When I took up linguistics as an undergraduate in 1974, no-one seemed to know what it was. That was excusable then, but now, nearly 50 years later, there remains an ignorance about linguistics, at least in the UK, that I find dismaying and am determined to address. Babel (the magazine) is one strand of public engagement which addresses this shortfall in understanding, but I am also the Chair of UCGAL, University Council for General and Applied Linguistics, which is an umbrella group bringing together all the professional organisations for academic linguists in the UK. Through this organisation we aim to promote linguistics to the public, to potential students and to decision-makers (from government to school curriculum designers).
In 2022 we were fortunate to be given the chance to run a stall at the British Academy summer showcase, choosing to promote the discipline in general, rather than individual institutions or departments. We also began the process of collecting links to all the amazing materials available and displaying these on our website. We now want to increase the visibility of our discipline (and it is a discipline!) by means of further online presence and by a national linguistics festival.
Watch our website for more news of UCGAL (www.linguistics.ac.uk) and follow us on Twitter (@linguisticsuk) for updates.
Lesley Jeffries 