Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

Authors wishing to submit articles for publication in Language, Culture and Society are requested to do so through the journal’s online submission and manuscript tracking site. All other enquiries should be directed towards the editors by e-mailing the journal at:
lcs.journal.jb1 at gmail.com

Manuscripts submitted to Language, Culture and Society will undergo double-blind peer review and will be evaluated based on their originality, methodological rigor, significance of findings, and quality of presentation. Manuscripts submitted for consideration to the journal should not be previously published or being considered for publication elsewhere.

All submissions to Language, Culture and Society should be written in English and prepared according to the following guidelines.

Length

Full-length articles reporting on empirical or theoretical research should be limited to a maximum of 9,000 words. Unsolicited book reviews are not considered. Word limits should be adhered to closely; tables, references, notes, and appendices should be included in the word counts. Article titles should not be more than 15 words.

Manuscript uploading

Please upload your manuscript file with no identifying author information (designate as Main Document). When citing your own work, either discuss the work in the third person, or cite as 'Author (year)'. The first page of the submission should carry the following: a title (but no author identification); a single-paragraph abstract 150-200 words long specifying central theoretical arguments, design and methods and key findings; a list of up to six key words; a short running title for use as a page header; and a word count for the paper (including abstract, notes, references, extracts, and appendices). The main text of the article should begin on the second page. After the end of the main text, there follow in order: Acknowledgments, Notes, References and Appendices.

Presentation

All submissions should be presented in Times New Roman, 11 or 12-point font. Please include page numbers in the manuscript.

Sections and Section Headings

All sections should be numbered and labeled with a descriptive title. Please do not exceed three levels of headings. Section numbering should follow the pattern 1, 2 (for level one); 1.1, 1.2 (for level two); and 1.1.1, 1.1.2 (for level three).

Tables, Figures, and Other Graphics

In the initial submission, authors should place tables, figures, and other graphics within the paper in the desired location. However, authors should be prepared to submit original artwork files separately upon final accepted submission. All tables and figures should be numbered consecutively and include a caption that is informative and concise. All tables and figures should be introduced in the text.

In-text references

References in the text should follow the Name (year) format. Use et al. for three or more authors after the first mention (include all authors in the reference list). Examples:

Smith (2005)
Harding and Jones (2009)
Johnson et al. (2014)
Jones (2007, 2010)

When both the name and the year is placed in parentheses, please include a comma between the name and date; replace ‘and’ with ‘&’. When page numbers are required, follow the format year + colon + page numbers (no ‘pp.’). Separate multiple references with commas. Citations of two or more works in the same parentheses should be listed in the order they appear in the reference list (i.e., alphabetically, then chronologically). Examples:

(Smith, 2005)
(Smith, 2005: 56-58)
(Smith, 2005; Harding & Jones 2007)
(Johnson et al., 2014: 43)
Several studies (Jones & Powell, 1993; Peterson, 1995, 1998; Smith, 1990) suggest that... 

Quotations

Use double quotes for shorter quotations. Quotations longer than 40 words should be displayed as an indented block quote. Any quotations within the main quote should use single quotes. 

Language examples

Language examples and linguistic items within the main text should be in italics, with bolding for further emphasis:

  • ...antecedents for pronominal this and these tend to be extended units of discourse…
  • ...noun phrases with more than one premodifying noun, such as justice department official…
  • the conversion of verbs to nouns (as in strong increase or flow line)

Longer examples should be set apart from the main text with blank lines before and after, indented, and numbered. Examples should be referred to in the text by number (e.g., Example 1 shows that…). Italics, bold, and underlining can be used for further emphasis if needed. Examples:

(1)       Specifically, we were interested in investigating the quantitative difference in the use of grammatical structures associated with registers over time.

(2)       This may be explained by the presence of high fluctuations in the 1 min. data.

Acknowledgements

In order to maintain anonymity, acknowledgements, if any, should not be included in the initial submission. Authors of accepted papers may include a brief acknowledgements section in the final submission. This should be an unnumbered section immediately following the conclusion.

Notes

Use endnotes rather than footnotes. These should be numbered consecutively throughout the paper and included as an unnumbered section following the conclusion or acknowledgements section. 

Reference list

The full reference list should follow guidelines provided by the American Psychological Association (6th edition). A few examples follow; please consult the APA manual for full details.

Books

Biber, D., & Conrad, S. (2009). Register, genre, and style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leech, G. (2004). Meaning and the English verb (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

Journal Articles

Matthiessen, C. (2015). Register in the round: Registerial cartography. Functional Linguistics,  2(9), 1-48.

Szmrecsanyi, B., Biber, D., Egbert, J., & Franco, K. (2016). Towards more accountability: Modeling ternary genitive variation in Late Modern English. Language Variation and  Change, 28(1), 1-29.

Book Chapters

Ferguson, C. (1994). Dialect, register, and genre: Working assumptions about conventionalization. In D. Biber & E. Finegan (Eds.), Sociolinguistic perspectives on  register (pp. 15-30). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Appendices

One or more appendix sections may be included after the references section.

Copyright permission

It is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission to reproduce any material that has been previously published.