The journal titles that the Ministry of Science wants to hide from the public

[Maskinoversættelse til dansk her]

Sprogmuseet.dk has obtained the ranked lists of scientific journals that the Ministry of Science wants to keep secret.

The Ministry had asked hundreds of scientists from all disciplines to come up with a list of all scientific journals. Ten percent were to be ranked top journals: publishing in those would provide more money for the universities. After a few days already, the lists were removed from the Ministry’s website, because they met with sharp criticism in the media. Sprogmuseet.dk now reveals which of the the language-related journals are ranked highest.

We compiled a list of the linguistic journals that are ranked 2, i.e. the higher ranked journals. The journal list contains some 18.000 scientific journals, of which some 2..800 have received the higher ranking, and the rest ranking 1. We estimate that there are all in all some 1.000 journals on linguistics, and I have searched through the higher-ranked linguistics journals using the following search strings:

• LANG, LING, SPR, PHILOL, FILOL, PHON, FON, MORPH, TICS, LEX, DIAL

For Scandinavia also:

• SCAN, SKAN, DAN, NORDI

In addition, I spotted some additional journals with titles like Diachronica, which I of course added, but I have not systematically browsed all of the 2800 high ranked journals to find all top-ranked linguistic journals.

The lists were criticized in the short period they were available for the general public, for favoring English-language journals and for discriminating against publications in the Danish language. With nine Scandinavian journals in the top list (6 %), and 30 additional journals in languages other than English (20 %), I think this criticism is exaggerated, with a quarter of the journals in non-English languages.

There are 150 linguistic journals on the top list. Of course I do not know all of them, and there will probably be errors in my selection. In my view this list provides a wide choice of journals for preferred publication.

It is easy to criticize the choice that the linguistics committee has made – and any other committee would have been criticized, for mostly similar reasons. Here are some of those points of criticism.

1. Some choices for particular titles are arbitrary: for instance, high quality journals on creoles, Amerindian and Oceanic languages are listed, but none at all on, for example, Sinitic, Arabic, Tibeto-Burman or African languages, some of which have the same quality as the listed ones.
2. The list of top journals contains some periodicals that I at least have never heard of and seem rather idiosyncratic. What about Language Resources and Evaluation or Iconicity in Language and Literature? Never heard of, and quite specialized.
3. The only journal specialized on Latin in the top list is on medieval rather than classical Latin: Filologia Mediolatina: Rivista della Fondazione Ezio Franceschini. Also a title that does not seem to rock the world when a huge scientific breaktrough is revealed there.
4. Some are not journals but book series titles: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, Pragmatics and Beyond New Series. And also, it appears, Iconicity in Language and Literature.
5. Not all fields are represented proportionally. Some fields of research have all the journals in their field listed (at least as far as I know), such as sign language studies: both existing journals are listed in the top list, and the same is probably true for gender and language issues with two journals top-ranked. For historical linguistics, a much wider field, only two journals are listed as high quality journals, but in this field there are many more journals. No periodical about the history of linguistics is listed as a number-2 journal, but four lexicographic journals are.
6. The full list, even though it is the most complete list of journals that I am aware of, is far from complete. It contains many more journals than the famous “Norwegian” lists and the one compiled by a committee at the European level, even when put together. I know that because I have myself provided input to the committee for linguistics, until I was tired of it and after having added perhaps one hundred titles of journals from a source to an earlier list of linguistic journals that the committee had. I quit adding when I reached the letter M when the feeling of executing useless work became overwhelming. I do not want to look for these missing titles now. In stead, I can give an impression of how much is missing by comparing the Directory/Annuaire of the Canadian Association of Learned Journals and the Ministry’s list. In this Directory, 18 journals beginning with “Canadian” are listed. One of those received a ranking “2”, 13 received a ranking “1” and four are missing from the Ministry’s list, that is, almost a quarter. There is no reason to believe that this is not representative. One of the best Danish journals, Dansk Talesprog, is for example lacking completely from the Danish lists.
7. Quite a few journals in the 1-list are listed several times in the list: Rask, Nieuwe Westindische Gids /NWIG. Or, outside linguistics: Rangeland Ecology & Management, and several others. OK, some apparently have two sets of ISSN numbers, but not all of them do.
8. One can find publications in the list such as 0267-5498 Linguistics Abstracts, but this journal just publish abstracts of articles published elsewhere, they do not accept submissions.

Whoever would have been on the committee, would have made omissions and errors, which is unavoidable in such a gigantic task. On the positive side: the Ministry had said that 10 % of the journals could be top-ranked. If my estimates are correct, the actual percentage of journals ranked “2” is actually 50 % higher, namely a little over 15 %.

