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LSA Honors and Awards
Photo Gallery: 2010 Annual Meeting Awards & Honors
NominationsFor more information about the nomination procedure, eligibility criteria, or deadline for a particular award, click on one of the links below. To nominate someone (including yourself) for any of these awards, please contact the LSA Secretariat. Nominations sent by postal mail should be sent to the Secretariat at the address found at the bottom of this page. E-mailed nominations may be sent to David Robinson, Director of Membership and Meetings, at drobinson@lsadc.org, with the words, "Nomination for [Name of award] Award" in the subject line. Only current members are eligible to nominate people for an LSA award; books for the Bloomfield Award may be nominated either by current members or by publishers. If you would like to join the LSA and are not already a member, click here.
Best Paper in Language Award
This award, made for the first time in 2012, is given for the best paper published in the journal in any given year.
Current Holder
2012 Thomas Weskott and Gisbert Fanselow "On the informativity of different measures of linguistic acceptability"
2012 Jon Sprouse "A test of the cognitive assumptions of magnitude estimation: Commutativity does not hold for acceptability judgments"
Early Career Award
Instituted in 2010, this award is given for a new scholar who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of linguistics. It provides travel reimbursement (up to $500) and complimentary registration for the next Annual Meeting.
Frequency: Annually, as nominations warrant.
Next Nomination Deadline: A nominating letter of no more than three pages and an updated curriculum vitae for the nominee must arrive at the Secretariat by 1 July, 2011 (email lsa@lsadc.org with the words "Early Career Award Nomination" in the subject line).
Eligibility
- Any LSA member who received the Ph.D. degree no more than seven years before being nominated.
Current Holder
2012 Seth Cable (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
Previous Winners
2011 Andries Coetzee (University of Michigan)
Kenneth L. Hale Award
First presented in 2002, the award recognizes outstanding linguistic scholarship undertaken by a junior or senior scholar that documents a particular endangered or no longer spoken language or language family.
Frequency: As nominations warrant
Next Nomination Deadline: 1 July 2011Nominations must be accompanied by a copy of the work and any other supporting material.
Eligibility
- All authors must be current members of the LSA.
- Works should normally be no more than 15-20 years old.
Current Holder
2012 Nancy Dorian (Bryn Mawr College, Emerita) for her work on East Sutherland Gaelic.
Previous Winners
2011 Nicholas Evans (Australian National University) Read more...
2006 Robert W. Young, The Navajo language (with Willie Morgan, 1980, 1987) and supplementary volume, The Analytic lexicon of Navajo (with Sally Midgette, 1992). Read more...
2002 Ives Goddard and Kathleen Bragdon, Native Writings in Massachusett (APS, 1988). Read more...
Leonard Bloomfield Book Award
First presented in 1992, this award was established to recognize the volume which makes the most outstanding contribution to the development of our understanding of language and linguistics.
Frequency: Annually
Next Nomination Deadline: 1 May 2011
Nominations must be accompanied by four copies of the book prior to the deadline. Publishers as well as LSA members may nominate a book for the Bloomfield Award.
Eligibility
- All authors of nominated books should be current members of the LSA. Exceptions may be made at the discretion of the selection committee for books whose authors are not all LSA members, such as books with co-authors who are native speaker language consultants who collaborated in the preparation of the book, but who are not otherwise part of the Linguistics community. In all cases, at least one author must be a member of the LSA.
- Book must be published after 28 February 2010 and before 31 May 2011.
Criteria
- Novelty (says something that is not part of the published literature)
- Empirical Import (claims made are empirically falsifiable)
- Conceptual Significance (enriches overall understanding of the nature of human language)
- Clarity (points are clearly formulated; text is reader-friendly)
Current Holder
2012 Jack Martin (College of William and Mary), A Grammar of Creek (Muskogee) (University of Nebraska Press)
Previous Winners
2011 Hans Boas, The Life and Death of Texas German (Duke University Press, for the American Dialect Society) Read more...
2010 Pamela Munro and Catherine Willmond, Let's Speak Chickasaw, Chikashshanompa' Kilanompoli' Read more...
2009 Virginia Yip and Stephen Matthews, The Bilingual Child: Early Development and Language Contact (Cambridge, 2007) Read more...
2008 William Labov, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, The Atlas of North American English (Mouton de Gruyter, 2006) Read more...
2006 R. M. W. Dixon, The Jarawara Language of Southern Amazonia (Oxford University Press) Read more...
2004 Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Cambridge University Press) Read more...
2002 Marianne Mithun, The Languages of Native North America (Cambridge University Press) Read more...
2000 Lyle Campbell, American Indian Languages: The Historical Linguistics of Native America (Oxford University Press) Read more...
1998 Alice C. Harris and Lyle Campbell, Historical Syntax in Cross-Linguistic Perspective (Cambridge University Press) Read more...
1996 William Labov, Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors (Blackwell Publishers) Read more...
1994 Johanna Nichols, Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time (University of Chicago Press) Read more...
1992 Keren Rice, A Grammar of Slave (Mouton de Gruyter) Read more...
Linguistic Service Award
The Linguistic Service Award honors members who have performed distinguished service to the Society and the discipline. This might take one of many forms, for example:
- Extended time devoted to tasks in the service of the Society.
- Extraordinary uncompensated service to the Society.
- Brief service resulting in substantial cost savings for the Society.
- Development of materials for publicizing the field or the activities of the Society.
