Register Studies

Volume 6 (2024)

Volume 5 (2023)

Volume 4 (2022)

Volume 3 (2021)

Volume 2 (2020)

Volume 1 (2019)

Submission Guidelines

Authors wishing to submit articles for publication in Register Studies 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: Register.Studiesgmail.com

Manuscripts submitted to Register Studies 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 Register Studies should be written in English and prepared according to the following guidelines.

Anonymizing Papers for Review

For review purposes, all author names and affiliations should be removed from the title page. However, because of the value for reviewers in being able to consider a manuscript within the context of related previous work, references to works by the author should not be removed or replaced with Author (date). Instead, full references should be maintained within the manuscript and in the reference list, and all references to the works by the author(s) should be discussed in the third person in a way that maintains the anonymity of the author(s). For example, in a manuscript authored by Jane Smith, a reference to Smith (2015) could be structured as “This study adopts the framework used in Smith (2015), in which they operationalized X as Y” instead of “This study adopts the framework used in Author (2015), in which we operationalized X as Y”.

Length

Full-length articles reporting on empirical or theoretical research should be 7,000-9,000 words. Critical reviews of books, corpora, and software/tools relevant to register research should be 1,500-2,000 words. Descriptions of corpora or datasets and methodological papers should be 5,000-6,000 words. Word limits should be adhered to closely; tables, references, notes, and appendices should be included in the word counts.

Abstract

Full-length articles and descriptions of corpora and methods should include an abstract that is 150 words long. Reviews do not require an abstract.

Keywords

All submissions should include four to six keywords that can be used for indexing purposes.

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, do not 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.’). Examples:

(Smith 2005)
(Smith 2005: 56-58)
(Harding & Jones 2007)
(Johnson et al. 2014: 43)

If there are multiple references to the same author within one parenthetical, separate years with a comma. Example:

(Biber 1988, 1994, 2006)

If there are multiple references to different authors within one parenthetical, separate each reference with a semi-colon. Examples:

(Smith 2005; Harding & Jones 2007; Johnson et al. 2014)
(Biber 1988, 1994, 2006; Biber & Finegan 1994)

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)

Standalone 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.

Longer examples (i.e., multiple sentences) should be labeled as Text Sample 1, Text Sample 2, and so on. These longer examples should be indented from the main text (see Biber’s article in RS 1:1 2019 for an example).

Terms and Emphasis

Within the text, if additional formatting is needed to indicate a term, single quotation marks should be used:

• …the analysis of texts can be approached from a ‘register’ perspective and from a ‘genre’ perspective…
• …the term ‘register’ was first introduced by…

To mark emphasis, use italics (however, this should be used sparingly). Example:

• …because situational factors are external to language users

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 footnotes rather than endnotes. These should be numbered consecutively throughout the paper.

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.

Register Studies 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 editors via e-mail: Register.Studiesgmail.com

Articles under consideration are double-blind peer-reviewed and decisions on all published content are made by the editors.

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.

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