To that end, the society aims to provide a geographically and theoretically neutral central contact point for scholars who identify with these aims by including both academic linguists and members of the educated public who have an interest in English linguistics.
[4] A thematic volume on world Englishes published seven of the papers which were originally presented at the second conference.
[5] The society's official affiliated publication is the journal English Language and Linguistics, published by Cambridge University Press.
[6] The inaugural ISLE conference was hosted by the University of Freiburg in October 2008, attracting scholars from 28 countries.
The award was named for a prolific scholar and editor who was a professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Manchester until his death in 2007.