General Information on Prizes & Awards

On this page, you can learn about the SLA prizes including details regarding submissions such as deadlines. Please also check for Announcements!

You may learn about Previous Winners here.

Award for Public Outreach and Community Service: Call for Nominations

Relaunched for 2026! This award honors work that effectively impacts public awareness of social issues involving language and communication and/or represents a significant service to a particular community outside of the academy. An individual, a group, or a project may be nominated for this prize, but at least one participant must be an SLA member. Such work may be in any medium, including but not limited to: books, reports, exhibits, pedagogical materials/curricula, documentary films, newspaper or magazine articles, blogs, digitized or broadcast media, and lectures. Eligible work must have been published, presented, or carried out during the five years immediately preceding the submission deadline. A Selection Committee appointed by the SLA President will consider all applications and may request additional materials as needed. Awards will be announced at the SLA Awards ceremony, which is usually conducted at the annual AAA meeting.

1. Applicants may self-nominate or be nominated. Each nomination must include:

• A description of the work that is being nominated, providing the details, participants, extent, and scope of the project, in a statement of at least 500 words. Please describe how the project effectively impacts public awareness of social issues involving language and communication and/or represents a significant service to a particular community outside of the academy.
• A brief explanation of the nominator’s relationship to the work that is being nominated.
• At least one of the following:
  • Product or substantive output from the project (such as a website, pedagogical materials, photographs, a short video, etc.)
  • Evidence of impact (such as the effectiveness of a public outreach project) or testimonials to community service by community members (2-3 pages suggested length).

2. To facilitate the process, please submit all application materials as a single PDF (including active hyperlinks where relevant) and make sure that key materials submitted in other languages are translated into or summarized in English to facilitate their optimal evaluation.
3. Since a given project is eligible for five years, this evidence of accomplishment, with any relevant updates, may be considered in more than one annual award cycle. This means that projects that have been unsuccessful in a given cycle may reapply based on the same materials so long as they do so within the five-year eligibility window.

If you have any questions, please send them to [email protected]. Please submit nominations using this google form. The submission deadline is June 15, 2026.

Annual Student Essay Prizes: Call for Papers

Submissions for the Annual Student Essay Prizes are now open. The Gumperz Graduate Student Prize is due January 15, 2026 and the Undergraduate Paper Prize is due June 15, 2026.

The Society for Linguistic Anthropology holds an annual student essay competition at both undergraduate and graduate levels. In order to be eligible for one of these awards, the applicant must have been either a graduate or undergraduate student in a degree-granting program when the paper was written; must be the sole author of the paper; and must submit the paper no more than two years after it was written.

The paper must be an original work based on original research conducted by the author. It will be evaluated on the basis of clarity, significance to the field, and substantive contribution. The paper must not exceed 10,000 words for the Gumperz graduate essay prize; 8000 for the thesis or equivalent category of the undergraduate prize; 4000 for the course paper category, including bibliography. At the time of submission for this competition, the paper must not have been published or submitted for publication.

The undergraduate winner will receive a cash award, a certificate of accomplishment, and a small travel grant to the AAA meeting. The graduate award winner will receive a cash award, a small travel grant to present their paper at the annual AAA meeting, and an invitation to submit the paper for consideration for publication with the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology.

Submissions should be in English. Membership in SLA is not required for submission, although it is required for prize winners who wish to present their papers at the AAA conference.

Inquiries about the prizes should be directed to:

• Undergraduate prize: [email protected]
• Graduate prize: [email protected]

Please submit using the appropriate google forms as follows:

• Undergraduate prize submission form
• Graduate prize submission form

SLA Book Prizes 2026-2027: 

The SLA holds two biennial competitions.

The SLA invites books with conceptual and theoretical focus, as well as ethnographic and descriptive works. Single- or multi-author books — but not edited collections — are eligible. Books must be written in English and have been published between the dates listed for the relevant prize. Any given book is eligible in only one biennial round of competition. The same book cannot be submitted to both the Sapir Prize and the New Voices book prize competitions. Authors must be members of the SLA at the time of submission.

To submit your book for the SLA Book Prizes, please fill out the submission form at https://forms.gle/6n8AqLzSoWwBCUvy5. Questions about the prizes can be addressed to [email protected]. 

The Edward Sapir Book Prize

Submissions for the Edward Sapir Book Prize will open on January 1, 2026 and close on March 15, 2026.

The Edward Sapir Book Prize, established in 2001, is a prize awarded to a book that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of language in society, or the ways in which language mediates historical or contemporary sociocultural processes. The Sapir Prize will be awarded in 2026 and will cover books published between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025. Thereafter, the prize will be awarded biennially.

SLA New Voices Book Prize

Submissions for the New Voices Book Prize will open on January 1, 2027 and close on March 15, 2027. 

The New Voices Book Prize, established in 2021, is a biennial prize awarded to a book by a junior scholar (published within twelve years of the PhD) that makes a pathbreaking contribution to our understanding of language in society, or the ways in which language mediates historical or contemporary sociocultural processes. The New Voices prize will be awarded in 2027 and will cover books published between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2026.