The Korean Association of Language Studies (KALS) started its activities in October 1993 with the organization of the Establishment Preparation Committee of the Jeju Linguistic Association. In December of the same year, we passed its constitution and started the official activities by holding its 1st regular general meeting and academic conference in June 1994.

In August 1996, it published the first issue of the , and it has become an official association in its name and reality. In order to enhance the international status of the academic community, it was renamed the Jeju International Language Association in August 2004. Furthermore, it has been newly established as the Korean Association of Language Studies (KALS) since April 2008 considering its nationwide status.

KALS has contributed to the development of learning in active exchange relationships with different national academic societies. Since 1998, we have signed an academic exchange agreement with the Modern Linguistic Association of Korea to exchange academic conferences and membership information every year. In addition, in order to strengthen the KALS’ international status and actively engage in interdisciplinary exchange, we have been conducting academic exchanges through conferences and publication of papers with the Japanese Language Policy Association since 2015.

The academic conferences are held twice a year in spring and fall to actively promote academic exchanges at home and abroad. That is, they have been held as a national or international academic conference.

As a result of these efforts, the , the journal of KALS, has been selected as a journal registered in the National Research Foundation of Korea, and has been widely acknowledged as a national academic association. In particular, one of the journals issued three times a year is being published the international issue to improve its papers’ academic quality: so that its academic excellence can be recognized internationally. In addition, KALS strives to have close relationship and cooperation with the local community and contribute more academically to the community as a way to preserve the local languages in Korea, especially Jeju language.

In order to improve the quality of JLS, KALS intends 1) to enable the best papers published in this journal to be translated and introduced to overseas journals, 2) to promote a comprehensive academic collaboration with the international scholars from China, Japan, and other countries in the world, and 3) to lay the groundwork for the conservation of Jeju and lead the language policy of Jeju.