The Linguistics Society of America recently announced the recipients of four awards. They recognized linguists whose work supports endangered languages, promote linguistics to the public, and advance and serve the field of linguistics as a whole.

Congratulations to Professor Sally Thomason on receiving the Victoria A. Fromkin Prize for Distinguished Service. This award was first presented in 2001 and is awarded to individuals who have performed extraordinary service to the discipline and to the Society throughout their career. Sally will be presented with her award at the 2018 Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City

Below you will find the complete list of awards and recipients

Linguistics, Language and the Public Award: John McWhorter

John McWhorter is widely known for his sustained and far-ranging efforts to illuminate complex questions of linguistic inquiry for a general audience, including his public-facing lectures, books, articles, commentary, numerous interviews produced by popular news media outlets, and for his service to the LSA in furthering public understanding of linguistics.

Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award: Sally Thomason

Over her career Sally Thomason has contributed more to the field of linguistics in both research and service than what most scholars will achieve in a lifetime in only one of these areas. Her research has propelled the field forward; her mentoring activities have placed many junior scholars on trajectories toward success; and her service to the Society has benefited all linguists in significant ways. Sally’s contributions to the field of linguistics and the LSA in particular is richly deserving of recognition through the  Victoria A. Fromkin Lifetime Service Award.

Early Career Award: Kristen Syrett

Dr. Kristen Syrett has demonstrated exemplary performance in research, teaching, and service since receiving her PhD. Dr. Syrett is a leading researcher in experimental semantics. Her work bridges multiple subfields, integrating formal linguistic theory and psycholinguistic experimentation. She has published widely in some of the top journals of our field. In addition to her extraordinary research, Dr. Syrett’s devotion to the field has been unparalleled for an early career researcher. She has been particularly devoted to the Linguistic Society of America, including in her current role as chair of the  Committee on the Status of Women in Linguistics.

Kenneth L. Hale Award: Tucker Childs

In recognition of his contributions to the documentation of the languages of the Bolom group and to their speaker communities. Tucker Childs has devoted decades to research on Kisi, Bom, Mani, Kim, and Sherbro to produce a comprehensive picture of the languages and cultures of an endangered African language group. He has shown a commitment to both scholarship and speaker communities,producing grammars, dictionaries, readers, and primers, as well as numerous academic articles. His work provides a model for the documentation of African languages by an American scholar and the value in documenting an entire linguistic subgroup.