LSA: Publications

Take Note!

Meeting registration and hotel reservations for the 2011 Annual Meeting are available online through December 20.
Nominations for the LSA's new Early Career Award are due at the Secretariat by September 15th.
Did you know that Classic Monographs of the LSA are available through the Society for a fraction of their cost elsewhere? Read more …

Q&As about Subscriptions, Missing/Back issues, and Reprints

Question: How can I subscribe to Language / become a member of the Linguistic Society of America (LSA)?

Answer: Individuals may join the LSA online here or may complete the downloadable membership form available here and return it to the LSA with payment. An interest in language is the only requirement for membership.

Institutions may subscribe to Language in hard copy only, online, or in an online + hard copy combo package.

Click here for a description of membership dues and institutional subscription rates.

Question: I have not received the latest issue of Language. Could there be a problem with my subscription? Whom should I contact?

Answer: If you have not received your issue of Language and think there may be a problem, contact the LSA office (see contact information below). Note that you must request a missing issue of Language within 30 days after mailing of the subsequent issue; issues are normally mailed around the 20th of the month of publication. If your request is made after this date, you will need to purchase the back issue (see question below).

Question: How can I purchase a particular (back) issue?

Answer: Back issues of Language (subject to availability) may be purchased in hard copy format through the LSA; for availability and pricing, please contact Rita Lewis at the LSA Secretariat. Contact information is given below. For access to electronic copies of back issues and individual articles, please visit JSTOR.

For more information about ways to view back issues, click here.

Question: I am looking for a particular article published in Language, but our library does not carry it. Can the LSA or the Editorial Office send me a copy?

Answer: The LSA is unable to accommodate inquiries of this kind. You may obtain back issues or articles from other resources - another library, the author, or the online resources that offer back issues of Language (JSTOR and Project Muse). For more information about ways to view or obtain back issues, click here.

Question: I had a piece published in a recent issue of Language. Will I be getting offprints of it? Does it matter if I am a member of the LSA or not? Can the LSA or the Editorial Office send me a single copy of my piece at least?

Answer: Language does not provide free offprints to authors. Each author has the opportunity to order offprints at cost from the printer at the proofing stage. As LSA members, authors of articles in Language receive access to the journal in hard copy, online, or in both formats.

Question: What is the policy on reprinting from LSA publications?

Answer: Requests for permission to reprint from LSA publications are handled by the Copyright Clearance Center.

About Submitting to Language

Question: I would like to submit a paper to Language. What exactly should I send, and how long should I expect the review process to take?

Answer: Please see the Notes to Contributors section.

Upon receipt of your paper, the Editorial Staff will contact you via email and confirm receipt. The review process can take up to 6 months, though it could be even longer depending on various circumstances (and every attempt is made to expedite the process at all stages). For a full description of the editorial process, see the Editor's Department columns in Language 78.2, 78.3, 78.4 (2002).

Question: Does Language consider papers for review whose (partial) findings or whose very short version has been published in conference proceedings?

Answer: Our policy is to regard everything except for working papers as prior publication. If some of the results in a submitted paper have been published elsewhere, the paper you submit should build on those results and should develop the ideas and evidence along new lines or in greater depth. In cases where you are not sure if the degree of overlap is too great, please send the previous publication along with your submission; the need for such a step should be rather rare, though, in practice.

About Information on Our Website

Question: Your website offers only abstracts of the articles published in Language. Are you planning to add entire articles in the near future?

Answer: No. The Table of Contents pages serve as a quick reference to the various articles, book reviews, and notices published in the journal. Forthcoming articles also are now listed on the website, by title and, where available, abstract. Language is available online through JSTOR (Volumes 1-five years prior to the current issue) and Project Muse, though access may depend on subscription (click here for more information about Language Online).

Question: Where can I find back issues of the LSA Bulletin on the web?

Answer: The Bulletin ceased publication at the end of 2009. Prior online issues of the Bulletin are available at https://lsadc.org/info/pubs-bulletin.cfm. New content typically published in the Bulletin, such as grant opportunities, job listings, conference postings, In Memoriam, and meeting minutes, can be found elsewhere on the LSA website.