12.20 p.m. Wednesday 9 August, at ICPhS 2023 in Prague
The President, Michael Ashby, took the chair with 56 members and 6 non-members in attendance.
1. Minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the IPA General Meeting of 5 August 2019 in Melbourne as published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association vol. 49(3) were agreed on as being a correct record.
2. Matters arising
Most matters arising from the previous minutes were addressed in reports given later in this meeting.
3. President’s introduction
The President welcomed members to the meeting noting the particularly challenging nature of the intervening years as a result of the global pandemic. He thanked the Congress Chair (Radek Skarnitzl) and the Organizing Committee for their work in hosting the 20th ICPhS and for welcoming ICPhS delegates to Prague for the second time. The President highlighted some key developments for the IPA to be described later in this meeting by officers of the Association, noting in particular the decision to discontinue the IPA Exam and recent developments with regard to the IPA Chart and the publishing model for JIPA. He underscored the huge importance of the work undertaken on a voluntary basis by the IPA’s webmaster Kayoko Yanagisawa, and by Małgorzata Deroń who continues to make an immensely valuable contribution to the development of the Chart and its profiling via the website. He would also like to acknowledge the contribution of the editorial team for the foNETiks newsletter (Linda Shockey, Radek Swiecinski, Chiara Meluzzi, Martina Rossi and Lucia Sbacco) which is now well into its fourth decade of providing the phonetics community with a reliable and wide-ranging monthly flow of news and opportunities.
4. Secretary’s report
The IPA Secretary, Gerry Docherty, gave an overview of the Association’s activities in 2019–2023, noting that while the overall level of activities of the IPA had been affected by the damping effect of the global pandemic, it was hugely positive to have the community come together again at the current ICPhS. A key goal for the IPA Executive in the intervening years since 2019 had been to ensure continuity of business and to monitor the impacts of the pandemic, resulting, for example, in the no-cost extension of existing student memberships that was undertaken in April 2020 and continued through 2021.
It was noted that the IPA’s Conference Sponsorships and Student Awards Committee (CSSAC- chaired by Katerina Nicolaidis) had been a key channel for continuing to provide support to members during the pandemic, adapting its procedures to provide funding for virtual participation in online conferences. As well as the awards provided to delegates at the 2023 20th ICPhS (detailed in a full report posted on the Association’s website https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/officers-and-committee-reports), the CCSAC had provided awards to student members attending the Phonetics and Phonology in Europe Conference (June 2021), the 1st International Conference on Tone and Intonation (TAI), (originally scheduled for August 2020 but postposed to December 2021), and Speech Prosody (May 2022).
Likewise, the Committee on the Phonetic Documentation of Languages (CPDL – chaired by Patricia Keating) had continued to be active during the pandemic providing a series of awards to projects referred to it by the Endangered Language Fund or the Endangered Language Documentation Programme (detailed in the separate report posted on the Association’s website https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/officers-and-committee-reports). The chair of that Committee noted the valuable contributions made by the various volunteer reviewers who had assisted with the assessment of the requests for support.
A key task for the Secretary over the last 12 months was organising the Council elections the results of which are laid out in a separate report within this JIPA issue. All of the elections were again carried out using electronic voting, a method which in the near future should enable the IPA to operate with a shorter electoral cycle than currently stipulated.
Throughout the last 4 years, the Secretary has fielded routine inquiries about the Association and about its charts, together with a range of permission requests when the standard Creative Commons wording available on our website was insufficient from a publisher’s point of view. The Secretary would like to thank the out-going President, Michael Ashby, and the other IPA Officers for their outstanding job in ensuring that the IPA’s business maintained momentum during a four-year cycle which presented many collective and individual challenges.
5. Treasurer’s report
Treasurer Ghada Khattab presented an overview of the IPA’s financial position outlining its principal sources of income and items of expenditure.
Membership numbers have remained steady despite the global pandemic, facilitated by free renewal of student memberships in 2020 and 2021, benefiting 78 members in 2020 and 94 in 2021. Overall membership stands at 739, with members drawn from 54 countries (but with three countries – USA, UK and Germany – between them accounting for almost half of the membership).
The bulk of the Association’s income is a royalty fee from Cambridge University Press in relation to JIPA, together with membership fees. A separate Treasurer’s report is included in this issue, and the complete report has been posted on the Association’s website (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/officers-and-committee-reports).
