Welcome to the Language and Social Processes SIG website! I hope you find the site useful in providing you with information regarding the LSP SIG, along with ways you might become more involved with the group. Founding members, such as David Bloome, Celia Genishi, and Judith Green, imagined the LSP SIG in the early 1970s. Since its inception, the LSP SIG has provided its members space for thoughtful debate, discussion, and consideration of issues regarding language processes and the sociopolitical contexts through which these unfold.
 

Critical to the LSP SIG is its mentoring of graduate students and early career scholars, and we are working to create spaces for more senior scholars to contribute insights and suggestions to this process. We have recently launched a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1423636351209251/) and a Twitter account (https://twitter.com/LspSig), which we plan to continue building. Please let us know suggestions you may have to invigorate the SIG’s online presence. 
 
Each year the LSP SIG recognizes one or two graduate students or early career scholars by presenting the Emerging Scholar Award at its business meeting at AERA’s annual conference. At the 2014 meeting the LSP SIG will present the inaugural winner of the John J. Gumperz Memorial Award for Distinguished Lifetime Scholarship, demonstrating the SIG’s continued interest in its ‘foundations and frontiers.’ In the fall, please consider nominating one of your colleagues or students for the appropriate award.
 

The LSP SIG, particularly through its business meeting at AERA’s annual conference, provides opportunities for scholars across traditions and interests to present research and engage in rich conversations. Please consider submitting a proposal for next year’s conference, or volunteering to review proposals.
 

On behalf of Mariana Souto-Manning (program chair), Sarah Vander Zanden (newsletter-web editor), Kate Anderson (secretary/treasurer), Allison Wynhoff Olsen and Katie Bernstein (graduate student representatives), Audra Skukauskaite (ESA committee chair), Louise Jennings and Vivian Vasquez (Gumperz Award committee chairs), and Beth Yeager (past chair), I thank you for your ongoing support of the LSP SIG and I look forward to seeing you at the convention!
 
W. Douglas Baker
LSP SIG Chair
[email protected]