About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Forum for Linguistic Studies (FLS) is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by Whioce Publishing Pte. Ltd. FLS aims at publishing the latest research results in general and applied linguistics as well as philosophy of language. The journal caters to a comprehensive audience, ranging from language researchers, linguists, teachers, educationalists, practitioners and those with a general interest in language and linguistics.

FLS aims to encourage the free exchange of information between researchers by being a forum for the constructive discussion and debate of issues in both theoretical and applied research.

FLS welcomes submissions in the form of original articles, review articles, book reviews, editorials, commentaries, letters, perspectives, reports, etc. Papers based on the findings of corpus or experiment-oriented researches are particularly welcomed.

Examples of relevant topics are:

Phonology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
Cognitive-functional linguistic topics
Dialogic studies
Language teaching/acquisition/policy
Philosophy of language
Linguistic landscape

Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to Forum for Linguistics Studies will follow the following procedure:

Initial submission are reviewed by in-house editors to ensure adherence to journal policies and for double-blind review
Editor-in-chief decides on the manuscript to be sent out for the review process and assigns the manuscript to one of the editors according to the particular topic.
Editor assigns reviewers from inside the editorial board or outside depending on the topic.
After evaluations by the reviewers have been received, the editor-in-chief makes one of the following recommendations: accept, minor revision, major revision, resubmit, and reject.
If the decision is a minor revision, the authors have 7 days to resubmit the revised manuscript.
If the decision is a major revision, the authors have 14 days to resubmit the revised manuscript.
Upon resubmission, the same procedure is applied as for the initial submission.
Authors may appeal for a rejected submission. Appeal requests must be made in writing to editorial.fls@whioce.com with detailed reasons for the appeal and point by point responses to the reviewer's remarks. Decisions on appeals are final without exception.
For all manuscripts accepted for publication, the peer review process will be deemed to be completed. The manuscript will proceed to be copyedited, layout edited and proofread before being published online.

Note: You may suggest up to four academically qualified reviewers for consideration. Please insert the current contact details of the reviewer and state the reason(s) for the recommendation under the "Comments for the Editor" section. However, please take note that the Editorial team strives to ensure the peer review process is fair and unbiased and hence, there is no guarantee that a recommended reviewer will be approached to perform the peer review.

Publication Frequency

The publication frequency of Forum for Linguistic Studies is annual.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate Open Access to its content as it believes that making research freely available to the public which helps promoting the research results benefiting the scholarly community.

Higher Visibility, Availability and Citations – free and unlimited accessibility of the publication over the internet without any restrictions increases citation of the article
Ease of search – publications are easily searchable in search engines and indexing databases
Rapid Publication – accepted papers are immediately published online

Editorial Policies

Authors should read the “Author Guidelines” before making a submission, and make sure that the manuscripts were written in accordance to the style and specifications of the journal’s policy.

All manuscripts submitted to Forum for Linguistic Studies are subject to rigorous peer review. Prior to peer review process, the manuscripts will be screened for acceptable English language, novelty and relevance to the Focus and Scope of the journal.

Any manuscripts submitted to Forum for Linguistic Studies will be treated as confidential materials. The manuscripts will not be disclosed to anyone except individuals such as editorial staff, reviewers and editors who participate in the initial screening, review, processing and preparation of the manuscript for publication (if accepted).

A manuscript would not be considered if it has been published or is currently under consideration for publication in any other journals. In the cover letter, authors must state that neither the manuscript nor any significant part of it is under consideration for publication elsewhere or has appeared elsewhere in a manner that could be construed as a prior or duplication of the same work. The authors are required to notify the editorial team if the findings and data in their submissions have been presented in conferences.

Authorship

Authorship of a scholarly paper should be limited to individuals who have contributed substantially to its intellectual content. Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or general supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. All authors should hold the responsibility of fairly evaluating their respective roles and their co-authors’ roles in the project. This is to ensure that authorship is attributed according to a fixed standard in all publications for which they will be listed as authors.

In order to be listed as an author for a paper, one should have contributed sufficiently in the project. A co-author is expected to have contributed to some component of the work which led to the paper, or be involved in interpretation of its results. All authors should have a say in the final approval of the version to be published, in addition to reviewing the final manuscript prior to submission.

Individuals who do not meet the above requirements, but have provided a valuable contribution to the work, may be acknowledged for their contribution as appropriate to the publication.

Conflict of Interest

Conflicts of interest may exist when professional judgements concerning a primary interest has the possibility of being influenced by a secondary interest (e.g.: financial gains). It is to be noted that even perceptions of conflicts of interest are as important as the actual conflicts of interest.

Any agreements with study sponsors (for profit or non-profit), which interfere with the authors’ access to the study data, ability to analyse or interpret the data and publish manuscripts independently according to their own decision, should be avoided by authors at all costs.

A declaration of interests for all authors must be received before an article can be reviewed and accepted for publication.

For authors:

While submitting, authors must list all competing interests relevant to this work, including but not limited to:

Funding sources
The role of sponsors in the work design, data collection, and results of the analysis.
Whether the author is serving on the editorial board of this journal submitting to.

