Elections 2007
IPA Executive Committee
In June 2007, the new IPA Council elected the following Executive Committee members to serve from 2007 to 2011:
The President, Gösta Bruce, and the Vice-President, Daniel Recasens, will also serve as ex-officio members of the Permanent Council for the Organisation of ICPhS.
IPA General Meeting 2007
11.40 a.m. Tuesday 7 August, at ICPhS 2007 in Saarbrücken
The President, Prof. John C. Wells, took the chair.
Apologies received: John D. M. H. Laver
Before introducing the agenda, President John C. Wells requested that the assembly take a moment to remember the IPA members who have died since the last Congress. Among those was Peter Ladefoged to whom he expressed thanks and admiration on behalf of the Association.
1 Minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the General Meeting of 5 August 2003 in Barcelona as published in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association vol. 33 (2) were agreed as a correct record. The President signed the minutes as correct.
2 Matters arising
There were no matters arising from the previous minutes.
3 President's introduction
The President began his address by pointing out that the IPA is the oldest organisation within Phonetics with a long, illustrious history. He emphasised the importance of maintaining the tradition. Prof. Wells reviewed the accomplishments of the Association over the past four years: the JIPA was published regularly, the IPA website was well-visited, the IPA Council approved a new IPA symbol, the labiodental flap /
/, the new edition of the IPA chart (2005) was released, initial discussions with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) for cooperation on continuing the standardisation of phonetic symbols were conducted, the IPA examination was held regularly, the Association sponsored ICPhS2007. The President also emphasised the importance for people working in phonetics to maintain traditional transcription skills and the ability to perform the sounds of languages. He pointed out that a good knowledge of the sounds of the IPA, and the ability to use the IPA chart and to transcribe are essential for language teachers and language learners, speech and language pathologists, actors, singers, missionaries, anthropologists and ethnographers, individuals working in applications in automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, prosthetics and so on. He also gratefully acknowledged the contribution of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in making the IPA fonts available and being prompt in providing the new symbol for the labiodental flap.
4 Secretary's report
Secretary Katerina Nicolaidis reported that over the past four years the Secretary's office has received a lot of communications on theoretical, practical and procedural matters from members of the Association and individuals with an interest in phonetics from the broader academic community and the general public. A series of formal resolutions have been passed by Council since 2003. Of a total of nine resolutions, four concerned financial matters (including the approval of the rewording of By-law #1 to include the membership fee in Euros only), two editorial issues, two the sponsorship of conferences (International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages, 2004, and ICPhS2007), and one the approval of the labiodental flap. The new edition of the IPA chart (2005), updated to include the labiodental flap, was released in April 2006. A copy of the chart was published in JIPA vol. 36 (1) and a .pdf file of the chart has been made available for downloading on the IPA website. There have been over 20 requests from authors or publishers for permission to reproduce the IPA chart, which have been authorised. The Secretary also reported that the audio files which accompany the illustrations of the IPA since 1998 (following the publication of the Handbook of the IPA) are available on a privileged-access site for IPA members only. This and all other benefits that members of the Association are entitled to are now listed on the IPA website. The complete IPA membership list has been edited and will be posted on the Cambridge Journals Online JIPA website. The final major responsibility of the Secretary's office is to run the elections. These took place from August 2006 to July 2007 and followed the timetable set out by the by-laws.
5 Treasurer's report
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(a) Treasurer Michael MacMahon presented the financial records for the years 2003–2007. He reported a substantial increase in the bank balance mainly due to publishing income from CUP for the publication of JIPA. The balance increased from (approximate values) £29,000 in 2004, to £33,000 in 2005 to £55,000 in 2006, with a current balance in 2007 of around £55,000. Over the years there has been a modest increase in subscriptions while there has been an increase in publishing costs due to the introduction of the third issue of JIPA. A statement of accounts for the years 2004–2006 was published in JIPA 37 (1). A full audit was due to be carried out in August 2007. The audit report is included in the present issue of this journal (pp. 369–370).
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(b) The Treasurer reported that the Association currently operates two accounts, a current and a capital account, with the Royal Bank of Scotland. He pointed out that a substantial decrease in bank charges made to the Association was achieved due to a reduction in the number of accounts held (from seven in previous periods to two currently) and changes made in the currencies acceptable for the payment of subscriptions (i.e. exclusion of the US dollar). Following negotiations with the bank, a discount in transactional charges was also achieved. The Treasurer also noted that the WorldPay system adopted for the payment of subscriptions has been operating very well.
