Dwight Bolinger; USC Linguist

Dwight L. Bolinger, a nationally recognized linguist who chaired USC’s department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese in the 1940s and ‘50s, has died in Palo Alto. He was 84.

Bolinger died Feb. 23, his son, Bruce Bolinger, said. While at USC, Bolinger, according to his son, headed a special committee appointed by then-Mayor Fletcher Bowron to decide the correct pronunciation of Los Angeles. Bolinger concluded that the common English accent and pronunciation were best, rather than Spanish.

Bolinger was educated at Kansas and Wisconsin universities. In addition to his work at USC, he taught in a one-room school in Stover, Mo., high school in Costa Rica, junior college in Kansas City and Harvard University, from which he retired in 1973.

Bolinger wrote 17 books on linguistics and more than 300 articles. At first interested in music composition, he studied intonation in linguistics. That specialty resulted in such books as “The Symbolism of Music” and “Intonation and Its Parts: Melody in Spoken Language.”

He received the Orwell Award of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1981, was named a corresponding member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1988 and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy in 1990.

In addition to his son, of Nevada City, Bolinger is survived by a daughter, Ann McClure of Aberdeen, Scotland, a sister and a brother.

The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to Stanford University for preservation of the Dwight Bolinger Papers (in care of Margaret Kimball, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA 94305-6004) or for cancer research (Office of Medical Development, 770 Welch Road, Suite 400, Palo Alto, CA 94304.)