Introducing SLR

Who we are                            Meet the Editorial Staff!

 

Introducing SLR

SLR is a fully refereed, interdisciplinary  international journal on theoretical and experimental aspects of SLA: "second language acquisition" (not be confused with "second language teaching" ). It started up in 1985 as a continuation, albeit as a higher status publication, of the Interlanguage Studies Bulletin (ISBu), founded at the English department of Utrecht University in 1977 by James Pankhurst and Mike Sharwood Smith.

Prehistory

ISBu was intended to be a European-based "working papers" publication for SLA research and was initially distributed free of charge. SLR was then less than ten years old as an independent area of study. ISBu was distributed (and later sold) to more than 30 different countries and contains articles by many people who were or were to become outstanding in their particular areas of specialisation. Some of those contributions were about teaching rather than acquisition proper.

Background

When SLR was founded, it was decided to make it a uniquely theoretical, i.e., non-applied journal. Up to that point, all journals that contained papers on SLA also contained published more practically oriented contributions and hence were more broadly based. The gamble to go theoretical eventually paid off. SLR now appears four times a year without conceding any loss of quality. This testifies to the way SLA as an autonomous field of research has developed since 1985.

In September, 1999, the SLR Editorial Office moved from Utrecht to Scotland, and specifically to Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and the first editorial meeting took place at the new office on November 5th of that year. In 2001, Liz Thoday took over from Paola Escudero as the new editorial assistant and on January 1st, 2002 James Pankhurst retired from his post as editor and became Editor Emeritus. His successor was Roger Hawkins, University of Essex, Colchester, England. A  second editorial assistant, Cristo Lozano, was appointed to assist him. In 2006, Julieta Saad took over as Editorial Assistant at the Edinburgh desk.

In 2006, Sage Publications took over the publishing of SLR and its sister journals from Hodder Arnold.

 

 

 

 

Roger Hawkins

Editor, Colchester

The Editors

 Link to London Desk

 Caroline Sparrow

Sage Publications

 

 

 

Mike Sharwood Smith

Editor, Edinburgh

Margaret Thomas

Review Editor

James Pankhurst 

Editor Emeritus 

 

  

 Julieta Saad

Editorial Assistant

Edinburgh Desk

 

Elizabeth Thoday

Former Editorial Assistant

Edinburgh Desk

 Cristobal Lozano

Former Editorial Assistant

Colchester Desk

 

 

 

 

                                 

Editorial Board

John Archibald University of Calgary

Ellen Broselow, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Harald Clahsen, University of Essex

Kevin Gregg, St Andrew's University, Osaka, Japan

Makiko Hirakawa, Tokyo International University

Alan Juffs, University of Pittsburgh

Usha Lakshmanan, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale

Donna Lardiere, Georgetown University, Washington

Juana Liceras, University of Ottawa

Paul Meara, University of Wales, College of Swansea

Manfred Pienemann, University of Paderborn

Bonnie Schwartz, University of Durham

Larry Selinker, Birkbeck College, University of London

Antonella Sorace, University of Edinburgh

Rex Sprouse,  Indiana University

Ianthi Maria Tsimpli, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Shigenori Wakabayashi, Prefectural Women's University,Japan

Lydia White, McGill University, Montreal



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