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(c) The individual membership currently stands at 540 members. Forty per cent of those are life members including members of the Association who have paid their membership dues for 30 years. The student membership currently stands at 17 members. Institutional membership stands at 270, of which approximately 180 are libraries that subscribe to JIPA.
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(d) The Treasurer extended his sincere gratitude on behalf of the Association to Pauline Maridor, Assistant Treasurer, for her outstanding service. He pointed out that her previous professional experience in business had been invaluable to the Association, thanks to her considerable knowledge and expertise in financial procedures.
6 Editor's report
Editor John Esling reported that the 2003–2007 period has been productive for JIPA. Issues appeared on time, copyediting and typesetting have become very efficient. Electronic contents have been posted on the Cambridge Journals Online (CJO) site. A very important development is that as of 2007 JIPA has moved to three issues a year (April, August and December) increasing the number of pages from 256–288 per annum to at least 384 per annum. This change was introduced to accommodate the growing number of submissions and to ensure that papers are published in a timely manner. The editor also reported that CUP have initiated an electronic newsletter which will publicise JIPA to other CUP journal subscribers and to the broader academic community. The initial instalment of the newsletter will be linked to the CJO JIPA website within the next two months. Since 2001, the audio files that accompany the illustrations of JIPA have also been posted on the CJO JIPA website as ‘Supplementary materials’ next to the .pdf file of each illustration. The Editor informed members that all back issues of the journal since 1971 were sent to CUP and will be made available online. CUP will also integrate Mike MacMahon's fully searchable JIPA Index, which includes information dating back to 1886. Another significant development is the adoption of the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics Journals as of 2008. The Editor concluded by inviting members to attend the JIPA Editorial Board meeting the following day during which editorial issues for the coming years would be discussed. A full editorial report to the JIPA Editorial Board is included in the present issue of this journal (pp. 365–368).
7 Examinations
The President invited Patricia Ashby, who took over as Examinations Secretary in 2006, to present a report on the IPA Examinations. Patricia Ashby pointed out that there has been a significant increase in the number of candidates for the Certificate in the Phonetics of English since 2003, when the IPA strand had been introduced on the UCL Summer Course in English Phonetics that focuses on the development of practical skills. The syllabus and the format of the exam are posted on a new page on the UCL SCEP website; it is intended to update the link on the IPA website to this new page on the UCL SCEP website. The two sittings of the examination are as of this year scheduled to be in May and August, thus including the statutory three-month gap between attempts and so enabling those who failed the exam the first time to re-take it in August. Three further developments were proposed: (a) updating of the syllabus to include aspects of acoustic phonetics such as acoustic identification of vowels and consonants, VOT, etc, (b) introduction of different levels of certification such as lower level non-theoretical certification of pronunciation abilities and more advanced practical training for potential examiners, (c) re-instating the German and French certificates and possibly expanding to other languages.
8 Election results
The results of the two rounds of voting to elect the Council of the Association and of the separate round of voting to choose representatives to the Permanent Council for the Organisation of International Congresses of Phonetic Science elected by the IPA membership were published in JIPA 37 (1 & 2). John Wells welcomed the new Council of the Association and announced the results of the last round of voting to elect the new Executive Committee of the Association. This consists of Gösta Bruce (President), Daniel Recasens (Vice-President), Katerina Nicolaidis (Secretary), Linda Shockey (Treasurer) and John H. Esling (Editor). The President congratulated the newly elected members of Council and Executive Committee.
9 Address by incoming President
The new President, Gösta Bruce, thanked the members of the IPA Council for their expression of confidence in electing him President of the Association. He assured members that he would strive to serve the aims of the Association: to promote the scientific study of Phonetics and its various practical applications, to support the publication of the journal of the Association, to increase membership particularly among countries and languages which are under-represented in the IPA. He also thanked the outgoing Executive for their excellent service in the past four years.
He pointed out that throughout the decades of his Council membership he has witnessed the dynamic and sound development of the Association. Since the IPA Convention in Kiel in 1989, where he coordinated the group on suprasegmentals, he has observed the convergence of classical ear phonetics and experimental machine phonetics in phonetic sciences and in the Association, a development which has his full support.
