WPEL: A Brief History

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The first issue of the Working Papers in Educational Linguistics (WPEL) appeared in Spring 1984, published by the Language in Education Division (LED) of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (PennGSE), with a foreword by then-Dean Dell Hymes. Then, as now, WPEL was entirely student-run, although PennGSE Educational Linguistics faculty gave the initial impetus and have continuously served in an advisory capacity from that day to this. Primary faculty advisers have included Nancy Hornberger (current), Rebecca Freeman, Joel Hardman, Kendall King, Julian Linnell, Cheri Micheau, Teresa Pica, Anne Pomerantz, and Nessa Wolfson (now deceased).

That first issue was edited by Cathy Doughty (now at University of Maryland), with Professor Thom Huebner (now at San Jose State University) serving as primary faculty adviser. After a year's hiatus, the second issue appeared in spring 1986 under joint editorship of Cheri Micheau (now at West Chester University) and Jess Unger (now at the School District of Philadelphia), followed by two more issues under their joint editorship and two more after that edited by Micheau alone and with Alice Lyons, respectively.

The early issues already bore the hallmark characteristic, which continues to the present, of including papers by both faculty and students associated with LED, PennGSE, and Penn. Educational Linguistics Professors Wolfson, Pica, and Hornberger have been frequent contributors, but there have also been papers by GSE Professors Brodkey (1986), Erickson (1988), Freeman (1994), Wortham (2001), and others. Papers by faculty include early versions of talks or papers later published in refereed journals or book collections, as well as talks by invited colloquium speakers and visiting scholars, e.g. Clifford Hill (1987), Rodolfo Cerrón-Palomino (1992) and Oleg Tarnopolsky (2000). After the Nessa Wolfson Colloquium (NWC) series was inaugurated in 1991, NWC colloquium papers have often been published in WPEL, e.g. Hymes (1992), Fishman (1993), Olshtain (1994), Cohen (1995), and Chick (2001). Papers by students are very often revised versions of research papers submitted for advanced graduate courses and recommended by the professor for inclusion in WPEL. Papers are also solicited more widely; all potential contributions are read and evaluated by the student editorial board.

Since 1986, WPEL has appeared regularly once or twice a year without interruption. Over the years, constellations of graduate student editorial teams have worked under the leadership of editors-in-chief including, in addition to those already mentioned above, and more or less in chronological order: Kathyn Riley, Joel Hardman (now at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale), Rita Silver (now at National Institute of Education in Singapore), Jill Gladstein (now at Swarthmore College), Leslie Nabors, Bruce Evans, Diana Schwinge (now at Adelphi College), Kimberly Daniel-White, Francis Hult and David Johnson, Erin Kearney and Shannon Sauro, and currently Katherine Mortimer and Tamara Warhol.

With Volume 11 in Spring 1995, WPEL inaugurated a new journal-size format, rather than the spiral-bound 8 1/2 x 11 workbook-style format of the earlier years. About the same time, the best known and most widely used abstracting service in the language learning and teaching field, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA), began to abstract WPEL in their database, providing scholars worldwide with information about the publications to be found within its pages. WPEL had in fact already been disseminated widely from its beginnings, sent out to colleagues and university departments nationally and internationally, often in exchange for their working papers series. The Language in Education Division maintains a collection of these exchange journals, housed in the Nessa Wolfson Reading Room for use by LED students and faculty.

Nancy H. Hornberger

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Selected WPEL Articles cited above

Brodkey, L. (1986). A context for revision: An ethnographic perspective. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 2(1), 1-24.

Cerrón-Palomino, R. (1992). Standardization in Andean Languages. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8(1), 31-44.

Chick, J. K. (2001). Constructing a multicultural national identity: South African classrooms as sites of struggle between competing discourses. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 17(1-2), 27-45.

Cohen, A. (1995). The role of language of thought in foreign language learning. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 11(2), 1-24.

Erickson, F. (1988). Discourse coherence, participation structure, and personal display in a family dinner table conversation. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 4(1).

Fishman, J. A. (1993). In praise of my language. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 9(2), 1-11.

Freeman, R. (1994). Language planning and identity planning : An emergent understanding. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 10(1), 1-20.

Hill, C. (1987). "Leda and the swan": Where description ends and interpretation begins. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 3(1), 1-34.

Hymes, D. H. (1992). Inequality in language: Taking for granted. Penn Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 8(1), 1-30.

Olshtain, E. (1994). From interpersonal to classroom discourse: Developing research methods. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 10(2), 1-8.

Tarnopolsky, O. (2000). EFL teaching and EFL teachers in the global expansion of English. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 16(2), 25-42.

Wortham, S. (2001). Ventriloquating Shakespeare: Ethical positioning in classroom literature discussions. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 17(1-2), 47-64.