LSA Accomplishments 2019
In 2019, the LSA continued its ongoing programs and services on behalf of its mission: to advance the scientific study of language. Highlights of new and expanded activities are outlined below.
Professional Development and Education
- Enhanced the LSA’s ongoing Mentoring Initiative, including “Pop-up” offerings at linguistics conferences, an online distance mentoring facility, special events at the Linguistic Institute and Annual Meeting, webinars, and a new mentoring award.
- Co-organized a series of webinars on:
- Established a new Committee on LBGTQ+ Issues and new Natives4Linguistics Special Interest Group
- Launched a new project on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, with grant support from the National Science Foundation
- Adopted new Ethics Statement
- Sponsored a new Joint Membership Program with the American Dialect Society (ADS), offering reduced rates to LSA members wishing to join ADS.
Scholarships, Professorships, Honors & Awards
- Awarded 28 Fellowships to students attending the 2019 Linguistic Institute at UC Davis, including two new student fellowships in honor of Yuki Kuroda and Charles Fillmore.
- Granted diversity travel awards to six students attending the 2019 Annual Meeting, under the auspices of the LSA’s Committee on Ethnic Diversity in Linguistics.
- Made the first Elizabeth Dayton Award to support travel and related expenses for a graduate student in sociolinguistics to attend the LSA Annual Meeting.
- Presented the first C. L. Baker Award to an outstanding syntactician in mid-career, Jon Sprouse.
- Launched the LSA Mentoring Award and selected Monica Macaulay as the first recipient.
- Continued major fundraising drives to establish a new CoLang student fellowship in honor of the late LSA President Emmon Bach, and a lectureship in honor of late LSA member Richard Oehrle.
Publications
- Produced a Special Issue of Language in two parts (20th and 21st Century) in observance of the International Year of Indigenous Languages (forthcoming)
- Appointed or elected new Editors of Semantics and Pragmatics and a new co-Editor of Language.
- Launched the new LSA journal, Phonological Data and Analysis, with two articles appearing in the first volume.
- Published three new titles as part of the LSA-Routledge Linguistics Book Series: Bilingualism; Language, Gender, and Sexuality; Linguistics and the Law
- Published the first volume (No. 4) of the Proceedings of the Workshop on Turkic and languages in contact with Turkic (Tu+) under the auspices of the LSA
Advocacy
- Organized a critical response to the strategic reorganization of the Documenting Endangered Languages (DEL) program at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
- Continued its campaign in support of Native American Language Revitalization legislation pending in the U.S. Congress. Senate bill 256 was passed with unanimous bipartisan support in June 2019 and in the House in December 2019.
- Issued a new Statement on Race and published a related Perspectives article in Language for member responses.
- Issued Statements or Endorsements, independently and in collaboration with colleague organizations:
- Letter to Alaskan Officials Regarding Proposed University Budget Cuts
- LSA Comments on NICHD Strategic Plan
- LSA endorses Title IX comments from Scientific Societies
- Letter to US Department of Education regarding proposed restrictions on Title VI program at UNC/Duke University.
- Participated in the successful defense of the National Endowment for the Humanities from proposed elimination.
Public Outreach and Media Relations
- Coordinated the LSA’s participation in UNESCO’s 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, in partnership with SSILA. As part of the year-long observance, offered annual meeting fee waivers to indigenous scholars.
- Expanded the LSA outreach to K-12 teachers via free Annual Meeting registration and the publication of an open access article in Language on the Advanced Placement Linguistics initiative.
- Launched a new language linguistics podcast, Subtitle, with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
- Increased our reach on social media via daily posts about linguistics news stories appearing in the popular news media: over 45K followers on Facebook and almost 25K followers on Twitter.
- With support from NSF, sponsored a language science and linguistics booth at AAAS’ Family Science Days.
Continuing Traditions
- Adopted a new Strategic Plan for 2019-2023.
- Organized the LSA’s 93rd Annual Meeting in New York City, including the popular Five-minute Linguist event, now in its fourth year, reaching a standing-room-only audience.
- Increased readership of our flagship journal, Language, via online sections on: Teaching Linguistics, Public Policy, Research Reports and Perspectives.
- Continued LSA co-sponsorship of CoLang and supported planning associated with CoLang 2020 at University of Montana.
- Published the fourth volume of the Proceedings of the LSA based on research presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting, and a new volume of the Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology (AMP-6).
- Issued a series of news releases about the latest research published in its journals and presented at its Annual Meeting, garnering significant coverage in prominent international media outlets.
- Provided financial assistance and in-kind support for linguists seeking to attend the LSA Annual Meeting and access LSA publications.
- Published a new volume (12) of Semantics & Pragmatics, the platinum open-access journal of the LSA.
- Represented linguists at national and international meetings of colleague organizations and through participation in coalitions and consortia working to advance science, the humanities, and higher education.
- Defended linguistics departments and programs against threats of cuts or elimination by contacting administrators and officials and by working behind the scenes to provide data in support of the value of linguistics.