Personal and Professional Reflections on the History and Future of the JLS P

As some readers will know, I announced my retirement as Editor of the Journal of Language and Social Psychology (JLSP) in November 2022 and was gratified by the many genuinely generous and gracious letters of support I received at that time. Now, crafting a formal farewell to this role for over 40 years is a bitter-sweet moment. On the one hand, I am relieved not to deal with managing submissions and enquiries while on vacation, and explaining away such distractions to my beloved and patient spouse, Jane. On the other hand, I will miss, and am enormously indebted to, the amazing back-up, camaraderie, and support of my dedicated Editorial Boards, 3 devoted Associate Editors (see below), 5 Editorial Assistants (Angie Williams, Laurie Lewis, Laura Jansma, & Paul Myers, over the period 1989–2007, with Heather Clark serving 20 of these years), the very efficient SAGE production team and allied Staff ¹ (and especially Martha Avtandilian who has been my “boss” and, for 10 years, generously providing wise counsel at the drop of a hat on innumerable occasions), as well as the most recent batch of extraordinary external referees for their comprehensive and insightful feedback acknowledged in a separate section contained in this Issue.

Furthermore, I could not have wished to end my reign in a more resounding way with this particular double Special Issue. This was a model of Guest Editing by the uber-efficient Bogdana Humă (and her co-editors) – and I have been blessed by first class Guest Editors (and their guest editorial boards) on over 30 Special Issues on wide-ranging topics (see listings Giles, 2012, p. 357; Giles et al., 2021, p. 5) with, in addition to this Issue, two most recently in 2021 (the 40th. Anniversary and Language and Covid-19 Issues) and another in 2022 (on Language and Black Lives Matters). Three of the Special Issues overall were edited by the SPL icon, Cindy Gallois, who sadly died this year (see Obituary by Liz Jones and Bernadette Watson in this Issue). But to return to this current Issue, it is an absolute delight to end with a robust qualitative package of work reflecting my commitment and respect for methodological eclecticism (aided by the invaluable assistance and expertise of Karen Tracy). It is also “sweet” to know that I am passing the baton on to an enthusiastic Editor-Elect, Nik Palomares, who is eager to begin his tenure. The actual choice of Editor was in the hands of SAGE and, hence ultimately, Martha above, with the vital input of the International Association of Language and Social Psychology (IALSP) President Jessica Gasiorek and her committed Executive Committee. Indeed, it was gratifying to find so many scholars wishing to take up the Editorial gauntlet at some time in their careers and, even more so, for the interest of the other short-listed, scholastically-impressive, candidates.

In this commentary, I will provide a selective overview of the JLSP's history to date (for more details and thematic analyses, see Gasiorek et al., 2012; Giles, 2012; Giles et al., 2021 [co-authored with the late Cindy Gallois, see below]; Pitts & Watson, 2012) as well as some personal visions for future research in SPL.

A Story of the Genesis and Development of the JLSP

In 1980, I approached Mike and Marjukka Grover, my friends, owners, and Publishers of Multilingual Matters Ltd. in Clevedon, England, with the idea of their publishing the Journal of Language and Social Psychology; they had previously published their first journal, the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development (JMMD) in 1980. Many events, including those below chronologically-listed (but not necessarily in order of their potency) had profound effects on me that triggered a proposal to launch the JLSP:

In 1972, Henri Tajfel (Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Bristol, England) appointed me a Research Associate from his Ford Foundation grant to continue work on the evaluation of accented speakers and my (then) speech accommodation theory, and also to write/edit two books on language (Speech Style and Social Evaluation with Peter Powesland, 1975, and Language and Ethnic Relations, 1977). Gratifyingly, Henri funded a postdoctoral appointment with Wally Lambert in Canada who, alongside Roger Brown and Bob Gardner, was one of the pioneers of sociopsychology work on language and intergroup relations. This visit to McGill University was healthily extended and sponsored with Henri's and Wally's consent and I visited McGill a number of times thereafter; their support, along with that of Don Taylor, Richard Bourhis, Lise Simard, John Edwards, and Richard Clément in Montreal, was pivotal in fueling my passion for developing the furtherance of the social psychology of language (SPL).

This also spurred my interest in interdisciplinary work and to my convening three panels at: the “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Language” Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 1976, the 9th World Congress on Sociology, in Uppsala, Sweden, in July 1978, and (with Klaus Scherer) a workshop on social markers in speech at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris in October, 1977. These occasions cumulatively resulted in three edited volumes in 1979.

