The Editor's Report

[The following is a slightly modified version of the annual report about Language for 2010 submitted by the editor, Greg Carlson, to the Executive Committee of the Linguistic Society of America for its consideration at its January meeting.]

Changes

This year the publishing transition from Maryland Composition to Dartmouth Journal Services was completed; the March issue (86.1) marked the first produced by the new publishers. The transition went very well, due in no small part to the work of Alyson Reed, David Robinson, and Rita Lewis in the LSA's main office, and to the efforts of the journal staff, recognized below.

The board of associate editors saw the departures of Mark Baker, Jennifer Cole, Cleo Condoravdi, D. Gary Miller, and Joe Pater; all deserve our gratitude for their dedicated service. Joining the associate editors this past year were Adam Albright, Heidi Harley, Lisa Matthewson, and Kie Ross Zuraw; Sali Tagliamonte consented to continue to serve on the board for one additional year.

Language by the Numbers

Volume 86 of Language for the year 2010 consists of four issues comprising 999 pages. The volume contains 17 articles, 4 discussion notes, 2 review articles, 2 short reports, and 59 book reviews. There was one obituary.

Papers submitted in 2010

In all, 95 new submissions were received between January 1, 2010, and November 15, 2010. Submissions rebounded significantly after a lag in 2009. Topic areas of the 95 submitted papers were distributed as given in Table 1.

Table 1.

Submitted papers by area of specialization.

Total papers acted on in 2010

Including papers submitted the previous year, but still pending action as of January 1, 2010, a total of 78 papers were acted on between January 1, 2010, and November 15. In all, 14 papers were accepted, 24 were returned for revision with advice to consider resubmitting, and 39 were rejected. One paper was withdrawn. Acceptance rate of all papers acted on during this time period is about 16 percent.

Length of time between submission and decision for that time period ranged from one week to 69 weeks. Average time to decision was 18 weeks, down four weeks from 2009.

Referees

Requests for referee reports were sent to 216 different scholars this year; 174 accepted, and 137 have submitted their reports (the rest are pending). People serving as referees are listed and officially thanked at the end of this report.

Agenda for 2011

Our goal for 2010 was to reduce time to decision on submissions. While some progress was made, it did not materialize quite as hoped, and further reducing time to decision remains a priority for the coming year. The developing relationship between the journal and the LSA's web presence via eLanguage did not see nearly enough progress. In the coming year the editors, in consultation with the LSA leadership, will need to address how to make progress on this matter more directly.

Special Thanks

Many thanks to the associate editors: Adam Albright, R. Harald Baayen, Jürgen Bohnemeyer, Heidi Harley, Jennifer Hay, Lisa Matthewson, Jason Merchant, Sali Tagliamonte, and Kie Zuraw. The amount of time, effort, and expertise these people put into their editorial duties is remarkable.

Special thanks go to Natsuko Tsujimura for her very effective work soliciting and editing the book reviews, and overseeing the editing of book notices that have appeared on eLanguage.

Not enough thanks or recognition can go to Audra Starcheus and Hope Dawson for their impeccable work in copyediting and proofreading; and to Kerrie Merz in the journal main office for her skillful coordination of all the people and information we need to keep track of. Special recognition is due for their role in effecting the transition to Dartmouth Journal Services.

The editors wish to thank the following individuals who generously agreed to contribute their time and effort to the essential task of refereeing submissions (* indicates that the individual was responsible for more than one report).

Enoch Aboh

Farrell Ackerman

W. F. H. Adelaar

David Adger

Alexandra Aikhenvald

Adam Albright

Edith Aldridge

Luis Alonso-Ovalle

Erin Ament

Karlos Arregi

Julie Auger

Peter Avery

R. Harald Baayen*

Todd Bailey...