About CLS

The Chicago Linguistic Society is the oldest student-run linguistics society in the United States. Our two objectives are to organize certain student activities in the Department of Linguistics throughout the year - including a weekly tea and several colloquia - and to hold an annual conference in early Spring where linguists and scholars working in related disciplines can present and discuss their work. The conference has produced a volume of proceedings for each year of its existence, and our volumes can be found in libraries and bibliographies around the world.

All CLS officers are volunteers from the department who usually are second or third year graduate students, and we receive funding from the University and the Department, from the Graduate Student Council, and from the sales of our conference proceedings and memorabilia.

About the conference

Each Spring scholars with diverse backgrounds and theoretical perspectives gather for three days of talks and discussion, followed by our annual CLS banquet. The conference is divided into a Main Session, comprising talks on a broad range of linguistic issues, and a series of Panels on a range of more particular issues within a sub-field of the discipline.

Submitted abstracts have traditionally been evaluated by graduate students in the department, but starting with CLS 42, a new two-tiered system of review was instituted, whereby acceptance results were collected from seventy external reviewers from around the world, as well as from internal student reviewers. These results were organized using the Pasha system.

Current Officers

Max Bane, Juan Bueno Holle, Tommy Grano, April Grotberg, James Kirby, Yaron McNabb