It was, arguably, the Kentucky event above and the publication that followed it – which also led to a follow-up volume in 1980 with Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers - that was an enormous impetus for me to further develop SPL. The volume that emerged, co-edited with Robert St. Clair in 1979, was titled, Language and Social Psychology, and appeared in Peter Trudgill's Blackwell Book Series called, “Language in Society”. Not only was it the inaugural volume in this largely sociolinguistically-oriented series, but the Editors’ Preface (again by Peter Trudgill, but also co-authored with the equally-influential linguists, William Labov and Ralph Fasold) included the following (p. ix):

…linguistic attitudes and stereotypes can be a powerful force in influencing linguistic behavior, and ultimately linguistic forms themselves. Linguists must therefore look to social psychologists for explanatory analyses and concepts in the examination of the social psychological factors at work in, for example, linguistic change. In fact, however, the amount of mutual benefit that has been derived remains as yet relatively small.

Tellingly, they also wrote then that:

Social psychologists have only infrequently resorted to linguistic analyses. And while social psychology has had a considerable influence on the study of foreign language learning and teaching, social psychology has had comparatively little influence on sociolinguistics. It is to the latter omission that this book is primarily directed.

Girded by these sentiments, the foundational work outlined above, and together with the success of the First International Conference on Language and Social Psychology (ICLASP), Peter Robinson and I convened in Bristol July 1979 (see Giles et al., 1980), I was gratified to receive the Grovers’ positive response to the genesis of our forum, and that SPL could be a viable sub-discipline of language alongside the established terrains of sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, anthropological linguistics, and the sociology of language (Giles, 1985). Given ICLASP18 is being organized in Tallinn, Estonia, June 2024 (see the Announcement of this event in this, past and future, Issues) and the fact that the JLSP is well into its 4th decade and the future Editorship in the good (and innovative) hands of Nik Palomares, SPL is in a very healthy position as previously manifest by Handbooks of SPL with Peter Robinson and myself in 1990 and 2001 and a more recent one by Holtgraves (2006), as well as by the thrust of Harwood and Tracy's (2021) Epilogue to the 40th. Anniversary Issue.

Significant Events in the Unfolding of the Journal

In addition to above information on how the JLSP was founded, the following are among significant events emerging over the years:

The initial 15 Editorial Board members of the JLSP were extraordinary scholars whose identities ² represented the Who's Who in the SPL at that time (and historically so) who stayed with us through the early 1990s. Of these, Chuck Berger, Stan Feldstein, Pete Robinson stayed on with us into the 2010s, each amounting to over 20 years of service and another, Bob Gardner, remained until 2020. Our initial and committed Book Editor until 1994 (succeeded by Sik Hung Ng) was John Edwards who moved on from this role to become Editor of the JMMD. He remained on as an invaluable member of Editorial Board to this day.

Of those added in the 2010s, 11 remain to this very year. ³ Many other scholars did work with us with us over the years for more limited terms, ⁴ and more recently, other stalwarts were added to the team and are luminaries in SPL. ⁵

During the period I was elected Editor of Human Communication Research (1992–1995), Kathy Kellermann and Jim Bradac stepped up to the plate and co-edited Issues 12–13 (#2), and Jim courageously and assiduously remained and co-edited the Journal with me until his death in 2004. Many recipients of his decision letters had no idea that it took him sometimes more than two days to compose and write letter-by-letter via an eye-blink machine, given he suffered from ALS. He is memorialized with an Annual Bradac Lecture in his home Department (sponsored by SAGE), a number of whose presentations appeared in the JLSP, and with an annual named Graduate Student Research Award there, and also with a biennial Early Career Award with IALSP and presented at ICLASPs.

In 1993, SAGE, due in large part to the backing and support of Sara Miller McCune, purchased the Journal. Given the prime and prestigious position of this academic publishing house, this change in ownership underscored the JLSP's status and visibility in social psychological, language, and communication research.

At the ICLASP Conference in 1997, IALSP was officially inaugurated and, the following year, formally associated with the JLSP, with its logo on the front page and website. Indeed, many Guest Edited Special JLSP Issues (including a triple one in 1983 and the most recent one edited by Maggie Pitts in 2019) could, essentially, be regarded as Proceedings of ICLASPs, or specific panels arising from them, and/or IALSP Task Forces. Indeed, Anastassia Zabrodskaja has already been invited to Guest Edit from papers arising from ICLASP18, in Tallinn, June 2024.