Being a prosodist, he would like to encourage the adoption of a more prosodic perspective in the study of spoken languages especially at a time when there is an increasing interest in the study of spontaneous speech. He stressed the importance of studying not only regular prosodic features such as stress, tone and intonation, but of placing particular emphasis on the influence prosodic features exert on speech sounds.
He emphasised the need for (a) conducting basic research in linguistics and phonetics, (b) developing theoretical and experimental paradigms, and (c) investigating important phonetic features of spoken language, for instance precise phonetic characteristics of native vs. non-native accent. Research findings in the above areas would promote the phonetic sciences and their practical applications.
The new President stated his firm belief in teamwork and his determination to cooperate with members and the Executive officers. He concluded by expressing his intention to be sensitive to the developing needs of the Association and by inviting members to give him feedback about those as they arise.
10 Other business
A question was asked about the re-introduction of the vowel sound represented by the ‘small capital A’ symbol. It was pointed out that there had been discussions about this sound in the Kiel Convention and that it was finally not approved for inclusion in the vowel chart. The President suggested that a recommendation be drawn up and the issue could be brought to the attention of the Council for further discussion.
11 Closing
The President closed the meeting with an invitation for the Association to re-convene during the next International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in 2011, at a meeting to be chaired by the new President, Prof. Gösta Bruce, to whom he offered his best wishes.
The meeting closed at 12.30 p.m.
Katerina Nicolaidis
Secretary
Treasurer's additional report 2003–2007
As the accounts indicate (see pp. 369–370), there has been an increase in income over the past four years, with the numbers of personal and institutional memberships remaining relatively steady. 114 new members have joined, including 9 Life Members.
The provenances of the new members are:
Australia (3), Brazil (3), Canada (5), Chile (1), Colombia (1), Croatia (1), France (6), Germany (9), Ghana (1), Finland (1), Hong Kong (2), Japan (11), Norway (3), Poland (2), Russia (2), Singapore (1), Spain (3), Switzerland (3), Taiwan (1), UK (27), USA (28).
The change-over to the WorldPay system for the payment of subscriptions has been very successful. It allows members to pay in their preferred currency. It provides an immediate email receipt of payment to both the member and the Treasurer, and it facilitates the transmission of mailing-address information to the journal's department at Cambridge University Press.
Mike MacMahon
Treasurer
Glasgow, September 2007
Editorial report: JIPA 2003–2007
The period from 2003 to 2007 has been very productive for JIPA. Every issue has appeared on time; the copy-editing, typesetting, and web-posting processes through Cambridge University Press have become more efficient; and electronic contents are generally posted on the Cambridge Journals Online site the month before the cover date. An overview of each issue beginning with vol. 34 (since vol. 33 was edited by the previous editorial team) through the end of the current volume is as follows:
Vol. 34.1 (June 2004) – 5 articles, 4 reviews, 3 illustrations; 128 pp.
Vol. 34.2 (December 2004) – 6 articles, 3 reviews, 3 illustrations; 128 pp.
Vol. 35.1 (June 2005) – 6 articles, 1 review, 1 illustration; 144 pp.
Vol. 35.2 (December 2005) – 6 articles, 3 reviews, 3 illustrations; 144 pp.
Vol. 36.1 (June 2006) – 6 articles, 2 reviews, 3 illustrations; 144 pp.
Vol. 36.2 (December 2006) – 4 articles, 8 reviews, 4 illustrations; 144 pp.
Vol. 37.1 (April 2007) – 4 articles, no reviews, 2 illustrations; 128 pp.
Vol. 37.2 (August 2007) – 4 articles, 5 reviews, 2 illustrations; 128 pp.
Vol. 37.3 (December 2007) – 5 articles, 4 reviews, 2 illustrations; 144 pp.
The significant difference for 2007 is that JIPA has moved to three issues a year, increasing the number of pages from 256 or 288 per annum to at least 384 per annum. The intent has been to accommodate the growing number and size of submissions, ensuring that authors will see their papers published in a timely manner. At the same time, it exerts some pressure on how much material can be included in a given issue. A distinct benefit of publishing three issues of JIPA per year, aside from the increase in revenue that is projected, is that CUP will now make overtures on behalf of the IPA to have JIPA cited by the abstracting services.
