Publication Guide
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is the principal scholarly society for linguistics in the United States, founded in 1924 and headquartered in Washington DC. Unlike large commercial houses, the LSA publishes a small, tightly curated portfolio of four journals - and one of them, Language, has been the field's flagship general-linguistics journal since 1925.
The biggest recent change: from 2026, the LSA partners with Cambridge University Press to publish Language (from Volume 102) and Phonological Data and Analysis (from Volume 8) as fully open-access journals, with the Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America moving to Cambridge in 2027. The LSA retains full oversight of content selection, peer review, and editor appointments. This guide covers which LSA journal fits your paper, what publication actually costs (usually nothing out of pocket), peer review, and how to submit.
Which LSA journal fits your paper?
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Have a major theoretical or empirical result of interest to linguists across subfields | Language - the LSA's flagship since 1925; highly selective, double-anonymized review, and the most-cited general linguistics journal published by a US society. |
| Work on formal semantics or pragmatics | Semantics and Pragmatics (S&P) - diamond OA (no fees), founded 2008, widely regarded as one of the top journals in semantics internationally. |
| Have a data-rich phonology paper | Phonological Data and Analysis (PDA) - founded 2019; open access, focused on empirically grounded phonological analysis. |
| Want to publish a paper you presented at the LSA Annual Meeting | Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America (PLSA) - open access with no fees; publishes peer-reviewed papers from the Annual Meeting. |
What the LSA publishes
Four peer-reviewed journals, all in linguistics:
- Language - research articles across linguistic theory and all subfields, plus book reviews, teaching-focused and public-facing sections. Fully open access from 2026 via Cambridge University Press; the 1925-2025 archive is available through Project MUSE and JSTOR, with a green open-access archive and full back-content access for LSA members.
- Semantics and Pragmatics - self-contained research articles on the semantics and pragmatics of natural languages, published diamond OA at semprag.org on the OJS platform under CC BY.
- Phonological Data and Analysis - phonological research grounded in rich empirical data; open access from Volume 8 (2026) on Cambridge Core.
- Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America - peer-reviewed papers from the LSA Annual Meeting, published since 2016 with no author fees; hosted on the LSA's OJS platform through the 2026 volume, then on Cambridge Core from 2027.
Open access and fees - actual numbers
The LSA has committed that no author faces a financial barrier to publishing in its journals. Figures below reflect the 2026 Cambridge price list; always check the journal's current fees page.
| Journal | OA model | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Gold OA (from Vol 102, 2026), author-choice CC licence | APC ~3,105). Covered automatically under Cambridge read-and-publish agreements, funded via COEI or Research4Life for 100+ LMICs, paid from grants where available - otherwise waived entirely. |
| Semantics and Pragmatics | Diamond OA, CC BY | $0 - no APCs and no submission charges |
| Phonological Data and Analysis | Gold OA (from Vol 8, 2026), CC licence | Costs covered through institutional agreements, third-party funding, or waived entirely |
| Proceedings of the LSA | Open access | $0 - no financial barriers to publication of accepted papers |
Peer review
- Model: double-anonymized peer review is the norm - Language and PDA require anonymized manuscripts at submission, and S&P likewise anonymizes review.
- Editorial control: even under the Cambridge partnership, the LSA appoints editors and boards and manages peer review itself.
- Turnaround: the LSA does not publish portfolio-wide statistics; selective venues like Language commonly take several months to first decision. Check each journal's site for current guidance.
How to submit
- Pick the journal using the decision table above - scope fit matters more than anything else at a four-journal publisher.
- Format your manuscript following the Unified Style Sheet for Linguistics, the citation standard shared across LSA journals. SciSpace templates for LSA venues handle this formatting automatically.
- Anonymize your manuscript for double-anonymized review (remove author names, acknowledgments, and self-identifying citations).
- Submit through the right system: Language and PDA use ScholarOne (Manuscript Central); Semantics and Pragmatics uses OJS at semprag.org; PLSA uses the LSA's OJS portal (through the 2026 volume).
- Check APC coverage (Language/PDA only): use Cambridge's eligibility checker to see if your institution's agreement covers the fee - and if not, request a waiver after acceptance.
Ethics and integrity
LSA journals operate under COPE guidance, and Cambridge University Press - the publishing partner for Language and PDA - is a COPE member. Since 2012, authors in Language retain copyright in their articles. The society's open-access program and its author-retained-rights policy long predate the 2026 Cambridge move: S&P has been fee-free OA since 2008 and PLSA since its 2016 launch.
