In 1983, the Society for Linguistic Anthropology was formed as a section of the AAA with the goal of advancing the "study of language in its social and cultural context and to encourage communication of the results of such study." It has published the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology semiannually since 1991, and since 2001 they have given out the Edward Sapir Prize for the book making the most significant contribution to the understanding of language in society. The Society's records consist of 0.5 linear feet of administrative correspondence, newsletters, and minutes of the executive committee, 1983-1986, representing the formation and earliest years of the Society. The files are arranged chronologically, and then alphabetically.

Edward Adamson Hoebel (1906-1993) was an anthropologist and educator best known for his studies of the legal systems of pre-literate societies. Graduating from Columbia, where he had studied with Ralph Linton, Franz Boas, and Ruth Benedict, Hoebel early became a scholar on the legal cultures of the Plains Indians, including the Comanches and Cheyennes. After appointments at New York University and the University of Utah, he spent the majority of his academic career at the University of Minnesota, from which he became emeritus professor in 1972. The E. Adamson Hoebel Papers (1925-1993) contain correspondence, subject files, manuscripts of published and unpublished works by Hoebel, papers by colleagues and students, Hoebel's research notes, course materials, and photographs.

The papers of anthropologist Ward Goodenough cover his whole career, most of it spent in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. After service in army during WW II, Goodenough received a Ph.D. from Yale in 1949. He conducted field research from 1947 to 1965, working at Chuuk (Truk), the Gilberts, Papua New Guinea, and New Britain. The collection is particularly important in showing how linguistic theory can help further anthropological theory.

An archaeological anthropologist and linguist, John Alden Mason spent the majority of his career at the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania. After receiving his undergraduate degree at Penn in 1907, Mason received a doctorate at Berkeley (1911) for his ethnographic work on the Salinan Indians of California, but his diverse interests in later years ran the gamut from Puerto Rican folklore to Piman languages and cultures (including Pima, Papago, Pima Bajo, Northern and Southern Tepehuan, and Tepecano), Mayan, Aztec, and Incan archaeology, and the languages of South American Indians. Mason was curator of the University Museum at Penn from 1926 until his retirement in 1958. The Mason Papers include both in-coming and outgoing correspondence, linguistic material, notes, and photographs relating to Mason's work in the southwestern U.S., northern Mexico, and South America. Centered on the years after Mason's return to Philadelphia in 1926, the collection covers all aspects of Mason's professional life, from reports on field work to answering casual questions referred to him through the University Museum to data and analyses on Piman and other languages. The collection also contains voluminous files relating to the Mason's editorship of the American Anthropologist (bulk: 1945-1948). Of special note are a series of class notes (1908-1910) kept by Mason for course work in ethnology, archaeology, and linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania under Edward Sapir and Frank Speck.

Elsie Clews Parsons (1875-1941) was trained as a sociologist at Columbia University, but made her greatest achievements in the fields of anthropology and folklore. Parsons' early works in the field of sociology dealt primarily with gender roles, conventions of society, and the effect of society's pressures on the individual. After a trip to the American Southwest with her husband in 1910, Parsons' interests turned to anthropology. She began making field trips to Arizona and New Mexico and, under the influence of her friend Franz Boas, Parsons recorded in meticulous detail data on social organization, religious practices, and folklore of the Southwest Indians. Concurrently, Parsons conducted research in folklore, concentrating on folk tales of Afro-Americans and Caribbean peoples. She was active in a number of professional associations and was the associate editor of the Journal of American Folklore from 1918 until her death. The Parsons Papers were acquired as two separate accessions and remains organized in two distinct subcollections. Subcollection I (572 P35), acquired in 1949, contains approximately 12 linear feet of materials focused on Parsons' career in anthropology. Subcollection II, acquired in 1985, consists of 26.25 linear feet of materials divided into ten series, covering a larger scope of Parsons' life, including family and personal correspondence.

Dell Hymes' doctoral research on Kathlamet Chinook (Indiana University, 1955) grew into a lifelong interest in the relationship between ethnography and linguistics. Following academic appointments at Harvard University (1955-1960) and the University of California, Berkley (1960-1965), Hymes joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. During twenty-two years tenure at Penn he was a professor of folklore, linguistics, sociology and education. In 1975, he was promoted to Dean of the Graduate School of Education (1975-1987). A principal proponent of the emergent field of sociolinguistics, his most influential works include Reinventing Anthropology and Language in Culture and Society. The Hymes papers cover all aspects of Dell Hymes' professional life. Subcollection I is concentrated on his years at the University of Pennsylvania, his presidencies of the American Association of Anthropology and the Linguistic Society of America, and his editorship of the journal Language in Society. Subcollection II is broader, focusing much more on published and unpublished linguistic work on dozens of languages, mostly of North America. Of particular interest is his rich correspondence with colleagues and students on linguistic issues. The papers reflect Hymes' interests in the history of linguistics and anthropology, Native American languages (especially oral literatures), and his comparative ethnographies of communication.

The Anthony F. C. Wallace Papers include correspondence to and from 20th century anthropologists, ethnologists, historians, linguists, and psychiatrists and provides a wealth of resources for the study of technological and social change, American Indians, culture and personality, revitalization movements, the anthropological study of religion, and the cultural and biological bases of behavior. In addition to Wallace's correspondence, research notes, and drafts, the collection includes Wallace family correspondence and photographs, as well as Wallace's writings from childhood through recent years.