lecture series, summer schools, training possibilities, many more

Membership

• Lifetime membership
• Free student memberships
• Fund drives, donations, institutional memberships, increase fees for senior members (with positions)

GLOW conference

• Goals: Remain a strong, prestigious; increase number of participants; more support for early-career researchers
• Shorten the length of (some) talks
• Parallel sessions
• Large(r) number of posters
• Invited speakers
• Main talks in hybrid form (online free for GLOW members)
• Proceedings
• Travel support, student prize

The next steps

The GLOW board will hold several meetings to discuss the issues raised and options suggested, and weigh the points of disagreements. For some of the issues we will create task forces and/or standing committees for which we will seek participants from the GLOW community (e-mails regarding this will be sent in the new year). Some issues may also involve voting by the members. Our general goal is to maintain the strengths of the organization and anything that has been working well, but change areas that are obsolete, require improvement, or should be approached entirely differently. Some changes may be gradual, and in particular for points where we saw major disagreements, we may make initial decisions (if compromises are not possible) but re-evaluate those in the future. Continued feedback from the community will be essential and highly welcome throughout the next year (we want to hear everyone’s concerns and try to implement them within our goals and means).

Lastly, I can report that the GLOW community is growing and we are very happy to be a connection point (and more) for our exciting generative field.

Our second GLOWing lecture will be by Charles Reiss on December 15, 15:00 CET. He will be discussing with Hedde Zeijlstra on what’s exciting about Phonology.

The Zoom-link for the lecture will be distributed to all GLOW members via e-mail a day before the lecture. If you’re not a GLOW member but you still want to attend via Zoom, you can sign up HERE. To make sure you receive the Zoom link, please sign up at least two days before the lecture. The lecture will also be live-streamed on YouTube so there’s really no good reason not to attend!

As part of our current efforts in restructuring GLOW as an organization, we have prepared a questionnaire. Your responses will help us understand how the community sees GLOW as an organization as well as a conference and also help us shape GLOW so that it corresponds better with the needs of the community of (generative) linguists across the world. We plan to share selected results during the planned town hall meeting on November 24 and December 1.

The questionnaire should take about 15 minutes to fill out, although the time can vary depending on how much you wish to elaborate on your answers.

Your input will be greatly appreciated. Also, feel free to share the link with any relevant respondents (the questionnaire is not limited to GLOW members). We hope for as broad and diverse a sample as possible.

November 24 & December 1, starting at 8:30 (NY), 14:30 (Vienna), 18:00 (New Delhi), 20:30 (Singapore). Please register HERE to attend!

As you know, earlier this year, the GLOW community voted to wait a year for our next colloquium, and not hold one in 2024, to provide some breathing room in which to reconsider our structure and goals. To help with this process, the GLOW board will hold a two-day online meeting this autumn (Nov 24 & Dec 1). We view this meeting both as the beginning of a “listening tour” for the GLOW board and as an opportunity for our members (and generative linguists in general) to exchange views and ideas about the future of GLOW as an organization and the GLOW colloquium.

A group of discussants will share their views on the role of GLOW in linguistics and the GLOW Colloquium in an informal conversation moderated by the GLOW board. All GLOW members are invited to participate in this conversation and provide feedback and ideas.

Discussants: David Adger, Artemis Alexiadou, Daniel Altshuler, John Bailyn, Roberta d’Alessandro, Marcel den Dikken, Katharina Hartmann, Angelica Hill, Gillian Ramchand, Jenneke van der Wal, Marc van Oostendorp, Hedde Zeijlstra.

We understand that attending online meetings in two consecutive weeks is a serious investment of your time. Please feel free to attend as much of the meetings as you can. If you cannot attend, we encourage you to e-mail us any feedback you may have before the meeting so that we can share it in the discussion.

The topics will include (but are not limited to):

GLOW as an organization

• What kind of an organization does generative linguistics need in Europe or the world?
• What kinds of activities should GLOW promote (journals, summer schools, travel support, other ideas)?
• Should GLOW be more inclusive towards particular subfields of linguistics?  If so, how can we best bring that about?
• How can young researchers be better supported by GLOW?

The GLOW Colloquium

• Length of talks and discussion periods
• Poster sessions
• Publication of proceedings

We would love to hear your opinion on any of these topics. If you have not registered yet, please do so here: https://glowlinguistics.org/open-glow-meeting/

We look forward to hearing your feedback.

Rewatch the lecture on YouTube!

Our first GLOWing lecture will be by Laura Kalin on October 24, 14:00 CET. She will be discussing with Michelle Sheehan on what’s exciting about Morphology.

The Zoom-link for the lecture will be distributed to all GLOW members via e-mail a day before the lecture. If you’re not a GLOW member but you still want to attend via Zoom, you can sign up HERE. To make sure you receive the Zoom link, please sign up at least two days before the lecture. The lecture will also be live-streamed on YouTube so there’s really no good reason not to attend!

As part of GLOW’s efforts of community-building, outreach, and strengthening of the generative community, GLOW will start a quarterly online lecture series GLOWing lectures: Discoveries in generative linguistics.

The goal of GLOWing lectures is to provide tools, insights, and puzzles that will bring out why generative linguistics is important, invigorating, and relevant.

GLOWing lectures are intended to be exciting, inspiring, educational, and accessible across generative subfields. There are two broad categories of GLOWing lectures:

• What you should know about subfield X? These lectures teach professionals from other generative subfields (semantics, phonology etc.) important tools and technologies of one subfield.

• What is exciting in subfield X? These lectures provide significant discoveries and results from one subfield.

Both types of GLOWing lectures inspire further engagement within the subfield of the lecture and/or create discussions across subfields. Furthermore, both also provide material and resources (to be made available to the GLOW membership) for further teaching and outreach. 

GLOWing lectures will have a 120 minute slot, with a lecture between 45−60 minutes, 30 minutes for discussions, and a remaining time for chatting and socializing. Partial attendance will, of course, be encouraged as well.

In 2023−2024, we will aim for talks in the subfields (not necessarily in this order) semantics, phonology, morphology, syntax, field research/linguistic variation, experimental linguistics. In future years, we may add further areas of interest for the generative community.

The first talks will be open to anyone (later, only GLOW members will receive the link to attend the talks—but remember that GLOW membership fees are very low for now!).

We invite our members to e-mail us suggestions for GLOWing lecture speakers (please include a 1 sentence explanation).

Find more information and all updates HERE!

The GLOW membership has approved Frankfurt (with a 98.84% majority) as the host of the next GLOW conference, GLOW 47 in 2025. 

Stay tuned for further information!

There are currently two ongoing votes, ending on Monday, June 5:

• one about whether the GLOW community agrees that GLOW 47 (2025) will take place in Frankfurt
• one on extending the current board memberships ending in 2024 by another year (2025) since there will be no GLOW conference next year. This affects the following board members: Susanne Wurmbrand (chair), Radek Šimík (secretary), Magdalena Lohninger (web, communication), Caterina Donati (member A), Éva Dékány (member B), Markus Pöchtrager (member D), Andrew Nevins (co-opted member).

If you are a GLOW member but have not received an email with the voting link, please contact our secretary, Radek Šimík.