The Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association (APLA) was founded in 1977 to promote the study of languages and linguistics in Eastern Canada and was  recognized in 1992 as a national organization by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The Association hosts an annual conference each fall at a centre of higher education in the area and publishes the papers presented.  Topics cover all areas of linguistics. The  2008 conference took place at Dalhousie University in Halifax and the 2009 conference was hosted in St. John's by the Memorial University of Newfoundland. In addition, a journal, Linguistica Atlantica, is published annually.