The Program Committee of the LSA is accepting proposals for Organized Sessions at the 2024 Annual Meeting, which will take place in person in New York City from January 4-7, 2024. We welcome proposals from individual LSA members as well as from Committees and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on topics falling under their purview. Proposals are particularly welcome from members of groups historically underrepresented among LSA members, on topics relating to the LSA Centennial, which will be celebrated at the 2024 Annual Meeting, and on topics relating to New York City and the surrounding regions. Program Committee Chairs are available to discuss ideas for possible organized session topics.

An organized session is an excellent opportunity to present a group of similarly-focused presentations on a wide variety of topics and in a wide variety of formats. Organized sessions may be on any linguistic topic that would be of interest to meeting attendees (e.g., characteristics of a particular language family; trends and advances in a particular subfield of linguistics; current debates on a particular research topic). They may also address topics of interest to particular groups of attendees (e.g. students, hopeful book authors, prospective grant-writers, policy advisors). Graduate students and junior faculty are particularly invited to submit proposals on professional development topics. 

A session may take many forms: symposium, workshop, tutorial, or another form as appropriate. It may be either 1 hour and 30 minutes, or 3 hours in length. Specific examples are given below.

The 2024 Annual Meeting organized sessions will take place in person only. 

Directions for Submission of Proposals

Organized session proposals must be submitted by Friday, May 26, 2023. Proposals received must be in final form, with all presentations and speakers accounted for. There is no opportunity for additional feedback from the Program Committee, nor will there be any later submission date. Program Committee Chairs are available for consultation at any time before the deadline (see email addresses below). Proposals submitted after the May 26 final deadline will not be considered.

Possible Session Formats

  • Symposium: several presentations on a single topic
  • Tutorial: intensive instruction in some subfield of linguistics or a related field
  • Workshop: on a specific theme or issue, with time for responses and debate/discussion planned in, perhaps with a particular goal in mind
  • Datablitz: a session composed of many very short presentations (10 mins each, for example) highlighting a broad range of ongoing work on a single topic
  • Sessions of any other kind with a clear, specific and coherent rationale

Requirements for Submission

Proposals are required to submit the following information:

  • Title of Session
  • Type of Session (Symposium, Tutorial, etc.)
  • Name(s), affiliation(s) and e-mail address(es) of the organizer(s)
  • Length of session (1 hour 30 minutes or 3 hours)
  • LSA Committee, SIG, or other entity on behalf of which the proposal is being submitted, if applicable
  • Session Abstract, no more than 500 words in length
  • Detailed Session information:
    • In the order in which they will occur in the session, the individual presenters’ names, affiliations, roles (paper presenter, introducer, moderator, discussant, etc.)
    • No more than 150 word abstracts for each paper or poster presentation

Questions about the content of the proposal may be directed to the Program Committee Chairs: Sarah Murray (sarah.murray@cornell.edu) and Kristine Yu (krisyu@linguist.umass.edu). Technical questions about submission may be directed to Vy Le (VyLe@lsadc.org).

Suggestions for proposers

The committee strongly encourages organizers to consider the submission of sessions in the 1 hr 30 minute format, which allows us to accept more sessions. If three hours is the appropriate length for your session, however, do not hesitate to ask for it.

Please also note the following:

  • Individual papers must not have already appeared in print, nor may they appear in print before the 2024 Annual Meeting
  • Please consult LSA's Model Abstracts page for more information when preparing your abstracts
  • Each participant in the organized session must be a member of the LSA. Nonmembers may join here
  • Proposals for organized sessions are not reviewed anonymously; please be sure to include your name and affiliation on the proposal as well as the names and affiliations of the presenters on their respective abstracts
  • All meeting rooms will be equipped with microphones, a screen, and internet access for presenters

Important dates

Approximate timetable for organized session proposals and further requirements:

  • May 26: deadline for receipt of final proposals  
  • Late June: notification of acceptance/non-acceptance of proposals