6. Editor’s report
Editor, Marija Tabain, reported that the 2019–2023 period has seen three JIPA issues/year appearing in timely fashion containing some outstanding contributions and with a strong pipeline of papers accepted and manuscripts under review. The Editor wished to acknowledge the contributions made by co-Editor Jody Kreiman, the two Associate Editors who focus in particular on the JIPA Illustrations (Matthew Gordon and Marc Garellek) and the Associate Editors who manage regular submissions (Sonya Bird, Marzena Zygis, Patrycja Strycharczuk, Oliver Niebuhr). Thanks were also given to JIPA Audio Manager Andre Radtke, and to Editorial Assistant Adele Gregory. A separate full Editor’s report is included in this issue, and has been posted on the Association’s website (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/officers-and-committee-reports).
7. Examinations Secretary’s report
The IPA Examinations Secretary, Patricia Ashby, spoke to a report that can be accessed via the Association’s website (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/officers-and-committee-reports).
It was noted with regret that, as trailed in the discussion at the 2019 IPA General Meeting, and in consultation with the Council, the examination was terminated by the Executive on 19th June this year. This was the result of declining candidate numbers, falling pass rates, lack of premises, no funds and increasingly fewer examiners. The Examinations Secretary’s report (referred to above) provides a valedictory account of the history of the IPA Examination.
8. Election results
A full account of the 2023 Elections for the IPA Council, and for the Permanent Council for the Organization of the International Congresses of Phonetic Sciences can be found in the separate report published in this issue. The Secretary summarised the outcomes, and thanked outgoing members of the 2019–2023 Council, Bill Hardcastle, Keith Johnson, Asher Laufer, Kikuo Maekawa, Jane Stuart-Smith, Masaki Taniguchi and Weijing Zhou. Acknowledgement was also expressed for the contribution of outgoing members of the Permanent Council (Daniel Hirst, Patricia Keating, Ian Maddieson, Masaki Taniguchi and, posthumously, Anne Cutler).
9. Address by the incoming President
The new President, Katerina Nicolaidis, thanked the members of the IPA Council for their support and confidence in electing her President of the Association. She was honoured to take up the role and fully aware of the responsibility of serving the Association from a position previously held by so many eminent phoneticians that have shaped the course of the discipline and the Association. She pointed out that she comes from a country with few representatives in the IPA membership and even fewer on Council, she speaks and studies a less broadly spoken language, but a language with a very rich history; this reinforces her commitment to work on ensuring a larger spread of languages and countries in the IPA. Prof. Nicolaidis expressed her thanks to the Executive Officers for their excellent work over the past four years and welcomed the new Executive Officers noting that there was a good spread of countries and languages represented in the Executive. She stressed the importance of working on two strands of activities in the coming years: those that are of benefit to the membership and those that are of benefit to society. To accomplish this, she placed emphasis on collaborating with the different committees to ensure continuity in their work and to promote new initiatives. This includes (i) the Alphabet, Charts and Fonts Committee to continue work on Unicode proposals and on the translation of the metatext phonetic terms of the IPA chart in different languages, possibly extending this work to the extIPA symbols for disordered speech in collaboration with ICPLA, (ii) the Conference Sponsorships and Student Awards committee to broaden the scope of their activities with the introduction of a student mobility program, especially for students from countries with limited funding opportunities, (iii) the Education Committee to provide additional educational materials including short videos, tutorials on the IPA, and resources extending to languages other than English, (iv) the Phonetic Documentation of Languages Committee to increase support on the phonetic documentation of endangered languages, (v) the History Committee to enrich the information currently available on the IPA website about the history of the IPA and the speech sciences, and (vi) the Social Media and Outreach Committee to increase the IPA representation and visibility on the social media. She also recalled the points made by former President John Esling and former Vice President Daniel Recasens on the revision of the Alphabet at ICPhS 2011. She proposed setting up a forum to host proposals and facilitate discussion in preparation for a future Convention. Finally, one of the objectives of the President is to retain membership and especially those members who join in ICPhS years, mainly student members. She noted that retaining student members should be a priority for the long-term benefit of the Association. Initiatives to this end, and to increasing overall membership, relate to the benefits offered to members by the Association. Developments towards the move of JIPA to full open access in the coming years also calls for a re-examination of the member benefits, which she intends to work on. The new President stated her firm belief in collaboration, collective work, interaction and communication with the membership, and invited members to contribute to the promotion of the aims of the Association.
10. Other business
No other matters were raised by non-Council members for discussion,
11. Closing
In closing remarks, the President thanked all of the Council members he had worked with over the years, particularly the outgoing Secretary Gerry Docherty for his eight years of invaluable service to the Council, and outgoing Vice-President Amalia Arvaniti for her tireless work in that role and previously as Editor of JIPA. The President thanked the assembly and closed the meeting at 13:19 pm. The next IPA General Meeting will be held during the 21st International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in 2027. It will be chaired by the new President, Katerina Nicolaidis.