For editors and reviewers:

Editors and reviewers must declare any possible conflict of interests in connection with the manuscript, and if necessary, they must avoid the peer review process. When Editorial Board Members publish articles in the served journal, the editorial office will actively emphasize it so that the authors know that they recuse the potential peer review process.

Common reasons for editors and reviewers to be replaced include but are not limited to:

The editor or reviewer works at the same organization as one of the authors.
The editor or reviewer is one of the authors of this work.
The editor or reviewer is on the avoidance list from the author(s).
The editor or reviewer has a financial relationship or personal relationship with an author.

Plagiarism

Authors are advised to perceive high standards in the aspect of publication ethics. Any plagiarism (fabrication or falsification of data) are strictly unacceptable practices in Forum for Linguistic Studies , including duplicate publication of the author’s work without proper citation.

Every manuscript submitted for publication is checked for plagiarism via CrossCheck (powered by iThenticate) after submission and before being sent to the editor for editorial review. Any detection of overlapping and similar texts in the manuscripts submitted will be investigated promptly and may lead to the manuscript being rejected.

Article Processing Charges

The Article Processing Charges are meant to support the journal’s associated expenses. The publication fee for each manuscript accepted for publication is USD 1,600.

Waiver Policy

FLS is committed to promoting the academic development in the world without any financial barrier to knowledge sharing and learning. There has developed a waiver policy especially for authors from low-income countries. Authors who are interested in applying for a waiver could contact editorial.fls@whioce.com. FLS reserves the right to approve or reject a waiver application.

Language

The language used in manuscripts submitted to Forum for Linguistic Studies is English. Authors whose first language is not English may want to have their manuscripts professionally edited before the final submission to ensure that the academic content of the paper is fully understood by its prospective readers.

Publishing Ethics

This Journal requests all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the Core Practices on publication ethics as stipulated by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

The publisher strictly adheres to the guidelines and best practices, which include Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals from the International Committee of Medical Journals Editors (ICMJE) and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

The journal editors take all possible misconducts seriously. The Editors, authors or readers can forward their concerns to the journal if they find out that the description in a submitted article may constitute an academic fraud, research misconduct or publication malpractice. The concerns or complaints on the possible allegations submitted to the journal will be dealt with promptly and appropriately according to the procedure set out in the COPE flowchart on complaints. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the Publisher at editorial.fls@whioce.com.

This Journal adopts a zero-tolerance policy concerning any academic misconducts and ethical violations in research and publication regardless of the severity of these issues. The violations include plagiarism, falsification of research, data fabrication, submitting manuscripts of others as one’s own, submission of same manuscript to different publication venues at the same time and breached intellectual property rights. In cases of suspected misconduct and ethical violation, a panel will be formed to investigate the allegation. If the allegation is supported by evidence, the submitted manuscript in question will be declined for consideration in the journal and all authors will be informed in this regard. A retraction initiated by authors or by the journal is required to take place if the paper has already been published, and the retraction will be made public. Authors of the work in question will receive the Panel’s Decision via email and all appeals regarding the decision will have to be made to the Publisher at editorial.fls@whioce.com within 28 days of the decision date.

Preprint Policy

Authors are permitted to post their non-peer-reviewed original research manuscripts to community preprint servers such as bioRxiv, medRxiv, and PeerJ Preprint before or in parallel with the formal submission to Forum for Linguistic Studies. During submission, authors are obliged to declare in the cover letter if the corresponding preprint version of their submission has been deposited on a preprint server, and provide any associated accession numbers or DOIs.

Nonetheless, authors are not allowed to post any versions of articles that have been revised as a result of peer review, accepted for publication or published in the journal on a preprint server. The manuscript whose corresponding preprint version has been indexed (e.g. in MEDLINE or PubMed) will not be considered.

This policy applies to original research papers only. This journal reserves the right not to consider for publication or publish material that has been formally published in digital media that shall not be construed as preprint servers.

We encourage formal citation of preprints in the reference list, where appropriate.

Changes to Authorship

The authors should carefully check the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript. The Editorial Office considers the authorship list is definitive by the time the original submission is received.

Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should be made only before the manuscript is accepted for publication. The corresponding author should provide the reasons for the change in authorship list and the proof of written confirmation from all authors (including the existing authors, author(s) to be added and/or removed) agreeing with such change, to the Editorial Office.

The requests for authorship changes need to be approved by the Editorial Office before any changes can be made.

Errata & Withdrawal Policy

Errata

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication. Any errors in published articles discovered by readers, authors, editors, etc., please contact the journal edito. Whioce will only instigate a corrigendum to a published article after receiving approval and instructions from the editor.

Withdrawal

If you decide to withdraw your manuscript after it has been accepted (but not yet published), a processing fee of USD 200 is chargeable upon withdrawal.

Disclaimer

For authors: Once submitting a manuscript, It means that you have be aware of all publishing policies & ethics, and will strictly abide by them.
For reviewers: Once accepting the request to become a reviewer, it means that you must be aware of the peer review policies, and proactively disclose of all potential conflicts of interest, and guarantee that an article will be judged fairly and objectively.
For publisher: This journal is not liable to the statements, perspectives, and opinions contained in the published articles. The appearance of advertisements in the journal shall not be construed as a warranty, endorsement, or approval of the products or services advertised and/or the safety thereof. This journal and the Publisher disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the articles or advertisements.

