About the journal

  1. Aims and Scope
  2. What we publish
  3. Acceptance criteria
  4. Editorial process and Peer Review
  5. Open Access and Licensing
  6. Funding and Diamond OA – no article publication charges (APCs)
  7. Discoverability and Indexing
  8. Journal metrics
  9. Journal Details
  10. Contact and Community

 

Aims and scope

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics is a community-owned Diamond Open Access journal dedicated to experimental research on speaker meaning and communication. Its distinctive mission is to provide a venue for studies that experimentally investigate (primarily verbal) phenomena while also engaging carefully with theoretically driven approaches. The journal encourages cutting-edge contributions from the fields of pragmatics and semantics, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as interdisciplinary work that integrates two or more of these areas while delivering robust, replicable results. Submissions that combine experimental human data with computational modelling are likewise encouraged. This journal will appeal to anyone interested in language, communication, cognition and neuroscience.

 

Non-exhaustive list of topics

The journal aims to be inclusive and expand the range of topics it represents. To help guide readers and authors, the below is a non‑exhaustive list of suggested areas of interest:

  • Communicative abilities of different populations (children, typical and atypical populations)
  • Computational modelling of pragmatic phenomena and pragmatics in language models
  • Discourse structure/connectives/narrative
  • Evolution of communication and pragmatics
  • Figurative language (e.g. metaphor, irony, hyperbole)
  • Inferences (e.g. conversational and conventional implicature)
  • Intonational meaning
  • Neurobiological underpinnings of pragmatics
  • Reasoning
  • Semantics/Pragmatics Interface research (e.g. polysemy, vagueness)
  • Social and cognitive mechanisms underpinning communication (e.g. theory of mind, common ground, turn taking)
  • Social meaning
  • Valence and affect

 

Types of data

The following list outlines the types of data acceptable in the journal:

  • Behavioural data on language comprehension or production
  • Eye-tracking
  • EEG
  • fMRI
  • Developmental data
  • Simulation data (computational modelling)
  • Clinical data

 

What we publish

We welcome a wide range of content formats, including:

  • Research articles
  • Registered Reports for replication studies

 

For more information about to contribute to the journal and write your article, please see the journals author guidelines.

Author guidelines

 

Acceptance criteria

We assess submissions based on the following criteria:

  • Studies need to address a theory of pragmatics/language use in context/speaker meaning.
  • Contain methodologically sound, replicable experimental data that address a well-motivated hypothesis.
  • Data and analysis scripts are required to be made available (unless there is a valid reason for not doing so).
  • Preregistered experiments are preferred but non-preregistered experiments are acceptable if the presented hypotheses are clearly theoretically motivated.

 

Submissions are unlikely to be accepted if they:

  • Are primarily commercial or self-promotional.
  • Contain excessive self-citation.
  • Lack clear conclusions or conceptual rigour.
  • Provide minimal updates on prior work.
  • Are not suitable for peer review due to clarity or fit with the journal.

 

Articles accepted for full publication will be those where the Editorial Board has received at least two favourable peer reviews and is satisfied that all reviewer and Editorial comments have been adequately addressed.

Experience suggests that few submissions are accepted after a single review round. The Editorial Board may decline a submission at any stage if reviewer concerns cannot be addressed to the Board’s satisfaction. In some cases, Editors may request revisions before peer review to support review effectiveness.

 

Preprints

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics is happy to accept submissions of papers that have been previously loaded onto preprint servers or personal websites, have been presented at conferences, or other informal communication channels. These formats will not be deemed prior publication. Authors must retain copyright to such preprints and are encouraged to link any prior posting of their paper to the final published version within the journal, if it is editorially accepted. This will not affect the journals open peer review process.

Further information about self-archiving your article on preprint servers can be found on the UCL Press editorial policy pages:

Editorial policies

 

Editorial process and Peer Review

We operate a two-stage model combining preprints and open peer review:

1. Preprint publication

  • Articles approved for peer review by the editorial board are published immediately as Preprints (under peer review).
  • These are citable and openly available to show the evolution of a manuscript under review.

 

2. Open peer review

  • Reviewer names and their reports are published online under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International and with a DOI – these are citable and openly available alongside the preprint manuscript.
  • Authors' responses to peer reviews are posted online, when revised.

 

We aim to support a fair and open review process that improves the quality of submissions and enhances trust in published research.

Learn more about how it works:

How it works

 

Open Access and Licensing

All content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. This ensures:

  • Free access for readers worldwide.
  • Retention of copyright by authors.
  • Maximum flexibility for reuse, adaptation and sharing.

 

We follow the Budapest Open Access Initiative and are committed to author rights and open scholarship. Our Author Contributor Agreement outlines full terms for publication:

Author Contributor Agreement

 

Funding and Diamond OA – no article publication charges (APCs)

The Journal of Experimental Pragmatics is a diamond open access journal and does not charge any APCs.

UCL Press and the Journal of Experimental Pragmatics covers all the costs to publishing every article and publishing is free at every stage:

  • No submission fees
  • No peer review fees
  • No publication fees

 

This reflects our commitment to equity and non-profit publishing, especially for authors with limited funding or from underrepresented sectors.

 

Additional funding and support

The publication of this journal was supported by the Wellcome Trust.

 

Discoverability and Indexing

UCL Press works with subject specific indexers to deposit published articles in relevant repositories and search databases.

Published articles are indexed in major databases, including:

  • Dimensions
  • Google Scholar
  • Baidu
  • OCLC
  • Portico (for long-term preservation)

 

Preprints are also indexed in Google Scholar and Baidu and archived in Portico (for long-term preservation).

 

Journal metrics

We are committed to the responsible use of metrics and strongly encourage all readers, authors, reviewers, and Editors to read through our statement about the use of metrics across the journal, available online at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/site/editorial_policy/#METRICS.

 

Journal Details

ISSN: 2978-218X
Publication frequency: Continuous (as and when ready)
Average time to publication: ~25 weeks

 

Published by

UCL Press, University College London (UCL)
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK

journals.uclpress.co.uk

uclpressjournals@ucl.ac.uk

 

Contact and Community

We are a community-led journal. Whether you’re submitting, reviewing, or simply reading, we invite you to be part of our network.

For pre-submission enquiries:
jxprag@ucl.ac.uk

 

Stay connected:

Bluesky: @uclpressjournals.bsky.social‬

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ucl-press-journals