Gender and the language scholarship of the Summer Institute of Linguistics in the context of mid twentieth-century American linguistics

Low levels of participation by women scholars in mainstream American lin­guistics in the mid twentieth century contrast with evidence, from the 1940s on­ward, of productive engagement in language study and analysis by women mis­sionary-linguists affiliated with the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now known as “SIL International”). This paper explores why SIL, unlike early twentieth-century aca­demic study of language, seems to have consistently valued women’s linguistic work.