Frequency: As nominations warrant
Next Nomination Deadline: 1 July 2011Nominations 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.
Eligibility:
- All nominees must be current LSA members.
Current Holder
2012 Paul Newman (Indiana University) for the many years of pro bono legal advice he has given in his capacity as Special Counsel to the Society.
Previous Winner
2010 Ethan Poole, for donating many hours of his time as the volunteer webmaster for the LSA's website. Read more...
2009 Deborah Anderson for her services to the Society and the discipline as LSA liaison to the Unicode Consortium and director of the Script Encoding Initiative.
2009 Katha Kissman for her services to the Society, first as consultant and later as Interim Executive Director.
2008 Mary Catherine O'Connor, for exemplary service to the Society in her capacity as Co-Chair of the Program Committee. Read more...
2007 Kristen Syrett In recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the Society as the Bloch Fellow and as a member of the Information Technology Advisory Group (ITAG) Read more...
Linguistics, Language, and the Public Award
First presented in 1997, this award is given for a body of work that has had a demonstrable impact on the public awareness of language and/or linguistics.
Frequency: As nominations warrant
Next Nomination Deadline: 1 July 2011Nominations must be accompanied by four copies of the work prior to the deadline.
Eligibility
- Works in any medium are eligible, e.g. books, documentary films, articles in popular magazines, software, or lecture series.
- Works must have been published, presented, or aired during the four years immediately prior to the nomination.
Criteria
- Works must have had a demonstrable impact on public awareness of language and/or linguistics.
Current Holder
2012 Leanne Hinton (University of California, Berkeley, Emerita)
Previous Winners
2011 North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) Read more...
2010 Walt Wolfram, whose North Carolina Language and Life Project models sociolinguistic engagement and public outreach about the value and beauty of linguistic diversity. Read more...
2009 Language Log, a collaborative science blog devoted to linguistics and written by a team of more than a dozen prominent linguists. Read more...
2007 Earl Rick Rickerson, producer of the radio series, "Talkin' about Talk, Year of Languages in the U.S". Read more...
2005 Deborah Tannen, who through her writing and public speaking has promoted the visibility of language and linguistics as part of the national culture for over 20 years. Read more...
2003 John Rickford, co-author of Spoken Soul (John Wiley, 2000) and author of substantive contributions to discussions surrounding Ebonics and AAVE. Read more...
2001 Geoffrey Nunberg, commentator on the NPR program Fresh Air. Read more...
1999 Eugene Searchinger, producer of The Human Language, a public television series of three films distributed in 1995. Read more...
1997 Steven Pinker, author of The Language Instinct (William Morrow, 1994). Read more...
Student Abstract Award
Instituted in 2010, this award provides a $500 award for the best abstract submitted by a student for a paper or poster presentation at the next Annual Meeting, and $300 for the submitters of the abstracts rated second and third. All abstracts submitted for the annual meeting are rated, blindly, by external reviewers and the LSA Program Committee. Once abstracts have been accepted, the LSA Staff (who have access to information about abstract submitters) will determine which student abstracts were most highly rated. In case of a tie, the Awards Committee members will read the abstracts and select the winner and the two runners-up. The awardees will be publicly announced as soon as they have been selected, and will be recognized in the Handbook for the Annual Meeting.
Frequency: Annually
Eligibility
- Every student who submits an abstract for the Annual Meeting is automatically considered for this award; no nominations are required.
Current Holders
2012 Jennifer Wilson, University at Buffalo ("Evidence for Infixation after the First Syllable: Data from a Papuan Language"); Second place: M. Ryan Bochnak, University of Chicago ("Cross-linguistic variation in degree semantics: The case of Washo"); Third Place: Matthew Tucker, University of California, Santa Cruz ("An Ergative Analysis of Acehnese Tripartite Voice")
Previous Winners
2011 Joshua Jensen (University of Texas at Arlington), Jason Grafmiller and Stephanie Shih (Stanford), and Hannah Haynie (Berkeley)
Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award
First presented in 2001 as the "Victoria A. Fromkin Prize for Distinguished Service", this award was established to recognize individuals who have performed extraordinary service to the Society and the discipline throughout their career.
Frequency: As nominations warrant
Next Nomination Deadline: 1 July 2011Nominations 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.
Eligibility
- All nominees must be current members of the LSA.
Current Holder
2011 Donna Christian (Center for Applied Linguistics) Read more...
Previous Winners
2010 Dr. D. Terence Langendoen, who has served the LSA in every elective office, on numerous committees, including the Program Committee and the Editorial Board of Language, and as Director of the 1986 Linguistic Institute. Read more...
2007 N. Louanna Furbee is an outstanding recipient of the Victoria A. Fromkin award for service to the Linguistic Society of America and to the profession. Read more...
2006 Margaret W. Reynolds, Executive Director, Linguistic Society of America Read more...
2005 Ivan Sag, who for over 30 years has contributed to the organizational and financial success of the Society and especially to the development of Linguistic Institutes. Read more...
2004 Eugene Nida, who has not only been a member of the Society for over 60 years but who has served as Vice President (1960) and President (1968) and as financial/investment advisor for more than 30 years. Read more...
2003 Anthony Aristar and Helen Dry, for establishing LinguistList. Read more...
2002 Kathleen Fenton, for her professional contributions to the editing of the journal Language for the last 30 years. Read more...
2001 Paul Chapin, for his support of colleagues and the discipline in his role as Linguistics Program Director at NSF for over 30 years. Read more...
