The Dictionary Society of North America: A History of the Early Years (Part IV)

ABSTRACT:The present article—in four parts, of which this is the final installment—is a history of the Dictionary Society of North America (DSNA) in its infancy and youth, and thus also a chapter in the history of the language sciences more generally, as well as a contribution to the sociology of organizations. Whereas the first three installments described the founding of DSNA, its leadership, and its membership during the society's early years, respectively, this installment focuses on its conferences and publications. DSNA originated in conferences of the early 1970s, and biennial conferences became central to DSNA's intellectual and social activity from 1977 throughout DSNA's history. Although it struggled to organize a publications program early on, the DSNA Newsletter has appeared twice annually since 1977, and the inaugural issue of the society's journal, Dictionaries, appeared in 1979. For a while, alongside these typical learned-society organs some of DSNA's leaders hoped to establish series of conference proceedings and monographs, but there performance, if not ambition, faltered. The newsletter and journal continue to thrive, but in those early years they faced challenges. This installment of the history explains how those challenges were resolved into what became the public identity of DSNA and celebrates the success of the scholarly activities in the society's early period—conferences, the newsletter, and the journal are all thriving today, and not by historical accident.