The International Association of Applied Linguistics (French: Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée), or AILA, was formed in 1964 as an association of various national organizations for applied linguistics. AILA has more than 8,000 members in more than 30 different applied linguistics associations around the world. Its most high-profile activity is the World Congress of Applied Linguistics, which takes place once every three years. It also has two publications, AILA News, a newsletter, and the AILA Review, an academic journal.
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History
AILA was founded in 1964 at an international colloquium at the University of Nancy, France. Its founding had been preceded by two years of preparation, of which two central figures were the French linguists Antoine Culioli and Guy Capelle. As part of this preparation, the association had published the first issue of its official journal, the International Review of Applied Linguistics, in 1963.
By 1969, the association had gained affiliate organizations in the form of national associations, centers for applied linguistics, and applied linguistics working groups, in a total of 18 different countries. In this year, the association held its second meeting, this time sponsored by the British Association for Applied Linguistics.
Objectives
AILA has three main objectives: to facilitate international cooperation in the field of applied linguistics, to promote research and teaching, and to disseminate new applied linguistics theories.
Affiliates
AILA has affiliate associations in the following 34 countries:
Activities
World Congress of Applied Linguistics AILA’s most high-profile activity is the World Congress of Applied Linguistics, an international conference hosted by one of the affiliate national associations every three years. The one exception to the three-year pattern was the first World Congress in Nancy, France, as there was a five-year gap between that and the second World Congress in Cambridge, England.
The list of world congresses is as follows:
Publications
AILA has two main publications, AILA News and the AILA Review. AILA News is a newsletter, published three times a year, and the AILA Review is a journal, published once a year and edited by guest editors. Each edition of the AILA Review either contains collections of papers on a particular topic, or a collection of papers from one of the World Congresses. In addition to these two publications, AILA also works with the British Association for Applied Linguistics, the American Association for Applied Linguistics, and Oxford University Press to publish the journal Applied Linguistics.
Governance
Decisions in the association are made by the executive board and the international committee. The executive board makes recommendations to the international committee, on which all the national affiliated associations of applied linguistics can vote. These votes take place once a year, at different sites around the world.
The executive board has eleven posts, seven of which are fixed roles. These are the president, a past president, the treasurer, the secretary general, the research networks coordinator and the publications coordinator. The remaining four posts do not have a fixed role, and their holders are known as members at large. Members of the board cover their own expenses.