Another benefit of greater activity for JIPA is that CUP have initiated an electronic newsletter that will inform readers of the appearance of each new issue and that will be used to publicize our journal to other CUP journal subscribers and beyond. An initial installment of the newsletter will be linked to the CJO JIPA site. CUP are also launching ‘Cambridge Extra’ as of September 2007, to give free previews of journal articles and book excerpts.
CUP are now regularly posting the audio files that accompany each Illustration of the IPA on the CJO JIPA website as ‘Supplementary Materials’ that can be downloaded by JIPA subscribers in the same way as the PDFs of text items. IPA members who do not have access to the CJO site from their institutions can access parallel audio files from our editorial site by procuring the username and password from the Secretary of the IPA. CUP are also expected to post the IPA Membership List on the CJO site, which will be updated periodically thereafter.
In 2006, CUP received paper copies of all back issues of JIPA since 1971 (except for vol. 2 from 1972, which was provided in 2007). During the next several months, CUP plan to commence electronic archiving of back issues, making them available online in the same way that current issues are electronically available. CUP will also integrate into their database Mike MacMahon's full searchable JIPA Index, which includes information from Le Maître Phonétique since 1886 and from JIPA since 1971.
A significant change to the JIPA style sheet is the adoption of a version of the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics Journals. The editors of linguistics journals have been meeting over the past few years to agree on a standard style sheet that will be more or less the same for all of us. In January 2007, the Unified Style Sheet was approved in final form. Peter Ladefoged was our representative throughout the years of these consultations. The current version is posted at http://linguistlist.org/pubs/tocs/JournalUnifiedStyleSheet2007.pdf. Switching to the new practice will save us considerable time correcting manuscripts, initially and at proofs. JIPA will move to the new format in 2008 (vol. 38).
Throughout 2003–2007, the stated goals of the Journal have remained the same:
The Journal of the International Phonetic Association (JIPA) is a forum for work in the fields of phonetic theory and description. As well as including papers on theoretical phonetic issues, JIPA encourages submissions on experimental phonetics, phonetic data-based phonology, and the applications of phonetics to areas such as computer speech processing, language and phonetics teaching, and speech therapy. In addition JIPA tries to review a good selection of books on phonetics. While seeking to advance new views of phonetics, JIPA also recognizes its special responsibilities with regard to the Association's alphabet, the IPA. It publishes discussions of IPA symbols, and short accounts of the phonetic structures of a wide variety of languages, illustrating the use of these symbols. These accounts become part of the Handbook of the IPA. In this way JIPA and the Handbook are useful sources to which people may turn to find brief accounts of the sounds and the phonological structures of the world's languages.
Since 2004 we have published:
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• 29 articles on segmental properties (Slavic retroflexes, Lheidli intervocalic consonants, Hindi fricatives and affricates, North Frisian vowels, VC syllables in Australian languages, Spanish approximants, Catalan laterals, Portuguese uvular and tapped fricatives, vowels in Finnish, Mongolian and Udmurt, trills in Arop-Lokep, Italian Standard and major varieties, Italian gemination, RP monophthongs, Seereer-Siin voiceless implosives, nasal coda emergence, stop assibilation, EPG of Italian consonants, Guinaang-Bontok geminates, Turkish Kabardian, Arabic pharyngeals, Dominican Spanish trills, Komi-Permyak obstruents, American English reduced vowels, Tashlhiyt Berber geminates, Catalan affricates and fricatives, Northern English liquids, American vowels before /r/, RP vowel variation);
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• 6 articles on general phonetic issues (Firth's views, Gimson, Braille IPA, a reply on Firth, English phonetic texts, the RP epsilon symbol);
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• 8 articles on prosodic aspects of various languages and populations (ATR harmony in Kalenjin, children's speech, lexical accent in Turkish, Tamil prominence, pitch span and intonational plateaux, non-pulmonic sounds in German, Naxi tone, intonation in Glasgow);
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• 2 articles concerned with the development of instrumental techniques (modelling Polish vowel spectra, modelling tones in Green Mong);
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• 1 interview with Peter Ladefoged;
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• 23 illustrations of the sounds of individual languages (Australian English, Belgian Standard Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, British English: Received Pronunciation, Central Arrernte, Chistabino (Pyrenean Aragonese), Gayo, the Belgian Limburg dialect of Hamont, the dialect of Hasselt, Ibibio, Italian, Jamaican Creole, Liverpool English, Mambay, Mono, New Zealand English, Sandawe, Seri, Standard Georgian, Tamambo, Tamil, Tera, Zurich German).
