Making Your Work Relevant

Led by Walt Wolfram and John Baugh

This workshop addresses how linguists can make their work relevant and meaningful to the communities in which they conduct their research. It will be structured around a series of fundamental questions relating to how we, as scholars, 'give back', as opposed to 'take', be it information, data, and the like from communities. It will be led by John Baugh and Walt Wolfram, two sociolinguists who have had an impact on the communities they study. These scholars have thought and written about methodological approaches to serving communities, and they have contemplated issues regarding the researcher's capacity to do such work, including best practices.

Questions to be discussed include:

• What does it mean to do community-based research?
• How does one approach such work and how does one carry it out?
• How does one's desire to serve community affect their research question?
• How does service to a research community fit into linguistics (and linguistics departments)?
• How does one balance research with service?
• What role can sociolinguists play in advocating for the communities we research?
• By advocating for communities we research, does this make us less objective scholars?
• Assuming that a research/service agenda is desirable, is there grant money to support it?