Discourse Studies
Discourse Studies is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal for the study of text and talk. Publishing outstanding work on the structures and strategies of written and spoken discourse, special attention is given to cross-disciplinary studies of text and talk in linguistics, anthropology, ethnomethodology, cognitive and social psychology, communication studies and law.
Discourse Studies is available on SAGE Journals Online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Discourse Studies is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal for the study of text and talk. Publishing outstanding work on the structures and strategies of written and spoken discourse, special attention is given to cross-disciplinary studies of text and talk in linguistics, anthropology, ethnomethodology, cognitive and social psychology, communication studies and law.
| Teun A van Dijk | Pompeu Fabra University, Spain; Centre of Discourse Studies, Spain |
| Tamsin Parnell | University of Nottingham, UK |
| Malcolm Coulthard | Aston University, UK |
| Yoshihiko Ikegami | Showa Women's University, Japan |
| Walter Kintsch | University of Colorado, USA |
| Stephen Levinson | Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Netherlands |
| Dominique Maingueneau | Université de Paris XII, France |
| Elinor Ochs | University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Emanuel A Schegloff | University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Deborah Tannen | Georgetown University, USA |
| Sandra A. Thompson | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| S K Verma | University of Hyderabad, India |
| Ruth Wodak | Lancaster University, UK |
| Charles Antaki | Loughborough University, UK |
| Michael Bamberg | Clark University, USA |
| John A. Bateman | University of Bremen, Germany |
| Allan Bell | Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand |
| Douglas Biber | Northern Arizona University, USA |
| Ping Chen | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Steven Clayman | University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Anna De Fina | Georgetown University, USA |
| Paul Drew | University of York, UK |
| Mary Anne Fitzpatrick | University of South Carolina, USA |
| John Flowerdew | University of Lancaster, UK |
| Barbara A. Fox | University of Colorado, USA |
| Morton Ann Gernsbacher | Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA |
| Britt-Louise Gunnarsson | Uppsala University, Sweden |
| Monica Heller | OISE, Toronto, Canada |
| John Heritage | University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Ken Hyland | University of East Anglia, UK |
| Shen Jiaxuan | Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China |
| XU JiuJiu | Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing |
| Jim R Martin | University of Sydney, Australia |
| María Cristina Martínez | Universidad del Valle, Colombia |
| Douglas W Maynard | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Senko Maynard | Rutgers University, USA |
| Margaret McLaughlin | University of Southern California, USA |
| Lorenza Mondada | University of Lyon2, France |
| Ilana Mushin | University of Queensland, Australia |
| Greg Myers | Lancaster University, UK |
| Ruth Page | University of Birmingham, UK |
| Anita Pomerantz | Temple University, Philadelphia, USA |
| Bambi B Schieffelin | New York University, USA |
| Marja-Leena Sorjonen | Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, Finland |
| Tanya Stivers | UCLA, USA |
| Cynthia Stohl | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Michael Stubbs | Universität Trier, Germany |
| Hiroko Tanaka | University of Essex, UK |
| Paul Ten Have | University of Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Girolamo Tessuto | University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Italy |
| Karen Tracy | University of Colorado, Boulder, USA |
| F H van Eemeren | University of Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Karen Watson-Gegeo | University of California, Davis, USA |
| Saida Yahya-Othman | University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below prior to submitting your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of Discourse Studies will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you
If you have any questions about publishing with Sage, please visit the Sage Journal Solutions Portal
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to Discourse Studies, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
The recommended length is 7000 words, including footnotes and references with an abstract of up to 150 words and up to 10 key words.
Contributions to Discourse Studies should satisfy the following criteria:
1. Systematic discourse analysis. Discourse Studies is primarily a discourse analytical journal. That is, articles should provide a detailed, systematic and theoretically based analysis of text or talk. It is insufficient to merely quote, summarize or paraphrase such discourse. Articles should focus on specific structures or strategies of discourse that are not self-evident to the casual reader. These may include grammatical, stylistic, rhetorical, narrative or argumentative structures; cognitive processes and mental representations; pragmatic, conversational or interactional dimensions of socially situated talk. Articles that additionally focus on the social, political or cultural functions or implications of such discourses may be submitted to the sister journal Discourse & Society. Articles that also focus on communication, for instance in the mass media, may also be submitted to the sister journal Discourse & Communication. Discourse Studies does not publish exclusively theoretical papers, but each paper should feature a prominent theoretical section and a critical review of the relevant literature as a foundation for empirical research. Theoretical notes or short discussion pieces are welcome for the Forum section. It goes without saying that both theory and analysis should make an original contribution to the field.
2. A sizeable corpus of data. Articles are preferred that are based on a sizeable corpus of interesting texts or talk collected by the author(s) themselves, and not merely on a few discourses. Authors are expected to have a thorough knowledge of, and experience with, the corpus, domain or genre of discourse being analysed, for instance as a result of an extended research project, so as to facilitate empirical generalizations. Analyses should be illustrated by several extracts quoted in the text.
3. Multidisciplinary, multicultural, international. The study of discourse takes place in several disciplines, in many countries and by women and men from many different cultural backgrounds. Discourse Studies highly values this diversity and particularly invites contributions which reflect such diversity in their authorship, theories, methods, data and the use of scholarly literature.
4. Accessibility. Discourse Studies aims to be accessible to readers from a broad range of disciplines, and of various levels of specialization and expertise, especially including students. For theoretical, methodological, pedagogical and social reasons, therefore, contributions should be well-organized, have a clear style, avoid esoteric jargon, and explain unfamiliar or new technical concept.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
Discourse Studies operates a conventional single-anonymize reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author.
All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
• Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
• Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
• Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.4 Declaration of conflicting interests
Discourse Studies encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
Discourse Studies and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
Discourse Studies offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
Discourse Studies adheres to the Sage Harvard reference style. View the Sage Harvard guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Harvard EndNote output file
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
Discourse Studies is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/discourse to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the Journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
For Chinese authors: Chinese authors are requested to add their name in pinyin in the From: line of their message headers - and not (only) in chinese characters.
Submitting a book review: Book reviews should be submitted by email to the Book Reviews Editor, Dr. Tamsin Parnell: tamsin.parnell2@nottingham.ac.uk
Further information: For questions about submissions and editorial policy, write to the editor: vandijk@discourses.org.
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the Discourse Studies editorial office as follows:
The Editor
Discourse Studies
E-mail: vandijk@discourses.org