Despite these criticisms, I am probably more positive about the list than many other university teachers/researchers. Such lists will always disappoint some people. Like all other researchers, I wonder why certain good journals are excluded and other unknown ones are included. In contrast to some other lists, however, this list does not favour particular theoretical frameworks, or publications in a certain language, or geographical areas. From this place, I like to congratulate the committee with the results. If the other fields are covered in a similarly representative way, it is not bad at all.

Technical information

In the alphabetical list below, the first number is the code given to the journal by the Ministry. The second set of numbers, eight digits with a hyphen in the middle, are ISSN numbers, the international codes for serial publications.

I have marked journals published in Scandinavia with red letters, and journals publishing primarily in languages other than English underlined.

• 2745 0164-0925  ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems
• 13815 0374-0364 Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. Int. Journal of Structural Linguistics
• 15897 0002-9475  American Journal of Philology
• 6663 0340-5222  Anglia. Zeitschrift für englische Philologie
• 149303 0954-9927  Anglo-Norman Studies
• 11830 0003-5483  Anthropological Linguistics
• 12136 0257-9774  Anthropos: Internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- und Sprachenkunde
• 7229 0142-6001  Applied Linguistics
• 16894 0142-7164  Applied Psycholinguistics
• 6173 0066-7668 Arkiv för nordisk filologi
• 8682 0726-8602  Australian Journal of Linguistics
• 15408 0005-8076  Beiträge zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Literatur
• 8063 1366-7289  Bilingualism – Language and Cognition
• 8449 0007-9871  Cahiers de Lexicologie – Revue Int. de Lexicologie et Lexicographie
• 1287 0009-837X  Classical Philology
• 5585 0009-8388  Classical Quarterly
• 2721 0009-840X  Classical Review
• 16995 0269-9206  Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
• 8916 0936-5907  Cognitive Linguistics
• 8202 0891-2017  Computational linguistics – Ass. for Computational Linguistics
• 6193 0885-2308  Computer Speech and Language
• 12353 1613-7027  Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory
• 14926 0304-0763  Current issues in linguistic theory
• 10924 0106-4525 Danske Studier
• 2980 0011-9741  Deutsch als Fremdsprache
• 12021 0340-9341  Deutsche Sprache
• 11002 0176-4225  Diachronica
• 8651 1875-1792  Dialogue Studies
• 13652 0376-401X  Die Sprache
• 4027 1076-9242  Dyslexia
• 86  1360-6743  English Language and Linguistics
• 14559 0013-8282  English Language Notes
• 8037 0013-838X  English Studies: A Journal of English Language
• 14871 1017-3285  Fachsprache
• 11022 1124-0008  Filologia Mediolatina: Rivista della Fondazione Ezio Franceschini
• 16990 0165-4004  Folia Linguistica
• 20425 1747-6321  Gender and Language
• 11591 0017-1298  Glotta : Zeitschrift für Griechische und Lateinische Sprache
• 8829 0073-0688  Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
• 3036 0018-0777  Hermes – Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie
• 14060 0935-3518  Historische Sprachforschung
• 4840 1873-5037  Iconicity in Language and Literature
• 11916 1558-7916  IEEE Transactions on Audio Speech and Language Processing
• 2567 0020-7071  International Journal of American Linguistics
• 7699 0802-6106  International Journal of Applied Linguistics
• 363 1367-0069  International Journal of Bilingualism
• 14510 0950-3846  International Journal of Lexicography
• 858 0165-2516  International Journal of the Sociology of Language
• 26245 1479-7887  Journal of Applied Linguistics
• 11955 0363-6941  Journal of English and Germanic Philology
• 12656 1475-1585  Journal of English for Academic Purposes
• 7752 0075-4242  Journal of English Linguistics
• 444 0305-0009  Journal of Child Language
• 4162 0959-2695  Journal of French Language Studies
• 475 1566-5852  Journal of Historical Pragmatics
• 1436 1055-1360  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
• 9649 0022-2267  Journal of Linguistics
• 12596 0925-8531  Journal of Logic, Language and Information
• 3920 0749-596X  Journal of Memory and Language
• 14231 0143-4632  Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development
• 12122 0911-6044  Journal of Neurolinguistics
