Language Documentation and Description (LDD) publishes research articles on the theory and practice of language documentation, language description, sociocultural aspects of language use and linguistic research, language policy, language revitalization, and related topics. The journal has a focus on small, minority, and endangered languages. While the default language of publication is English, LDD welcomes submissions in Spanish, French, and other major languages as the journal’s editorial expertise allows. Authors may opt to provide an additional abstract in a language other than English in order to increase accessibility for their article’s readership.
LDD publishes four basic categories of content: General Research Articles on topics within the scope and focus described above. Review Articles. Review articles differ from reviews in using one or more recently published book-length works to make a larger point of the author’s own. Review articles evaluate the place of new works in their theoretical and topical literatures and assess their contributions to linguistics and adjoining fields. Language Context Articles. These offer detailed information on the contexts in which languages or varieties are spoken, providing social and cultural information such as speaker population, social organization, cultural features, linguistic ecology, multilingualism, language vitality, and language use and transmission in the community, diaspora, and digital sphere. Language Snapshot Articles. These provide compact overviews of one or more languages or varieties, with up-to-date information on the language, its speakers, and current research activity.
LDD welcomes proposals for special issues on relevant topics that fall within the journal’s scope. Prospective authors are encouraged to contact the managing editor with queries, proposals for special issues, or proposals for review articles