Linguistic Society of America

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a learned society for linguists. It was founded in 1924 in order to advance the scientific study of human language as well as communicate linguistic research to a wider audience through its website, annual meetings, biennial summer institutes, and its peer-reviewed, scholarly journal, Language. The LSA has over 5,000 individual members and welcomes linguists from all subdisciplines. In addition to research, the Society also contributes to policy debates on issues such as bilingual education, "Ebonics," and the English-only movement.

Hermann Collitz, the first president of the LSA, was elected in 1925. Since the end of his term, many prominent linguists have served in this position; among them are Franz Boas (1928), Edward Sapir (1933), Zellig Harris (1955), Leonard Bloomfield (1935), Roman Jakobson (1956), Mary Haas (1963), Morris Halle (1974), Peter Ladefoged (1978), William Labov (1979), Walt Wolfram (2001), and Joan Bybee (2004). The current president of the LSA (2015) is John Rickford.

Mission

The primary mission of the LSA is to advance the scientific study of language. The LSA aspires to a world in which the essential nature of language and its central role in human life is well understood. To fulfill its mission, the LSA has established the following goals:^[1]

1. To promote the scientific study of language via the publication, presentation, and discussion of linguistic scholarship.
2. To foster interaction and communication among scholars interested in the scientific study of language.
3. To support scholars interested in the scientific study of language in the pursuit of their professional goals.
4. To educate and inform the public and the broader scientific community about the scientific study of language.

In order to achieve these goals, the LSA has adopted and continues to follow its Long-Range Strategic Plan.^[2]

Publications

The LSA publishes a number of journals including Language ^[3] and Semantics and Pragmatics. Language features major articles and shorter reports of original research which cover all areas of the field from all theoretical frameworks. It also contains reviews of recently published articles and books of particular interest to the linguistics community, some of which the LSA awards the Leonard Bloomfield Book Award.^[4] Between 2007 and 2013, the LSA also sponsored eLanguage,^[5] a platform for online, open-access journals.

Meetings

The LSA's four-day Annual Meeting is held every January. Its program consists of plenary speakers, symposia, and poster sessions for researchers to share their work with the help of visual aid. The American Dialect Society, the American Name Society, the North American Association for the History of the Language Sciences, the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages and the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas meet concurrently with the LSA.

The 2014 Annual Meeting featured a celebratory session commemorating the 90th anniversary of the LSA's foundation.^[6]

The meeting site alternates between the east coast, west coast and Midwest:

• 2010: Baltimore, Maryland
• 2011: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• 2012: Portland, Oregon
• 2013: Boston, Massachusetts^[7][8]
• 2014: Minneapolis, Minnesota^[9]
• 2015: Portland, Oregon^[10]
• 2016: Washington, D.C.
• 2017: Austin, Texas
• 2018: Salt Lake City, Utah
• 2019: New York, NY

Linguistic Institutes

The LSA hosts a biennial Summer Institute; a four to six-week summer school in which field experts conduct linguistic courses, talks, and workshops for about 400 students, faculty, and others interested in linguistics. Each Institute honors the contributions of particular linguists with the appointment of titled chairs: the Sapir chair in general linguistics,^[11] the Collitz Chair in historical linguistics,^[12] and since 2005, the Ken Hale chair in linguistic fieldwork and the preservation of endangered languages.^[13]

The locations and dates of past and future institutes are listed below:

• Empirical Foundations for Theories of Language - Stanford (2007)^[14]
• Linguistic Structure and Language Ecologies - UC Berkeley (2009)^[15]
• Language in the World - University of Colorado at Boulder (2011)^[16]
• Universality and Variability - University of Michigan (2013)^[17]
• Linguistic Theory in a World of Big Data - University of Chicago (2015)^[18]

Resolutions and statements

The LSA takes a stand on many language-related issues, especially those relating to public policy. For instance, in 1987, the LSA officially took a stand against the English-only movement in the United States. The LSA statement argued that "English-only measures ... are based on misconceptions about the role of a common language in establishing political unity, and ... are inconsistent with basic American traditions of linguistic tolerance." In 1997, an LSA resolution supported the Oakland school-board in its attempt to favor teaching that is sensitive to the distinctive characteristics of African American Vernacular English (the so-called "Ebonics" debate).^[19] A 2001 resolution on sign languages "affirm[ed] that sign languages used by deaf communities are full-fledged languages with all the structural characteristics and range of expression of spoken languages" and lent the support of the LSA to a status for sign languages equal to that accorded to other languages in academic and political life.^[20] A complete list of resolutions and statements adopted by the LSA may be found on its website.