There have also been reviews of 29 publications, reports on IPA News matters and announcements, and obituaries. This diversity, range of content, and quality of material is due to the energy and commitment of the many authors who have made submissions. We thank them for entrusting their scholarship to the Journal, thereby enhancing the Journal's reputation and standing.
Overview of the editorial process
Submissions are processed as e-mail attachments in PDF format. This is by far the easiest method of accepting papers and disseminating them to reviewers. Some reviewers request, receive, and return paper copy, which is then forwarded to authors at the same time that PDFs or email text are forwarded to the authors. Some reviewers prefer to remit their review in PDF documents, especially when phonetic symbols are involved, and some annotate the original PDF submissions, but in many cases, reviews can be provided quite efficiently in the body of a message. Illustrations of the IPA must be accompanied at the time of submission by audio recordings of all words and narrative material cited in the text. Authors often provide preprocessed .wav files in zipped attachments at the same time as they submit PDF text. When the audio files are too large, authors are asked to place them on a website for downloading or to send them by post on a CD. All audio material is processed in the editorial office for posting on a web site for downloading by the reviewers of the Illustration. If audio material is provided in analog form or sent in as a single long .wav file, it is broken up into individual word and text files by an editorial assistant. Ultimately, the supplementary audio materials will receive filenames that are grouped together by section heading and numbered linearly in text order as well as being glossed with the English translation given in the text so that readers can easily locate each recorded item in its appropriate folder.
Reviewers who are the most appropriate people in the field are selected by the editor; they are not necessarily members of the IPA. Often, one reviewer will be a specialist in the language area, and at least one other reviewer will be a specialist in the experimental approach. Members of the Editorial Board often act as reviewers, but not exclusively. Usually there are two reviewers; in many cases there are three; and in some cases there are four. Occasionally, a manuscript will be referred to the Editorial Board for supplementary adjudication. We do not conceal authors’ names from reviewers, as we believe that a submission should be judged with reference to its background. Reviewers can make more helpful comments if they know the author they are trying to help. We assume that reviewers will remain anonymous, but if they wish to sign their reviews we will communicate this to the authors. Papers are usually considerably improved by the collaborative interaction between reviewers and authors. The normal object of a review is to help improve a paper within its own framework with the best advice available. When a revised manuscript is received from an author after rewriting, it is forwarded to the original reviewers for their further evaluation, comments and suggestions.
Once a paper is deemed acceptable by the reviewers, the editor reviews the final revision of the paper and makes extensive added comment primarily on format and structure but also on content. After that, the final revised manuscript, formatted according to the Journal's Instructions for Contributors, is forwarded through the editor to the copy-editor as electronic files, with the hard copy being sent directly to her by the author. From that point, the copy-editor deals directly with authors on the technical aspects of copy preparation, verifying fonts and figures in the files, and noting particular items to the typesetters, and then working with authors on first proofs and mediating corrections to the typesetters through second proofs.
The time it takes for papers to be reviewed and to be returned by authors varies greatly, and the number of revisions required also varies considerably. Generally, however, manuscripts submitted in 2004 were published in 2005 or 2006, manuscripts submitted in 2005 have been published in 2006 or 2007, and manuscripts submitted in 2006 are being published in 2007, although some pieces have taken and will take longer. Statements of acceptance/rejection rates cannot be given exactly because of the variation in each paper's individual history. A large number of papers that are accepted subject to revision seem to fade away, the required revisions becoming too difficult. Probably about 40–50 per cent of article submissions are accepted (with a better acceptance rate for Illustrations but a longer turn-around time for their revision), but this number is going down as JIPA in its new form becomes more well-known. A number of books are regularly sent out for review, but about half of those never get reviewed. We need to find a way to ensure that book reviewers either write the piece they promised or return the book or forward it to a person who will write the review.
Production issues
As a brief commentary on the editorial report of 2003, it is now possible to say that:
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• Hard copy and matching electronic files are now used at the onset of copy-editing, and issues of formatting are taken up by the copy-editor with individual authors.
