Pragmatics | Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Main information
Publisher: International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)
Pragmatics is the peer-reviewed quarterly journal of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), which was established in 1986 to represent the field of linguistic pragmatics, broadly conceived as the interdisciplinary (cognitive, social, cultural) science of language use. Its goal is to reflect the diversity of topics, applications, methods and approaches available within this wide field, and thus to contribute to IPrA’s foundational aim of searching for coherence across different perspectives and of bridging any gaps between the field’s practitioners, whether their background is linguistic, anthropological, sociological, psychological, computational, etc.
Pragmatics is made available online as free content after a 12-month embargo period. Members of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) always have access to the online version by logging in with their user name and password at the IPrA website, www.pragmatics.international . When applying for or renewing their membership, IPrA members may also choose to pay the additional fee required to receive paper copies.
Pragmatics publishes its articles Online First.
Latest articles
20 December 2024
16 December 2024
12 December 2024
14 November 2024
18 October 2024
15 October 2024
10 October 2024
3 September 2024
22 July 2024
10 June 2024
14 May 2024
6 May 2024
30 April 2024
18 April 2024
14 March 2024
1 March 2024
29 January 2024
19 January 2024
9 January 2024
28 November 2023
21 November 2023
16 November 2023
2 November 2023
23 October 2023
19 October 2023
15 September 2023
11 September 2023
7 September 2023
17 August 2023
27 July 2023
25 July 2023
20 July 2023
4 July 2023
Issues
Online-first articlesVolume 34 (2024)
Volume 33 (2023)
Volume 32 (2022)
Volume 31 (2021)
Volume 30 (2020)
Volume 29 (2019)
Volume 28 (2018)
Volume 27 (2017)
Volume 26 (2016)
Volume 25 (2015)
Volume 24 (2014)
Volume 23 (2013)
Volume 22 (2012)
Volume 21 (2011)
Volume 20 (2010)
Volume 19 (2009)
Volume 18 (2008)
Volume 17 (2007)
Volume 16 (2006)
Volume 15 (2005)
Volume 14 (2004)
Volume 13 (2003)
Volume 12 (2002)
Volume 11 (2001)
Volume 10 (2000)
Volume 9 (1999)
Volume 8 (1998)
Volume 7 (1997)
Volume 6 (1996)
Volume 5 (1995)
Volume 4 (1994)
Volume 3 (1993)
Volume 2 (1992)
Volume 1 (1991)
Board
Subscription Info
General information about our electronic journals.
Subscription rates
All prices for print + online include postage/handling.
Online-only | Print + online | ||
---|---|---|---|
Volume 35 (2025): 4 issues; ca. 600 pp. | EUR |
EUR |
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Volume 34 (2024): 4 issues; ca. 600 pp. | EUR |
EUR |
Individuals may apply for a special online-only subscription rate of EUR
Private subscriptions are for personal use only, and must be pre-paid and ordered directly from the publisher.
Available back-volumes
Online-only | Print + online | ||
---|---|---|---|
Complete backset (Vols. 1‒33; 1991‒2023) |
132 issues; 19,576 pp. |
EUR 191.00 | EUR 6,266.00 |
Volume 33 (2023) | 4 issues; 600 pp. | EUR |
EUR |
Volumes 30‒32 (2020‒2022) | 4 issues; avg. 600 pp. | Open Access | EUR |
Volume 29 (2019) | 4 issues; 600 pp. | Open Access | EUR |
Volume 28 (2018) | 4 issues; 600 pp. | Open Access | EUR |
Volume 27 (2017) | 4 issues; 600 pp. | Open Access | EUR |
Volumes 1‒26 (1991‒2016) | 4 issues; avg. 591 pp. | Open Access | EUR |
Guidelines
Submission
When submitting your article, please observe the following:
Make sure that you submit the final, clean version of the manuscript (without personal comments, corrections, tracks, etc.), together with all accompanying files (figures etc., if submitted as separate files).
In addition, provide a list containing all contributors’ full names (first and last), affiliations, and addresses (both postal and e-mail). Telephone and fax numbers are optional.
Online submission
Pragmatics only uses online submission.
File naming conventions
When naming your files please use the following conventions: Use the first three characters of the first author’s last name, followed by the proper three- or four-character file extension. For example, if that name is Johnson, the respective document file should be named JOH.DOC or JOH.DOCX. Do not use the three- or four-character extension except for identifying the file type, as provided by the system (e.g. JOH.DOC is OK, but not JOH.ART, JOH.REV; instead use JOHART.DOC, JOHR1.DOC, etc.). Figures, tables etc. should be named using the appropriate standard extensions, e.g. JOH1.EPS, JOH2.TIF, JOH3.XLS, etc.
Software
MS Word (PC or Mac) is our preferred submission format, although other formats are possible as well. If, for some reason, a different format is required than the one supplied, we will contact you.
Graphic files
Please supply figures as converted to Encapsulated Postscript (EPS) or Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) in addition to the original creation files. (Note that the typesetters cannot make corrections or changes in figures that are supplied as graphics).
