Women have always been a dynamic force in American linguistics, yet this has not always been apparent in current histories of linguistics. For 20th-century linguistics, this text argues, the same story has been told over and over: a story of leading men, their followers, and their interest in language as a structure observable in patterns of the distribution of forms. This text challenges this received history by presenting a re-evaluation of 20th-century American linguistics which focuses on the contributions of women to our modern understanding of language. This book relates an account of...

This study presents a re-evaluation of 20th century American linguistics focusing on the contributions of women to the modern understanding of language. It relates an account of linguistics as perceived by three women in the early 20th century.