"If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders
of giants."
2004 has seen the retirement, early or otherwise, from
full-time duties of several major figures in French
Language Studies in the UK, including the following I
personally am aware of:
Rodney Ball (Southampton), John N Green (Bradford),
Ian Mason (Heriot-Watt), David Nott (Lancaster) and
Carol Sanders (Surrey).
Happily of course, they are all remaining very active in
several areas, and I know for a fact that we can still look
forward to numerous excellent publications from them.
What a huge contribution each of them has made to our
discipline over the years!
Our bookshelves are crammed with their publications, our
memories are filled with the wonderful conference papers
they have given.
Inspirational teachers all, in both linguistics and
language!
What generosity they have shown in their work for
AFLS (and other associations) - committee service,
organising conferences, editing JFLS and the CILT/AFLS book
series, etc.
And it is probably no exaggeration to say that, without
Carol, AFLS might simply never have come into being.
To them all, our very sincere gratitude.
Aidan
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Aidan Coveney
University of Exeter
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