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• The copy-editor prepares the electronic files for typesetting, ensuring font compatibility and specifying how the detailed phonetic representations peculiar to a phonetics journal are to be typeset. The copy-editor deals with authors at first proofs and with the editor at second proofs to clear up errors of formatting. Many of these errors still involve phonetic symbol shapes/sizes.
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• There are still the expected discrepancies at first proofs between intended phonetic symbolization, chart, table and figure formatting and typeset copy. The copy-editor is well aware of the process and has mechanisms to correct the situation. Most errors are corrected by second proofs.
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• The production editor at the Press deals with front/back matter and covers. Proofs of these pages are sent to the editor for proofreading. Changes are queried well in advance (for example, JIPA 37 (3) contains a new list of IPA Council members and new information about subscriptions/IPA membership for 2008; JIPA 38 (1) will contain a list of the new Editorial Board and new editors). The production editor is also in close contact with the copy-editor to match the table of contents with prepared copy.
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• Illustrations are submitted in various formats with varying styles of charts and font usage. All of these are now easily handled by the copy-editor who either reformats and/or reworks the artwork or requests different formats, if necessary. In fact then, CUP have undertaken the responsibility to accept a considerable variation in style of input and to move graphic material through the composition process with less difficulty than before.
We now have a professional journal that can hold its own with its nearest competitors, Journal of Phonetics and Phonetica. These two journals differ from JIPA in that they are owned by their publishers, not by their readers, as JIPA is. Each of them has only about 100 individual subscribers, whereas JIPA goes out to about 600 members of the IPA. Cambridge is managing to produce JIPA at a reasonable cost to members (who pay nothing other than their annual dues) and institutions (for whom the subscription in 2008 will be £134 or US$215 per year in both print and online form) or individual CUP subscribers (at £45 or $75 in print form). These prices enabled CUP to return £11,897 to the Association in 2006. The rates compare favourably with the other two journals. Journal of Phonetics in the US is now $144 for a personal subscription and $542 for an institutional subscription. Phonetica in the US has a base price for individuals of $207.75 and costs $831 for an institutional online subscription, $870.20 for an institutional print subscription, and $953.20 for an institutional print/online subscription. Journal of Phonetics has far more pages than JIPA, 530 pages in 2006, and Phonetica had 276 pages in 2006. As of 2007, JIPA will have 384 pages per year. In the case of the IPA, it is important to remember that the cheapest way to receive the Journal in paper form is to join the Association for 45 euros (equivalent to £30). In all probability, there are other good reasons why people eventually choose to join the IPA.
Finally, we are continually reminded of our debt to the reviewers and Editorial Board members (who produced some 236 evaluations for JIPA over the past four years; some colleagues contributing more than one review) for their conscientious and prompt responses, especially when they are under editors’ pressure and their reviews are needed urgently. Careful and thoughtful reviews have been provided consistently, whether a submission has needed only minor revision or when substantial changes have been necessary, and even if a paper cannot be accepted. In the latter cases, the task is even more arduous, and the reviewers deserve our praise and thanks for their exceptional service.
From volume 38 (2008), JIPA will be edited by John Esling and Adrian Simpson, with Linda Shockey as Reviews Editor.
John Esling
Linda Shockey
Editors of JIPA
Financial Statement: 2006–2007
Audited Statement of Account for the Period from 1 October 2006 to 31 July 2007 for the International Phonetic Association
The International Phonetic Association: Company Information
Treasurer: Professor M. MacMahon
Assistant Treasurer: Mrs Pauline Maridor
Address: Department of English Language, 12 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QH, Scotland, UK
Accountants: The Kelvin Partnership, Registered Auditors, Chartered Accountants, The Cooper Building, 505 Great Western Road, Glasgow G12 8HN, Scotland, UK
Report of the Independent Auditors to the Members of the International Phonetic Association
We have audited the financial statements of the International Phonetic Association for the period ended 31 July 2007 on page 2 [of the printed document]. These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the financial reporting standard for smaller entities (effective January 2005), under the historical cost convention and accounting policies set out therein.
This report is made solely to the Association's members. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the Association's members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors’ report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the Association and the Association's members as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed.
