Donations
The Linguistic Society of America is dedicated to advancing the scientific study of language. In service to its mission, LSA works to support linguists at every level - from high school students just learning about the field of linguistics, to graduate students, career faculty, emeritus professors, linguists working in practice settings, and Indigenous community language workers engaged on language documentation and preservation. LSA has a unique role to play as a shared organizational home for individuals working across the full range of linguistic specialty areas. LSA also works to make the linguistic literature as broadly accessible as possible through its open access initiatives, and to advocate for evidence-based policies that reflect the scientific consensus on key matters related to language and language use.
No matter the amount, your donation makes a difference
Select a fund to make a donation
-
2025 Annual Fund
The Executive Committee set a goal of $150,000 for this year’s Annual Fund drive because we want to continue the work you made possible last fiscal year. Members contributed $113,000 last year. This year, together, we can do even more to advance the discipline of linguistics, support linguistics students, build a “big tent” LSA, and bring the insights and empirical findings of our discipline to policy makers. Your membership and generosity enabled LSA to do amazing things this past year, including:
- Providing $30,000 in membership scholarships
- Submitting an amicus brief demonstrating that linguistic evidence supports the use of chosen pronouns
- Building a "big tent" LSA that welcomes all linguists, including establishing the First Gen Access and Equity Committee.
-
Centennial Student Fund
Your donation to the Centennial Student Fund helps support student attendance and participation at the Annual Meeting, including travel grants for undergraduates with a demonstrated strong interest in linguistics and graduate students in linguistics or a related field who have not yet defended their dissertations. Funds can also use used to support other student needs related to the Annual Meeting, for example, by providing childcare for a student member who is a parent can attend the meeting.
-
Financial Assistance and Student Support Fund
LSA gives away more than $18,000 a year in free memberships to linguists for whom paying membership dues would represent an economic hardship. Free memberships are also available to K-12 teachers and students. A donation to this fund will help us continue to provide free memberships to those who need them.
-
Indigenous Scholars of the Americas Fund
A donation to the Indigenous Scholars of the Americas Fund helps provide support to individuals who have a deep and personal connection to an Indigenous community of the Americas or the American Pacific to engage in scholarship focused on the languages of those communities, including but not limited to their documentation, preservation, and revitalization. The fund may be used to provide travel grants to help offset the costs of presenting at the Annual Meeting or other purposes that advance the scientific student of Indigenous languages, understood to be the systematic and empirical processes of observation, testing, and knowledge building of the kinds found both within the academic scientific community, and also underlying the generations of knowledge that reside within and arise from many of the traditions within Indigenous communities themselves.
-
Ken Hale Student Fellowship Fund
The Ken Hale Student Fellowship is awarded to a graduate student who is pursuing a course of study to document endangered languages and work with communities toward their preservation. It provides tuition, travel, and room and board for a student to attend the Linguistic Institute. Contributions are still being accepting with the goal of generating sufficient earnings to support at least one student each year into the future.
-
Open Access Publications Fund
LSA publishes two open access journals: Phonological Data and Analysis and Semantics and Pragmatics. Expenses for the journals include but are not limited to site hosting, stipends, copy editing and proof reading that total $30,000 year. A donation to this fund helps us continue to provide diamond open access to cutting edge linguistic research.
-
Yuki Kuroda Fellowship Fund
Established in honor of an LSA member and pre-eminent scholar of Japanese linguistics, Yuki Kuroda, this fund provides tuition, travel, and room and board for a student from Japan to attend the Linguistic Institute. Contributions are still being accepting with the goal of generating sufficient earnings to support at least one student each year into the future.