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Article published In:
Historiographia Linguistica
Vol. 47:1 (2020) ► pp.79–104

Crisis in the Linguistic Society of America

The contested presidential election of 1970

| University of Washington | University of British Columbia | Simon Fraser University
This article discusses and analyses the 1970 election for President of the Linguistic Society of America. In that year, Dwight Bolinger challenged the official candidate Martin Joos and defeated him easily. We see that it was mainly personal and generational factors, rather than intellectual ones, that led to Bolinger’s victory.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The antagonists: Martin Joos and Dwight Bolinger
    • 2.1Martin Joos
    • 2.2Dwight Bolinger
  • 3.The prelude to the 1970 election
    • 3.1The LSA in early 1970
    • 3.2The 1970 Nominating Committee
    • 3.3Bolinger challenges Joos
  • 4.The internal debate over the contested election
  • 5.The election results and their aftermath
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hl.00063.new
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