[---Seminario de Sociolingüística---]

EDITORIAL

Since the publication of Language in Society (1972) and International Journal of the Sociology of Language (1974), there have been some periodicals in the international domain dealing with the divulgation of research and steps forward in the field of sociolinguistics and related disciplines. The monitoring of the progress of different journals also allows us to see to what extent sociolinguistics is at an interdisciplinary crossroads, which derives from the complexity of connections between linguistic and social aspects.

The journal we present, Estudios de Sociolingüística1, adopts a wide conception towards the limits of this discipline, and assumes as of its own this interdisciplinary character. In this way, Estudios de Sociolingüística (briefly, EdS) leaves room for contributions about traditional topics, i.e: linguistic variation; sociolinguistic patterns; linguistic change; varieties, styles and registers; communicative situations and speech events; microinteractional speech analysis; politeness; bilingualism, bilingual conversation and code-switching; intercultural communication; languages in contact; diglossia; pidgins and creoles; language and culture; language and identity; gender and discourse; language attitudes; linguistic ideologies; diversity of worldwide linguistic situations and descriptive models; bilingualism and multilingualism; minority languages; language loss, maintenance and revitalization; language policy and language planning; bilingual education; linguistic and social inequalities; languages and development, etc.

Nevertheless, Estudios de Sociolingüística will also leave room for contributions from related fields, such as: pragmatics, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, interactional linguistics, ethnography of communication, linguistic anthropology, ethnomethodology, language acquisition and socialization, etc. Clearly, we assume as natural the differences between schools or research orientations, and all of them will be balanced equally in EdS.

Our principal objective with this new journal is to contribute to the divulging of international knowledge and research, and to offer another forum for debates on key issues relating languages to societies and cultures. This journal is born with specific traits, that, might help to characterize it. In fact, EdS comes out in Galicia, a peripherical European area. In this sense, we adopt a sensibility and point of view of minority languages; and also, in general terms, we feel that sociolinguistics carried out in the European periphery (among others, Galician sociolinguistics) should establish a direct relationship to international research tradition, and we expect to contribute in some way to this task.

EdS is directed at a national and international specialized reading public. We consider it essential for this journal to achive a wide circulation among researchers on the international level. We are conscious that this aim requires a considerable presence in our journal of the most widely spread international languages, particulary English. Thus, we will try to respect this requirement within each of the issues. Furthermore, this pragmatism will not stifle the presence of other languages, and EdS will admit and publish studies (papers and reviews) written in Galician, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, French, Italian and English. We think that the study of linguistic and cultural heterogeneity must make an effort to set an example within the particular field of specialized publications.

EdS adopts certain basic reflections about sociolinguistics. Thus, we think, like many other colleagues and researchers, that the theoretical framework on which our work is based requires more consistence and systematization. In the same way, we as sociolinguists are not aware of what we are suposed to know about sociology, social psychology or anthropology,apart from the limited notions which, often in a stereotyped way are spread among us from these disciplines. These questions are not only of a disciplinary nature (in any case, would not be our main concern) but of an epistemological one, affecting the configuration of our conceptual and thought devices. For these reasons, EdS will dedicate special attention to those aspects of sociological, socio-psychological and anthropological theories of interest to sociolinguistic study, in its double aspect of theoretical reflection, and also by means of a "Didactics of Sociology, Social Psychology and Anthropology for sociolinguists". Some of these topics and directions must be tackled in a specific way in EdS monographic issues.

Methodological contributions from the entirety of social sciences, and which can be (or are being) useful for sociolinguistic research, will also receive the deserved attention, and will be the object of, at least, one monographic issue during the first stretch of our way.

The contribution to a systematization, at least, in part of theoretical and methodological contributions from the social and human sciences, is one of the aims that the editors of this journal had since the moment it was conceived.

Likewise, the research and theoretical debate on the complexity of phenomena and topics we can include under the label of bilingualism, constitute one of the main vertebral lines of EdS. The new impulse acquired by bilingualism studies allows us to guess a productive meeting point for sociolinguists and psycholinguists, apparts from being quit promissing in the development of the theory of language. Bilingualism (social or individual), understood in a broad sense, will then be widely dealt with from a sociolinguistic, psychosociolinguistic, pragmatic, conversational, educational and planning perspective.

EdS will have two issues a year. A great deal of the issues of EdS will be monographical because we think that thematic gathering of materials is specially interesting for researchers.

EdS has a Scientific Committee consisting of specialists from different countries, which represent a diversity of perspectives and research orientations. The papers received by the secretary of this journal will be evaluated by, at least, two members of the Scientific Committeee, specialists in the research line of the particular paper. We will always preserve the author’s anonymity. In the light of the scientific committee’s reports, the Editorial Committee will decide about its publication. This process aims to guarantee the high quality of the journal’s content.

The Editors of EdS would like to invite researchers to contribute to this journal, by sending us papers and reviews, suggestions or proposals to prepare monographical issues, etc.

We believe in that the two issues per year of Estudios de Sociolingüística could make a place for themselves in the library shelves and among researchers readings.