General
Articles should be in English. English spelling and style should be consistently either British or American throughout. If you are not a highly proficient user of English, you should have the paper checked by an English language professional or native speaker.
Contributions should be between 7,000 and 10,000 words in length, including
- references
- an abstract of 100-150 words
- 6 to 8 keywords
- A biographical note of 50 to 75 words
- page numbering
Lay-out
Please use ample margins and 1.5 line spacing. Suggested font setting for main text: Times (New) Roman 12 pts. For tables and footnotes: Times Roman 10 pts.
Do not use running heads. For articles with long titles (which in general should be avoided), a shortened version (max. 55 characters), to be used as running head, may be provided on the cover sheet of your contribution.
Avoid full justification and ‘stiff’ hyphenation. Examples, quotations, tables, headings etc. should be presented in a clear and consistent way, so that they can be identified and formatted in the style of our journal.
Whatever formatting or style conventions are employed, please be consistent.
References
Once your paper is accepted for publication, it is essential that the references are formatted to the specifications given in these guidelines, as these cannot be formatted automatically. This journal uses the ‘Author-Date’ style as described in the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.
References in the text: These should be as precise as possible, giving page references where necessary; for example “(Görlach 2003, 152-154)” or: “as in Brown et al. (1991, 252)”. All references in the text should be matched by items in the references section.
References section: References should be listed first alphabetically and then chronologically. The section should include all (and only!) references that are actually mentioned in the text.
A note on capitalization in titles: For titles in English, CMS uses headline-style capitalization. In titles and subtitles, capitalize the first and last words, and all other major words (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, some conjunctions). Do not capitalize: articles; prepositions (unless used adverbially or adjectivally, or as part of a Latin expression used adverbially or adjectivally); the conjunctions and, but, for, or, nor; to as part of an infinitive; as in any grammatical function; parts of proper names that would be lower case in normal text; the second part of a species name. For more details and examples, consult the Chicago Manual of Style. For any other languages, and English translations of titles given in square brackets, CMS uses sentence-style capitalization: capitalization as in normal prose, i.e., the first word in the title, the subtitle, and any proper names or other words normally given initial capitals in the language in question.
Examples
Book
Görlach, Manfred. 2003. English Words Abroad. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Spear, Norman E., and Ralph R. Miller (eds). 1981. Information Processing in Animals: Memory Mechanisms. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Article (in book)
Adams, Clare A., and Anthony Dickinson. 1981. “Actions and Habits: Variation in Associative Representation during Instrumental Learning.” In Information Processing in Animals: Memory Mechanisms, ed. by Norman E. Spear, and Ralph R. Miller, 143–186. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Article (in journal)
Claes, Jeroen, and Luis A. Ortiz López. 2011. “Restricciones pragmáticas y sociales en la expresión de futuridad en el español de Puerto Rico [Pragmatic and social restrictions in the expression of the future in Puerto Rican Spanish].” Spanish in Context 8: 50–72.
Rayson, Paul, Geoffrey N. Leech, and Mary Hodges. 1997. “Social Differentiation in the Use of English Vocabulary: Some Analyses of the Conversational Component of the British National Corpus.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 2 (1): 120–132.
Tables and figures
All tables, figures, and trees must fit within the page size as specified below:
4.5” x 7.5” (≈ 11.5 cm x 19 cm)
Please be aware that prior to typesetting, the pages will have to be reduced in size; any lettering etc. should be big enough to be legible also after reduction. Absolute lowest font size: Times Roman 8 pts).
Tables and figures should be provided on separate sheets, numbered consecutively and given appropriate captions. They should be referred to in the main text as “Table 2”, “Figure 3”, etc. (avoid expressions such as “in the following table: ...” or “See the figure below.”).
Please indicate the preferred positioning of tables and figures in the text in this way:
---------------------------
INSERT FIG 1 HERE
---------------------------
Preferred Table format:
Table 5. Past-inflection rates in Jamaican and Trinidadian Creoles.
