The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is a professional society for linguists. It was founded in 1924 to advance linguistics, the scientific study of human language. The LSA has over 5,000 individual members and welcomes linguists of all kinds. It works to advance the discipline and to communicate findings in linguistics to a wider audience. Through its website, its annual and summer meetings, its biennial summer institutes, and its journal Language, the LSA works to disseminate current research in linguistics and facilitate communication within the discipline. The Society also participates in the public discourse on language and linguistic issues, contributing to policy debates on issues such as bilingual education, "Ebonics", and the English-only movement. The first president of the LSA was Hermann Collitz, elected in 1925. Many prominent linguists have served in this position, including Franz Boas (1928), Edward Sapir (1933), Zellig Harris (1955), Roman Jakobson (1956), Mary Haas (1963), Morris Halle (1974), Peter Ladefoged (1978) and Joan Bybee (2004) among others. The current president of the LSA (2012) is Keren Rice.
Knowledge of African-American language and culture benefits teachers in STEM fields
A new study of K-12 STEM educators demonstrates how adding linguistic information into classroom teaching can help remove barriers to STEM achievement for African-American students. The article, "Balancing the Communication ...
Sep 04, 2018
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Songs in the key of life: The linguistic universals of adapting sound to artistic expression
A new study of how tone languages are sung has implications for the way humans manipulate and adapt the sounds of their language to artistic expression. The study, "Tone-tune association in Tommo So (Dogon) folk songs", by ...
The 'reality' of accent change
A new study of how accents change over differing periods of time demonstrates the limited impact of intense social interactions in isolated environments, and surprisingly large differences among people in how susceptible ...
Gender, race & class: Language change in post-apartheid South Africa
A new study of language and social change in post-apartheid South Africa demonstrates that gender is a more powerful determinant than class among black university students. The study "Class, gender, and substrate erasure ...
The hazards of English spelling
A new study of English spelling practices demonstrates that the way we spell words is much more orderly and self-organizing than previously thought. The study "Self-organization in the spelling of English suffixes: The emergence ...
Black language matters: A linguistic analysis
A new scientific study reveals the critical role that dialect unfamiliarity and prejudice against speakers of African American Vernacular English [AAVE] and other non-standard dialects can play in the criminal justice system. ...
The versatility of pronouns and shifting identity
A new scientific study reveals the fascinating ways in which we use pronouns to negotiate social identity. While much of the recent popular discussion on the topic of pronouns and social identity has focused on how third ...
Sign languages provide insight into universal linguistic short-cuts
Humans have a natural drive to reduce physical effort in nearly every activity, including using language. Instead of saying "goodbye", we often say "bye", getting the same message across with half the syllables. The ways ...
The linguistics of signifying time: The human gesture as clock
A new scientific study documenting the linguistic practices of the Northwestern Amazonian peoples uncovers an unusual method of communicating the human concept of time. The study, "Modally hybrid grammar? Celestial pointing ...
Which-hunting and the hegemony of style guides
A new study reveals just how strong the influence of mass-market books promoting a certain style of writing have had on authors since they were first published in the late 1950s. The study "Which-hunting and the Standard ...