Collaborations between the JLSP and IALSP have continued fruitfully over the years, including the announcing of ICLASPs and IALSP Awards and Honors in the former, the latter's Presidents establishing subcommittees to decide the biennial JLSP Best Paper Award – I would prefer the Award to be re-labeled, “Outstanding Paper” – introduced in 2007 and, in 2000, the JLSP Jake Harwood Outstanding Book celebrating Jake's 20 years of prodigious scholarship as Book Review Editor. In 2016, the JLSP introduced Best/Outstanding Reviewer Award, subsequently naming it the Brian Spitzberg Award in 2020 for his continued and remarkable work as an article reviewer (see Volumes 40 (2) & 41 (5) for a list of recent and past recipients of the aforementioned). [As a postscript, some readers know that a Book Reviewer was not reinstated and a big part of me felt that the lack of such outlets across the journals these days was a loss. Included in this Issue, is my last service to the readership in terms of New Books Alerts (2022–2204) relevant to different subgroups of SPL – and it is a bumper one, double the size of any of the last three. I do encourage you to zip or scroll down the list as I am confident – even guarantee – you will find more than one cite that could be worth following up.]

In 2014, SAGE expanded the number of Issues to 6 and, in 2012, Karen Tracy was invited onboard as an Associate Editor to reflect and assist in “selling” the wide range of qualitative contributions to the Journal (and integral to the eclecticism of SPL). In 2011, Joe Walther was added to promote our commitment to the burgeoning work in new technology and language and, in 2022, Dave Markowitz was added as Managing Editor of Social and New Media to increase the societal visibility of relevant articles appearing in the Journal. These three Associates have been stellar and extraordinary resources.

While I feel our Impact Factor does not yet do justice to a consensus about our influence in the language, communication, and psychological sciences, our Editorial Board and external reviewers have maintained a high standard of excellence and currently (aside from Special Issue contributions) our acceptance rate is around 9%. Even though Manuscript Central does convey “reject” decisions when they occur, I have not complied with this very term as I have always found it affectively problematic. Due to the mentorship and scientific warm heart of Wally Lambert to colleagues, I have always (and despite the quotation below) invoked the term “non-acceptance” with authors and tried to let them down gently, appreciate the effort undergirding their research and reporting of it, and hoped that (in the cold light of day) they would recognize the invaluable feedback provided them. This I believe has been successful to the extent that I have received numerous letters such as, for example: “Thank you very much for the first rejection letter in my academic career that made me smile! Your feedback is very elaborate, valuable, and encouraging”.

In the last few years, we have grown to around 240 submissions per annum. At the time of nearly completing this article (August 21, 2023), we have a 43% increase in submissions as of this date last year (i.e., 62 articles). This is a very encouraging increase and I anticipate 300 or so submissions by the end of the calendar year. Now, this is not to say that all submissions are, of course, found to be appropriately-crafted for our journal, many of which have not accommodated our printed or online guidelines, style, or even the SPL literature. For your amusement perhaps, the most egregious of which was the following title: “Single and Synergetic Protective Effects of Geranium wallichianum, Elaeagnus parvifolia and Taraxacum officinale in Acute Liver Injury in male Albino mice"! So, and in large part, to protect our reviewers, I have sent out a fair number of desk “non-acceptances”. Very often these researchers who submit an ill-fitting paper are very junior scholars inexperienced at finding the appropriate forum for publishing their work. I then research more appropriate outlets in other journals for them – and those oftentimes not cited within their own submission. From returned messages, this investment seems rewarding for those trying to find their way and, also, does the journal no harm in being seen to be accommodating to scholars from other traditions.

And Now? Whither?

I have always found Schrodt's (2023) Editorial as incoming Editor of Communication Monographs intriguing, even to the extent of his opening quote from Semisonic: “Every new beginning comes from other beginning's end”. Therein, he differentiates between “good” and “great” research that “…provides newsworthy findings that appeal to a cosmopolitan audience” (p. 3), and his preference for the latter over the former was research that is:

Thought-provoking rather than thoughtful questions

Advancing theory rather than referencing it

Adopting the right method well rather than using it

Producing news-worthy findings rather than new ones, and

Written for a relatively broad global audience rather than a narrow, specialized ones

Clearly, we can also resonate to such criteria (and others) for past and future pages of the JLSP! However, I portend that it is the nature of such “great” research that is just as important. Alongside and conceding the value of current, renewed, and profound pleas in general social psychology for what has been called “public” or “citizenry” psychology, I yearn for more work of this genre in the SPL. More specifically, Tropp (2023) has argued that such work should be guided by key principles relevant to our purposes, namely, “centering social problems …as the core drivers of research; engaging diverse publics at every stage of the research process; and communicating and democratizing psychological knowledge through conversations and collaborations with the public” (p. 43; see also, Tropp, 2018). Similarly, Abrams (2022) wrote that we should “simply start with the question: How I can help?” adding that “…part of our responsibility…is to professionally evolve….continually updating our knowledge base, not only in new research and theories, but also the practice of how to engage in psychology. We have to take it upon ourselves to learn new ways of doing” (p. 47). In communication, Waldeck (2023) echoes these sentiments by claiming “we are a natural fit for helping to address real-world, applied needs” and that “we should feel a responsibility to extend our work to improve the world” (p. 99), while others of a kindred spirit urge researchers to make their work “…more accessible through translation and application” (Martinez et al., 2023, p. 83).

