Its annual meetings, held every winter, foster discussion amongst its members through the presentation of peer-reviewed research, as well as conducting official business of the society.

By 1935, half of the female foundational members had left the society—a rate similar to that of male members—largely due to the professionalization of the field of linguistics that disproportionately affected women as most worked outside of academia.

[3] Before the foundation of the LSA, a number of other similar societies existed including the American Philological Society and the Modern Language Association, and with the publication of Sapir's Language and Saussure's Course in General Linguistics in 1921 and 1922, the field of linguistics began to take shape as an independent discipline.

[4] Though an international discipline, the founders of the LSA had a growing feeling of an American linguistics different from the traditional European topics and methodologies popular at the time.

During World War II, the LSA helped the United States government with language training programs through its Linguistic Institutes.

After the longtime Secretary-Treasurer Archibald Hill retired from his position in 1969, the LSA made large changes to its organizational structure to better accommodate its new and growing role.

The responsibilities of the secretary-treasurer were expanded and the LSA established a secretariat in Washington, D.C., in order to act as a liaison between the members, federal government, and other professional organizations.

They serve as the chief administrative officer, overseeing the society's application and adherence to policies, and report directly to the executive committee.

Scholars who live outside of the United States may be elected as honorary members of the LSA after being nominated by the executive committee.

[13] Members of the LSA may submit abstracts to the Program Committee for consideration for talks and poster sessions at the annual meeting.

The LSA also offers "minicourses" at its annual meeting which offer instruction in various fields such as Python scripting and statistical methods using R.[14][15] The LSA holds a four-week biennial Linguistic Institute in the summer which includes talks and coursework on various aspects of linguistics.

Considered by the membership to be one of the most important services of the LSA,[16] the institute has helped influence the development of the field through promotion of new directions such as psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.

These include fellowships named for Ken Hale, James McCawley, Ivan Sag, and Julia Bloch.

[25][26] Dr. Carlson's successor, Andries Coetzee, was elected editor of language in 2016 and assumed office in 2017 for a term of seven years.

The society, recognizing its growing role in advocacy, established a secretariat in Washington, D.C., in 1969 to better liaise between its membership and the government.

[2] Around that same time, the LSA began working with other professional organizations to meet and exchange research as part of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA).

"[33] Furthering that stance, the membership ratified a statement on linguistic rights in 1996 declaring "the government and people of the United States have a special obligation to enable indigenous peoples to retain their languages and cultures" and declared 7 fundamental linguistic rights including the right "to have their children educated in a manner that affirmatively acknowledges their native language abilities..." which includes the possibility of education in a language other than English.

In 1997, an LSA resolution supported the Oakland school-board in its attempt to favor teaching that is sensitive to the distinctive characteristics of African American Vernacular English,[36] the "Ebonics" debate.

[37] More recently, the LSA has advocated for the passage of bills funding revitalization programs for Native American languages.