Presidents

The following persons have been president of the Linguistic Society of America:^[21]

Awards

The LSA presents a series of awards during its Annual Meeting. The list of awards, their descriptions, and their current holders are listed below:

• Best Paper in Language : to the best paper published in the journal in any given year; all published papers written by at least one LSA author are up for review.^[22] Current (2014) holders: Judith Tonhauser, David Beaver, Craige Roberts and Mandy Simons “Toward a taxonomy of projective content,” appeared in Language Volume 89, No. 1 (2013)
• Early Career Award : to one of any current LSA members who has made "outstanding contributions to the field of linguistics" early in their career; also provides travel reimbursement (up to $500) and complimentary registration for the next Annual Meeting.^[23] Current (2014) holder: Adrian Brasoveanu (University of California, Santa Cruz)
• Excellence in Community Linguistics Award : to members of language communities (typically outside the academic sphere of professional linguists) who make "outstanding contributions" for the benefit of their community’s language.^[24] Current (2014) holder: Mary Ann Metallic (Listuguj Education Directorate – Listuguj Mi'gmaq Government)
• Kenneth L. Hale Award : to one of any current LSA members who has done "outstanding work" on the documentation of a particular language or family of languages that is endangered or no longer spoken.^[25] Current (2014) holder: Claire Bowern (Yale University)
• Leonard Bloomfield Book Award : to a volume that has made an "outstanding contribution of enduring value" to our understanding of language and linguistics; nominations must be accompanied by a substantive endorsement letter that addresses the volume's exemplary scholarship, enduring value, novelty, empirical import, conceptual significance, and clarity; chosen by the LSA Bloomfield Book Award Committee and approved by the LSA's Executive Committee.^[26] Current (2014) holder: Johnathan Bobaljik’s, Universals in Comparative Morphology: Suppletion, Superlatives and the Structure of Words, (MIT Press)
• Linguistics Service Award : to one of any LSA members who has performed "distinguished service" for the Society; nominations must be accompanied by an endorsement letter outlining why the individual should be recognized and a brief citation that can be read at the presentation of the award.^[27] Current (2014) holder: David Lightfoot (Georgetown University), for his invaluable assistance in charting a course for the LSA’s publishing program
• Linguistics, Language and the Public Award : to an individual or group of any LSA members for work that "effectively increases public awareness and understanding of linguistics and language" in the four years immediately preceding the nomination deadline; works in any medium are eligible and can be considered for multiple cycles.^[28] Current (2014) holder: 2014 Donna Jo Napoli (Swarthmore College)
• Student Abstract Award : to one of any student who has submitted an abstract to the Annual Meeting; provides $500 for the best abstract and $300 for the authors of the abstracts rated second and third; automatically nominated upon abstract submission; chosen by the Awards Committee.^[29] Current (2014) holders: John Sylak (University of California, Berkeley) The Phonetic Properties of Voiced Stops Descended from Nasals in Ditidaht; Marc Garellek (University of California, Los Angeles) for Prominence vs. phrase-initial strengthening of voice quality; Josef Fruehwald (University of Pennsylvania) for Differentiating Phonetically and Phonologically Conditioned Sound Change
• Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award : to one of any LSA members who has performed "extraordinary service to the discipline and to the Society" throughout their career; nominations must be accompanied by an endorsement letter outlining why the individual should be recognized and a brief citation that can be read at the presentation of the award.^[30] Current (2014) holder: Stephen R. Anderson (Yale University)
• LSA Journalism Award : "honors the journalist whose work best represents linguistics during the 12-month consideration period indicated in the call for nominations."^[31] Established in 2014. First and current (2015) holder: Ben Zimmer (Wall Street Journal).^[32]

For more information visit the LSA's "Honors and Awards" page.^[33]

Committees

The LSA has numerous standing committees and special interest groups on various issues in linguistics, including:^[34]

• Committee of Editors of Linguistics Journals (CELxJ)
• Committee on Endangered Languages and their Preservation (CELP)
• Ethics Committee
• Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics (CEDL)
• Language in the School Curriculum (LiSC)
• Linguistics in Higher Education Committee (LiHEC)
• Public Policy
• Public Relations
• Student Issues and Concerns (COSIAC)
• Committee On the Status of Women in Linguistics (COSWL)

References

See also

• Summer Institute of Linguistics

External links

• LSA website
• Presidents of the LSA
• Language, the official journal of the LSA
• eLanguage, a LSA-affiliated platform for online, open-access linguistics journals
• Contact the LSA

Linguistic Institutes

• 2001 (Santa Barbara)
• 2005 (MIT)
• 2007 (Stanford)
• 2009 (Berkely)
• 2011 (Boulder)
• 2013 (Michigan)
• 1928–present (list)