Respective responsibilities of Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer
The Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer are responsible for the preparation of the accounts. It is our responsibility to carry out procedures designed to enable us to report our opinion.
Our responsibility is to audit the financial statements in accordance with the relevant legal and regulatory requirements and International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland).
We report to you our opinion as to whether the financial statements give a true and fair view and are properly prepared in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice.
In addition, we report to you if, in our opinion, the Association has not kept proper accounting records, and if we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit.
Basis of audit opinion
We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland) issued by the Auditing Practices Board. An audit includes examination, on a test basis, of evidence relevant to the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. It also includes an assessment of the significant estimates and judgements made by the management committee in the preparation of the financial statements.
We planned and performed our audit so as to obtain all of the information and explanations which we considered necessary in order to provide us with sufficient evidence to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or other irregularity or error. In forming our opinion we also evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation and information in the financial statements.
Opinion
In our opinion:
– the financial statements give a true and fair view, in accordance with United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice of the state of the Association's affairs as at 31 July 2007 and of its surplus for the period then ended.
The Kelvin Partnership
Chartered Accountants
Registered Auditors
The Cooper Building
505 Great Western Road
Glasgow G12 8HN Dated: 18 September 2007
In Memoriam
ANTHONY TRAILL, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Witwatersrand University, South Africa, died in Johannesburg on 27 April 2007 at the age of 68. He was born on 27 February 1939 in Pietermaritzburg, then Natal. Tony began his studies of Zulu (in which he was fluent), Latin and Phonetics in 1959 at Wits, where he received his first degree in 1961 and a BA (Hons.) in Bantu Linguistics in 1962. He then went to Edinburgh to take a diploma in Applied Linguistics (1965), followed by the M. Litt. (1966) with a thesis on language acquisition among children. Tony returned to Johannesburg the same year to work as university lecturer at various levels. At the same time he embarked on a research project which should play a central role all his life: the documentation of !Xóõ, a Southern Khoisan remnant language. Tony's Ph.D. thesis of 1982 was a systematic phonetic and phonological study of this language. Over the years numerous articles (mostly on phonetic topics) and a dictionary were added.
Having been appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Wits in 1982, Tony was later awarded an ad hominem chair in Linguistic Phonetics. For many years he was also acting head of the Linguistics Department. Although Tony had long been disadvantaged by the apartheid system, he had made a name for himself internationally as a phonetician and Africanist linguist as well. Both, his publications – throughout of outstanding quality! – and a number of highly valued awards and honors give evidence for this, inter alia: Via Afrika Prize for Linguistics (1994), Bill Venter Award for the !Xóõ dictionary (1995), Honorary Membership in the Linguistic Society of America (1998). Tony was also a member of the IPA Council from 1991 to 2003. Scholars from all over the world corresponded with him, and some of them (like myself) were lucky enough, and privileged indeed, to closely collaborate with Tony (in, e.g., publications, editorial work, conferences, lectures) and to become friends with him.
Anthony Traill was not only a distinguished phonetician and dedicated Africanist linguist, but first and foremost an exceptional and warm-hearted person, who regarded honesty and fairness highly as virtue. He was a demanding teacher and a reliable adviser as well. As such he will always be remembered.
Rainer Vossen
University of Frankfurt/Main
Professor JAMES ‘MAC’ PICKETT died on 5 July 2007 in Surry, Maine, where he lived with his wife Betty. As a student of R. H. Stetson, at Oberlin College, Mac believed in applying speech research and development to the deaf to both improve the communication abilities of deaf individuals and to better understand normal mechanisms of speech production and perception. Mac arrived at Gallaudet University, a University for deaf students, in 1964 when he joined the faculty of the Department of Audiology and Speech as a Professor of Speech Communication Research. He became the founding member of the Sensory Communication Research Laboratory (SCRL), where he and others were involved in a program of research in phonetic sciences. In 1983, Mac became the director of the Speech Communication Laboratory under the auspices of the Gallaudet Research Institute (GRI). The Lab was later renamed the Center for Auditory and Speech Sciences (CASS) and supported a number of researchers investigating the perception and production of speech by deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Upon retirement, Mac was made Professor Emeritus at Gallaudet. He was active in a number of national and international associations and continued to be involved in the acoustic and phonetic sciences throughout his retirement.
James J. Mahshie
Gallaudet University