Obviously, there are many societal challenges these days and Calafell (2021), in her introductory Editorial., spelt out a range of compelling topics she felt it imperative for her journal to engage, such as “white supremacy…decoloniality…imperialism…coalition-building…digital humanities” (p. 2), to name but a few. For my part, I would direct us to consider current voter life concerns in the nations and communities where readers live. In the USA, they would include discourses attending: the economy and inflation; mass murders in schools, malls, and elsewhere, including issues of gun control; the causes and dire effects of homelessness; the back-tracking of 50 years of laws and civils rights; threats to democracy; climate change and “natural” disasters; election denials; seemingly absurd political polarizations and threats to democracy; extreme political rhetoric and hate speech/acts targeting various social groups; and charities’ work and outreach to fight child cancer. Now, their diversity and complexity is, of course, monumental, and I believe we also need to theoretically address common and intersectional communication threads between these issues and events, and to articulate compelling research questions arising from them, if we are going to increase the societal value of our sub-discipline. I acknowledge that mere “pandering” to public tastes and communal voter concerns can have its drawbacks, if undertaken sheepishly. This is not my intent but, rather, to propose a complementary horizon and vision that may, in tandem with other advocates elsewhere, foster resilience and humane sustainability for scholar-teachers themselves (see, for example, Broekelman & Mazer, 2023; Norander, 2023).

Finally here, some of us are so over-stretched and fatigued by life and work that we are not sufficiently mindful about or impervious to events that hit the airwaves; language novelties constantly permeate our social and media ecologies. Not unrelatedly, I have been bemused by what I contend to be a recent phenomenon suddenly appearing on American TV, with ads about a plethora of emergent medications having unique and obscure name labels that can even follow each other on the screen and repeatedly so. In a mere couple hours of watching advertising intermissions recently, I came across just the following (and I know I have seen many others):

AREXVY; ASTERPRO; BERBERINE; DUPIXENT; FARXIGA; FLAVINOID; INGREZZA; JARDIANCE; NEURIVA; NUTRAFOL; OMEGAXL; OTEZLA; PREVAGEN; QUILIPTA; QUTENZA; RINVOQ; RYBELSUS; SOTYKTUS; SKYRIZI; TEPEZZA; TREMFYA; UBRELVY; VERZENIO; VRAYCAR; ZYRTEC.

Interestingly, not only do these medications allegedly aid specific symptoms, but they are also presented as relieving other much wider-ranging conditions as well. How do manufacturers come by these name labels, and why? ⁶ What effects are the seemingly bombardment of ads pertaining to ailments and medications doing to our senses? What cognitive messages and somatic impacts are being created, and for what communities of viewers?

Conclusion

In this essay, and begging your indulgence, although personal academic “journeys” are not entirely rare (see Worrell, 2023), I have provided, albeit admittedly personalized (and perhaps biased) views of how the JLSP emerged and developed with respect to some key moments. In addition, I have provided some suggestions about how the social psychology of language, and this journal specifically, could benefit and grow in a number of ways, not least of which would be by renewed efforts in engaging societally-meaningful research questions. Throughout, the inclination herein is that the prospects for the journal have become increasingly positive and that the new Editor has characteristics, inclinations, energy, and creativity that will insure this forum can and will take a quantum leap forward. One modest contributor to this optimism is that I was approached by another Publisher who wished to add the JLSP to their armory. In said appeal, the executive wrote: “We have long admired the quality of the research and the insights that the journal provides to its research community, and we believe that this acquisition would be an excellent opportunity to expand our presence in this field.”

In some respects, I have had to be a gate-keeper for the journal and believe the gate will open a little wider with our fresh and enlightened Editor. While bitter-sweet sentiments opened up my monologue, I end in upbeat fashion in having been really privileged to work and serve in this leadership capacity and I, again, underscore my indebtedness to the undiluted patience and unwavering support of my Editorial Boards, Associate Editors, and SAGE personnel spearheaded by Martha Avtandilian. I will continue to enjoy my connection with the Journal for the next two years as Founding and Consulting Editor for the new Editor-in-Chief. Moves will soon be afoot to solidify the relationships between IALSP, SAGE, and the JLSP yet further, not least of which will be the institutionalization of concrete steps to follow when future successions of Editors arise. Needless to say, I know the journal is in superb hands - and that the Editor-Elect, Nik Palomares, will be an undoubted success!