The meeting was called to order and the agenda was presented to the General Assembly.
1. Approval of minutes (from the Montreal meeting in 2011)
The participants are invited to read the minutes of the general assembly that took place in Montreal for the 13th IADA conference. After a question related to the fees, the minutes are approved unanimously.
2. Membership
Participants are reminded that membership is now obligatorily connected with the journal,Language and Dialogue, for a standard fee of 80 Euros and a student fee of 50 Euros. In addition, scholars coming from Tier B and Tier C countries will have the possibility of benefiting from this new package for a reduced fee of 60 euros for both journal and membership. Students from TierB and Tier C countries will also pay a student fee of 50 euros.
Given this connection with the journal, IADA now has to pay a minimum of 50 journal subscriptions per year to John Benjamins, i.e., 2,500 euros/year. However, given the current low level of membership, François Cooren proposes that from now on all the registration fees of IADA’s yearly events automatically include the payment of membership fees to the association. This would mean an increase of roughly 70 euros for all these events, but would secure income for the association, which has become a necessity.
After some discussions regarding the pros and cons of this proposal, this proposition is unanimously adopted. It will be effective for the workshop that is planned in Austin, TX in 2013. This means that all participants in this event will automatically become members of our association.
In addition to the journal subscription, IADA membership also includes a 30% discount on the volumes in Dialogue Studies, published by John Benjamins, the right to vote on all issues pertaining to the life of the Association, as stipulated in the IADA Constitution, as well as reduced registration fees at the IADA conferences, symposia and workshops.
3. New website
IADA now has a new website, which was launched last year and is managed in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal. The address is http://www.iada-web.org. The members can renew their membership through this website, they can download the online proceedings of former conferences and they can access a lot of information related to IADA.
4. Finances
Lawrence Berlin, treasurer of the association, announces that the balance just before the Turku conference was US$6,765.82. A payment was, however, made to John Benjamins during the event to cover the cost of the 1-year Language and Dialogue journal charges (EUR 2,500.00) in the amount of US$3,334.05.
This leaves the association with the balance of US$3,431.77.
5. Publications
The participants are encouraged to submit manuscripts to Language and Dialogue, as well as book projects to the collection Dialogue Studies, edited by Edda Weigand, and published by John Benjamins. Scholars can also submit volume proposals to the online series, which is available on the IADA website. So far this series has been only devoted to proceedings, but it is reminded that it can also be used as an outlet for book or edited book proposals.
6. Future activities: Austin, Texas
The participants are reminded that two IADA events are coming up:
- In 2013, a IADA workshop titled, “Dialogue in Multilingual, Multimodal, & Multi-competent Communities of Practice” will be hosted in Austin, Texas, USA and organized by Dale Koike, Carl Blyth, Hans Boas and Jürgen Streeck. The deadline for abstracts will be announced soon
- The location of the 15th conference of IADA has not been decided yet, but some discussions are taking place around the possibility of having it either in Italy (Bologna) or Brazil.
7. NADAs
Members then discuss the question of NADAs (National associations for dialogue analysis). Two years ago, an Italian colleague proposed to create an Italian association for dialogue analysis, a proposition that was then countered by other Italian colleagues. After some discussion, the IADA executive committee decided not to recognize the creation of this Italian association, given the controversy that this idea triggered. It remains that IADA does not have so far some clear guidelines regarding the creation of national associations. After some discussions during the assembly in Montreal, it appears that three options seem to be possible:
- IADA could create guidelines that would dictate how such national associations would be created and then recognized by IADA. Right now, the question of national associations is not mentioned anywhere in the by-laws of the association.
- Another solution would be to let people create the associations that they want to create, as long as IADA is not officially involved. However, this option might be problematical when people start to use the name “NADA” if IADA does not recognize them.
- A third option would be to let the executive committee make adhoc decision depending on the kind of proposal that is made. So far, we have two national associations that are more or less officially affiliated with IADA: a Romanian association for dialogue analysis and a Scandinavian association, but none of them appear on the website or are officially recognized in the by laws.
The issue is discussed and the assembly comes to the conclusion that the second option is the best one. This means that IADA will not recognize any national association. However, it goes without saying that people will have to ask permission to organize a IADA event in their country or region of the world, given that the name and reputation of IADA is involved.
It is also proposed that IADA encourage the sharing of information between members of the same country. François Cooren reminds the participants that with the new website, it will be soon possible for each member to have information about other IADA members, which should address this question.
- Elections
Before taking the election, François Cooren gives the floor to Professor Edda Weigand, who is the current president of the association. Professor Weigand announces that she will not renew her term as president of the association and hope that the next president will continue to increase membership and develop activities. She wishes good luck to the association.
François Cooren thanks Edda Weigand for all her contributions to the association. He also proposes that Professor Weigand be named Honorary President and founding vice-president of the association. This proposition is adopted unanimously.
François Cooren also thanks Lawrence Berlin for all his contributions as treasurer of the association.
The 12 candidates for the board are then presented and the election takes place. 13 members cast their vote, in addition to the nine votes that were electronically sent to the association.
The nine elected members are:
Letizia Caronia 18 votes
François Cooren 22 votes
Sebastian Feller (absent) 16 votes
Anita Fetzer (absent) 19 votes
Luisa Granato 19 votes
Marion Grein (absent) 19 votes
Cornelia Ilie (absent) 14 votes
Alain Trognon 18 votes
Elda Weizman 18 vote
The assembly was then adjourned.
Respectfully submitted
François Cooren
IADA secretary 2009-2012