THE SLAVIC COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ASSOCIATION (SCLA)

History and Aims

The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA) is an affiliate of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association (ICLA) and pursues a fourfold mission:

• To promote Cognitive Linguistics, and particularly to encourage graduate students and junior faculty to pursue research on the Slavic languages in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics;
• To encourage and support training in research methodologies, including experimental methods, data collection, corpus methods, and statistical analysis;
• To encourage practical application of Cognitive Linguistics, particularly in the development of pedagogical materials for the teaching of Slavic languages;
• To encourage interdisciplinary applications of Cognitive Linguistics, particularly in the area of literary analysis.

Laura A. Janda (then of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and now at the University of Tromsø) and Stephen M. Dickey (then of the University of Virginia and now at the University of Kansas) founded the Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association (SCLA) in Spring 2000 and was approved as an affiliate of the International Cognitive Linguistics Association in 2001. The inaugural conference for the group was held at UNC-Chapel Hill in Autumn 2000. The organization has continued annual meetings in most years since then, either independently or in collaboration with other organizations for Cognitive Linguistics or Slavic Linguistics.

SCLA Constitution

At the SCLC-2009 business meeting, we resolved to form a Constitutional Committee consisting of the President and Vice-President in order to revise the SCLA constitution to simplify the document and bring it into line with the practices of the organization since its founding in 2000. We formulated a new draft and circulated that in advance of the SCLC-2010 business meeting, at which we adopted the current constitution. An amendment was added after the 2012 SCLC at the University of Zagreb and ratified at the 2014 SCLC at Harvard University by a vote of the members. The current constitution is available here (SCLA Constitution 2014).

SCLA Officers

The current SCLA officers are:

• Mateusz-Milan Stanojevic (University of Zagreb), President since June 2023
• Stephen Dickey (University of Kansas), Vice-President/President-Elect since June 2023

SCLA officers consist of a President and Vice-President/President-Elect who serve for indefinite terms of at least three years. The Vice-President/President-Elect succeeds the President and a new Vice-President/President-Elect is elected. The previous association President continues to serve as Past-President in an advisory role. The most recent SCLA elections were held at the SCLC-2023 conference. The next elections will be held sometime in or after 2026.