• 16240 0095-4470  Journal of Phonetics
• 11555 0920-9034  Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
• 14632 0378-2166  Journal of Pragmatics
• 4006 0167-5133  Journal of Semantics
• 982 1068-2090  Journal of Slavic Linguistics
• 9217 1360-6441  Journal of Sociolinguistics
• 10179 1092-4388  Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
• 6249 0025-1003  Journal of the International Phonetic Association
• 27179 0901-9731 Københavnerstudier i tosprogethed
• 11319 0458-7251  Langage et l’Homme
• 9050 0458-726X  Langages
• 2920 0271-5309  Language & Communication
• 1244 0097-8507  Language (Washington)
• 12164 0169-0965  Language and Cognitive Processes
• 15993 1749-818X  Language and Linguistics Compass
• 13138 0963-9470  Language and Literature
• 13327 0023-8309  Language and Speech
• 328 0047-4045  Language in Society
• 4697 0023-8333  Language Learning
• 7243 1574-020X  Language Resources and Evaluation
• 2424 0388-0001  Language Sciences
• 2244 0954-3945  Language Variation and Change
• 1087 0790-8318  Language, Culture and Curriculum
• 4750 0023-8368  Langue Francaise
• 2296 0175-6206  Lexicographica : Internationales Jahrbuch für Lexikographie
• 5630 0049-8653  Lili – Zeitschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik
• 15977 0024-3841  Lingua
• 2781 0098-9053  Linguistic Analysis
• 4369 1537-0852  Linguistic Discovery
• 5564 0024-3892  Linguistic Inquiry
• 3688 0167-6318  Linguistic Review
• 10056 1430-0532  Linguistic Typology
• 1411 0024-3949  Linguistics
• 13492 1011-3261  Linguistics and Philology / Yuyan Wenzixue
• 2369 0024-3930  Linguistische Berichte
• 15561 0268-1064  Mind & Language
• 9371 0026-7902  Modern Language Journal
• 12159 0026-7929  Modern Language Quarterly
• 16497 0026-7937  Modern Language Review
• 12366 1871-5621  Morphology
• 7331 0167-806X  Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
• 2047 1351-3249  Natural Language Engineering
• 279 0925-854X  Natural Language Semantics
• 2644 0028-2677  Neophilologus
• 4290 0332-5865 Nordic Journal of Linguistics
• 130530 0106-8040 NyS. Nydanske Studier og Almen Kommunikationsteori
• 3539 0029-8115  Oceanic Linguistics
• 10627 0031-8388  Phonetica
• 3446 0952-6757  Phonology
• 7759 1018-2101 Pragmatics – Quarterly Publication of the Int. Pragmatics Ass.
• 9912 0929-0907  Pragmatics & Cognition
• 13075 0922-842X  Pragmatics and Beyond New Series
• 1818 0048-5195  Presence Francophone
• 3160 0363-2946  Proceedings of the Ann. Meetings of the Berkeley Linguistics Soc.
• 16616 0030-8129  Publications of the Modern Language Association of America
• 2084 0835-1813  Research on Language and Social Interaction
• 5339 0035-8002  Romance Philology
• 2215 0035-8126  Romanische Forschungen
• 11336 0304-3487  Russian Linguistics : Int. Journal for the Study of the Russian Lang.
• 14382 0036-5653 Scandinavica – International Journal of Scandinavian Studies
• 11412 0080-6765 Scando-Slavica
• 15690 0267-6583  Second Language Research
• 15062 1387-9316  Sign Language and Linguistics
• 7320 0302-1475  Sign Language Studies
• 1547 0342-8427 Skandinavistik
• 2804 0933-1883  Sociolinguistica : Int. Jahrbuch fuer Europaeische Soziolinguistik
• 3562 0942-2919  Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung
• 1917 0344-8169  Sprachwissenschaft (Heidelberg)
• 19680 0390-6809  Studi Italiani di Linguistica Teorica e Applicata
• 10927 0039-3193  Studia Linguistica
• 4076 0378-4177  Studies in Language
• 4608 1568-2706  Studies in Narrative
• 6728 0039-3738  Studies in Philology
• 6892 0272-2631  Studies in Second Language Acquisition
• 10959 1368-0005  Syntax
• 16373 0092-4563  Syntax and Semantics
• 16474 0301-4428  Theoretical Linguistics
• 16165 0040-7550  Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsche taal- en letterkunde
• 16818 0168-2148  Tijdschrift voor Skandinavistiek
• 10357 0082-5433  T’oung Pao
• 15748 0042-6806  Virittäjä : Kotikielen Seuran aikakauslehti
• 1127 8755-4550  Women and Language
• 13927 0043-7956  WORD: Journal of the International Linguistic Association
• 7498 0044-1449  Zeitschrift fur Dialektologie und Linguistik
• 8672 0044-2747  Zeitschrift fur Franzosische Sprache und Literatur
• 16463 0044-3492  Zeitschrift fur Slavische Philologie
• 11990 0044-3506  Zeitschrift fur Slawistik
• 6672 0044-2496  Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
• 151877 x000-0172  Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Lingvistik