The Editor's Department: On Change in Language and Change in Language

[Correction]

Language change, we are taught, is inevitable, and so too, it seems, is Language change, that is, changes of one sort or another in this journal. Being a historical linguist, I reflect on and confront changes in language on an almost daily basis and thus can’t help but be struck by the ways in which changes in Language that have been instituted in recent months, as detailed below, mirror change in language. Like language change, they are in part arbitrary, they often fit into existing patterns, they are to some extent (but not entirely) functionally driven, they sometimes reflect changes in a larger social enterprise, and so on. Each one is a discrete innovation, perhaps small in scope and maybe even virtually unnoticeable by itself; yet, when taken together they can add up to a subtle shift in the character of the journal, though not a radical one—that is, there clearly is continuity with preceding instantiations of Language.

Without wanting to overstate such parallels, I feel it is useful to chronicle these changes for you, the journal’s readership:

1

Beginning to use italics for books, journals, and dissertations in the references at the end of articles and reviews: for years, in fact, since the middle of 1966 when William Bright (taking over as editor after Bernard Bloch’s death) changed the format for references from the footnoted variety seen in the journal from its 1925 inception to their collective placement at the end of the article, Language, virtually alone among major journals in our field, has had a very ‘down’ style in its references, that is, with no quotation marks or italics. This format posed a ‘parsing’ problem in some instances, as it was not always clear where a chapter or article title ended and where the title of the book, journal, or proceedings volume containing it began; moreover, the title of a volume might seem like a subtitle for an article, or vice-versa, adding to the potential confusion. As a boundary marker between article/chapter and volume, we have introduced in this issue italics for book and journal titles.¹ This move has the added benefit of bringing Language more in line with the style used in a good many other journals in the field, and thus is a step, admittedly a small one, towards a uniform discipline-wide standard format.²

2

Alphabetizing the book notice table of contents by book title: we started doing this a few issues ago but have now refined our technique so that the table of contents is always alphabetized (and generally the order of notices in the pages of the journal is likewise); this step allows readers to see at a glance if a book that interests them is given a notice. The presentation of this information has changed over the years: for a number of years (into the late 1980s), there was generally noalphabetizing by author or title, and then for several years (at least up through 1996) there was alphabetizing by book author; more recently, there was alphabetizing by book notice author, which seems less useful. Thus, in this case, we are undoing a change, as it were, and reverting to a presentation style found earlier.

These changes have a clear functional basis, being motivated by a desire to make these parts of the journal (references and book notices) more ‘reader/user-friendly’. Other changes respond to changes in society at large, regarding technology and professional training:

3

Beginning to ask for electronic versions of hard copy submissions (thus altering the stance I enunciated in this column in Language 78.2.218, 2002, where we explicitly asked for no electronic versions); note that we still ask for hard copy as electronic copies are not infallible (with potential for font problems, unopenable files, and the like). These ‘e-submissions’ can facilitate aspects of the review process and thus seem to be an important step forward into the twenty-first century.

4

Another technologically motivated move: expansion of the journal’s website (www.lsadc.org/language) to include a link listing forthcoming articles...