Copyright and License

The authors shall retain the copyright of their work but allow the Publisher to publish, copy, distribute, and convey the work.

All articles published by Forum for Linguistic Studies are licensed under the Creative Commons International Licenses. Without any explicit request from the corresponding author during submission stage, a paper will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Advertising Policy

All advertisements are subject to approval to the Publisher. Advertisements must comply with the relevant regulations in the country where the advertisements appear. For more inquiries, please send email to editorial.fls@whioce.com.

Indexing & Archiving

Forum for Linguistic Studies is indexed, cataloged and/or included by several world-class abstracting/indexing databases:

Scopus

National Library Board of Singapore

CNKI Scholar

PKP Index

Scilit

EuroPub

ResearchBib

Cosmos

Root Indexing

OAJI

All the articles published online will be archived by Portico for long-term digital preservation.
Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final version of their published articles into institutional repositories (such as those listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories).
Authors are also encouraged to use the final PDF version published on the website of Whioce Publishing Pte. Ltd.

Ehical Oversight

Whioce Publishing Pte. Ltd. strictly abides by the Core Practice and Ethical Oversight of COPE, and all the editorial process is based on the best practice in the ethics of scholarly publishing. The Editorial Office strictly screen the originality and authenticity of every submission, and once unethical behaviors is under suspicion including but not limited to plagiarism, dishonesty, and multiple submissions, the manuscript will not be gone through the next step.

Whioce Publishing Pte. Ltd. usually strictly suspect the ethical problem followed by COPE. If subjects involving populations or animals, all the research process must compliance with local or regular international guidelines in the research field, and authors will be asked to submit the necessary information of approval identifiers or granting committee such as reference numbers. Reviewers and EiC are experts of your interest field, and they will make the objective decision based on the normality, authenticity and academic value of your research. In case of necessity, Editorial Office will contact the granting committee for further verification. Editorial Office obtains the right to reject the submission without any reference information.

Human subjects have the right of privacy, and Editorial Office advocates hiding sensitive and identifiable information of subjects such as face picture, identical information. Informed Content Statement whether oral or written must be obtained from all the subjects when the submitting section. If subjects are vulnerable populations, the Informed Content Statement should be obtained from their guardian or kinsfolk. All the submissions are considered to be private, and the publisher promises not to disclose it to a third party except for the normal publishing process.

Special Issue Policy

Guest Editors are responsible for the proposal of Special Issues, and they work with journal editors throughout the editorial process. The Special Issue Program aims to increase the visibility and citations in a certain research community. There may be many different Special Issues with different interests in the related field.

Articles accepted in one of Special Issues will published in the regular issues of the journal. That has broad benefits:

Earlier visibility and the vast majority of readers across the topics community.
Be cited by peers and get more citations.
Quickly learning about the current scientific research.

1. How to be a Guest Editor?

There are two ways to be a Guest Editor:

Assistant editors will search and invite the experts who has outstanding achievements in the certain field. Usually, it will be a group of Guest Editors to drive a Special Issue. The members of Guest Editors usually are invited by the leader of Guest Editors.
Readers or authors who have good topics could submit your proposal from Apply for Special Issue. EiC or Senior Editors will evaluate the valuation of the proposal. If the proposal is selected, the submitter will be successfully as the Guest Editor of the Special Issue, and editors will cooperate to promote the development of Special Issues.

A Special Issue with some necessary content, including but not limited to: title, keywords, introduction of the SI, Guest Editor with E-mail, deadline. Usually, the summary of SI should be provided by the Guest Editor. Editorial Office will make a flyer for further advert.

2. What is the workflow of a Special Issue?

Special Issue Ethics

Whioce Publishing Pte. Ltd. strictly abides by the Core Practices of COPE. All the new submissions will go through a double blind peer-reviewed process. Authors should provide a list of experts who avoid evaluation. Journal asks all the editorial process comply with the Editorial Policies. If there is any potential conflict of interest, Reviewers or editors should inform the Editorial Office and avoid the whole review process. Once unethical behaviors during the editorial process including but not limited to plagiarism, fabrication, citation manipulation, authorship misconduct, please do not hesitate to contact editorial.fls@whioce.com.

Workflow of a Special Issue

A new submission is submitted through the OJS system. Guest Editors (GE) will check the relevance between new manuscript and the scope of one of the Special Issues. Then, assistant editor will screen the originality of the new submission by iThenticate. Any manuscript without enough originality may be rejected. The Editorial Office will assign the new submission to GE or reviewers for further review comments, and the editorial process of Special Issue also goes through a strict double blind peer-reviewed process with not less than two reviewers. The GE have the responsibility to oversight the whole editorial process. All the comments are collected to GE, and they will make the final decision whether it is accepted, rejected, or revised. Once the manuscript is accepted, it will go through the production stage and inform the authors. GE will archive it in the current volume/issue with marked in a collection of the Special Issue.