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The following is an extract from the recent Bulletin issued by the Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. Discussions around these issues are quite obviously at the centre of AFLS' current concerns. Unfortunately, I cannot rearrange my teaching in order to attend, and I was wondering if there are any AFLS members who are planning to be there. If so, could they send me a short report summarising the day which I will then circulate? thanks, Florence Myles 2. ISSUES IN POSTGRADUATE TRAINING FOR LINGUISTICS, 06 December 2002, CILT, Covent Gardens, London. Friday 6th December 2002 11.00 - 15.00. CILT (The Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research) Covent Garden, London Lunch and refreshments will be provided The Linguistics Advisory Group in the Subject Centre for Languages Linguistics and Area Studies receives a number of enquiries about Postgraduate training for Linguistics and we propose to hold a meeting on Friday 6th December 2002 to allow the linguistics community an opportunity to discuss current issues and challenges for institutions engaged in the delivery of postgraduate training. These issues appear to be of continuing and growing importance for Linguistics which finds itself frequently positioned within or between the social sciences (ESRC) and/or the arts (AHRB) both institutionally and where funding is concerned. Who is doing postgraduate Linguistics and what Linguistics this might involve is not always entirely clear and thus the delivery of appropriate training to meet funding or institutional, not to mention student, requirements is frequently extremely challenging. An additional problem is that students come with different backgrounds and frequently within one department or institution there are small numbers of Linguistics postgraduates. This meeting would like to provide a forum to work through these issues and perhaps to formulate a set of ideas for the future delivery of postgraduate training which will make the best use of time and resources. which we could discuss with the funding bodies. We hope that the North West Centre will be able to present to the meeting with some background data derived from two questionnaires, one addressed to postgraduate students and the other to postgraduate supervisors and providers of research training. The issues to be discussed include: · Meeting ESRC guidelines · Current developments in the AHRB · The Joint Funding Council's postion · Problems of the delivery of postgraduate training within a single institution · Opportunities for collaborative training (between institutions; regionally, nationally) · What to do with non-accredited training. · Examples of good practice in the UK (e.g. the training programme organised by the North West Centre) and perhaps elsewhere The Group discussed the possibility of inviting contributions from the major funding bodies, ESRC, AHRB and HEFCE, outlining what they have in mind for PG research training provision. We decided however that it would be sensible, as a first step, for the linguistics community itself to have an opportunity to discuss these matters before meeting the funding bodies. The Centre is willing to sponsor a second meeting with the funding bodies if that is an outcome of this meeting. Dr Florence Myles Senior Lecturer in French and Linguistics School of Modern Languages University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ UK tel (0)23 80 592269 fax (0)23 80 593288 e-mail: [log in to unmask]