* The large number of Trinidadian tokens is due to the…etc. Emphasis and foreign wordsUse italics for words in languages other than English as well as for emphasis. Boldface should be used only for highlighting words within italicized stretches and for headings. Please refrain from the use of FULL CAPS (except for focal stress and abbreviations). Using small caps is sometimes a viable option. Do not use underlining except when conventionally required in your field of research. (It is OK to use underlining for highlighting within examples as an alternative to boldface). Quotation and quotation marksFor conventionally used terms or expressions (e.g., ‘context of situation’), please use single quotes; these may also be used as ‘scare quotes’ to focus attention on a particular word or expression. For glosses, directly quoted forms and expressions, as well as in-text quotations, always use double quotation marks. Quotations longer than three lines should be indented left and right, without quotation marks, followed by the appropriate reference to the source on a separate line (left adjusted). Such long quotations should be set off from the main text by a line of space above and below. Sections and headingsArticles should be conveniently divided into sections and, if necessary, subsections. If you do not use electronic styling, please mark section headings as follows: Level 1 = bold, one line space before, section number flush left. Text starts immediately below. Level 2 = bold italics, one line space before, section number flush left. Text starts immediately below. Level 3ff = italics, one line space before, section number flush left. Text starts immediately below. Numbering should be in Arabic numerals (no Roman numbers for footnotes either!). Do not use italics for numbering; use full stops between numbers and after the last number, thus: Section 1. ... Section 2.3.1. .... ListsShould not be indented. If numbered, please number as follows: 1. ..................... (or a. .......................) 2. ..................... (or b. .......................) Lists that run on with the main text may be numbered using parentheses: (1).............., (2)............., etc. Examples and glossesExamples should be numbered with Arabic numerals in parentheses, thus: (1) ...; (2) ...; etc. Examples in languages other than English should be in italics; an approximate translation should be provided. Between the original and the translation lines, a line with glosses or a morphemic breakdown may be added. For the abbreviations in the interlinear gloss, CAPS may be used; these will be converted to small caps by our typesetters in the final formatting. E.g. (3) a. Ed en Floor gaan samen-wonen. b. Maarten en Stefanie zijn uit elkaar. For glossing (where applicable), use the Leipzig Glossing Rules (www.eva.mpg.de/lingua/resources/glossing-rules.php). NotesNotes should be kept to a minimum. Note indicators in the text should appear in superscript at the end of sentences or phrases, and follow the respective punctuation marks. They should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript, with Arabic numerals. Names and affiliationsPlease include in the article itself, below the title, a list of all authors in the order in which they should appear in the publication and for each author:
Funding informationFunding information should be provided if funding was received through a grant for the research that is discussed in the article, including funder name and grant number, in a separate section called "Funding information" before (an Acknowledgment section and) the References. AcknowledgmentsAcknowledgments (other than funding information, see above) should be added in a separate, unnumbered section entitled "Acknowledgments", placed before the References. AppendicesAppendices should follow the References. Author’s correctionsThe (first) author will receive first proofs of an accepted article for correction and will be requested to return corrections to the Editor-in-chief. The editor will receive one full set of the first proofs of each journal issue and after corrections another set of second proofs for final checking. With the proofs you will receive instructions on how to mark corrections and when to return them. Please limit corrections to the essential. It is at the publisher’s discretion not to implement substantial changes or to charge the author. |
Submission
Pragmatics offers online submission .
Before submitting, please consult the guidelines and the Short Guide to EM for Authors .
If you are not able to submit online, or for any other editorial correspondence, please contact the editor via e-mail: helmut.k.gruberunivie.ac.at
Ethics
John Benjamins journals are committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices.
Authors and reviewers are kindly requested to read this Ethics Statement .
Please also note the guidance on the use of (generative) AI in the statement.
Rights and Permissions
Authors must ensure that they have permission to use any third-party material in their contribution; the permission should include perpetual (not time-limited) world-wide distribution in print and electronic format.
For information on authors' rights, please consult the rights information page.
Open Access
Articles accepted for this journal can be made Open Access through payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC) of EUR 1800 (excl. tax). To arrange this, please contact openaccessbenjamins.nl once your paper has been accepted for publication. More information can be found on the publisher's Open Access Policy page.
Corresponding authors from institutions with which John Benjamins has a Read & Publish arrangement can publish Open Access without paying a fee. Please consult this list of institutions for up-to-date information on which articles qualify.
For information about permission to post a version of your article online or in an institutional repository ('green' open access or self-archiving), please consult the rights information page.
If the article is not (to be made) Open Access, there is no fee for the author to publish in this journal.
Archiving
John Benjamins Publishing Company has an agreement in place with Portico for the archiving of all its online journals and e-books.
Special Issue Proposals
- A special issue proposal should contain a detailed account of the relevance, the originality, and the coherence of the proposed issue by the proposers (1700 – 2000 words excl. references). As part of the basic proposal, guest editors are also required to include a statement of (1) why the particular journal is a good/appropriate venue, and/ or (2) discuss explicitly the contributions the special edition makes to the particular field of study it covers. Furthermore, it should contain an abstract of each paper (ca. 500-800 words excl. references).
- Based on this proposal, the editorial team decides on the appropriateness of the proposed SI for “Pragmatics” within due time. Please note that acceptance of a SI-proposal does not imply that all articles which are submitted afterwards as part of the SI will survive the reviewing process.
- A special issue should not exceed 75.000 words (including a comprehensive introduction in which the theoretical background and overall relevance and coherence of the SI is outlined and the single papers are shortly described). Each article should not exceed the journal’s maximum length of 10.000 words and should conform to its stylesheet (available at the journal’s website).
- The overall responsibility for the whole production process of special issues rests with one of the associate editors (and not with the guest editors). The guest editors, however, will be asked to provide a list of possible referees for each of the contributions.
- The schedule for the several stages of the submission process (first submission, reviewing, revision, second reviewing, submission of final version) can be negotiated between journal editor(s) and guest editors. In principle, however, reviewers have 3 months for submitting their reviews, in the case of SIs this time may be exceeded as we always try to find one reviewer who reviews the entire SI. But please note that “Pragmatics” publishes a maximum of 2 SIs per year.
- No fees apply for publishing in “Pragmatics”. IPRA members have immediate access to each issue after publication. After a 12-months embargo period, each issue is made publicly available.