Discourse & Communication
"With Discourse & Communication, Teun van Dijk creates a long-awaited forum for the sustained meeting of communication and discourse studies spanning many fields. This powerful, timely new journal stands to redefine the meaning and practice of discourse analysis across diverse social and cultural contexts." Karen Lee Ashcraft, University of Utah, USA
Discourse & Communication is a new inter-disciplinary journal edited by Teun A van Dijk (editor of Discourse & Society, Discourse Studies). Discourse & Communication is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that pay specific attention to the qualitative, discourse analytical approach to issues in communication research.
Discourse & Communication publishes substantial research articles, discussion notes as well as reviews and review articles by women and men from many countries. Its diversity is apparent in the variety of its theories, methods and approaches, thus avoiding the frequent limitation to one school, approach or academic sect.
Discourse & Communication specifically addresses readers in any field of communication who are interested in qualitative, discourse analytical approaches, on the one hand, and scholars in discourse studies, linguistics, pragmatics, semiotics and related fields who are interested in issues of communication, on the other hand.
View the 2016 Subscription Package, which includes Discourse & Society.
Discourse & Communication is available on SAGE Journals Online.
This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Discourse & Communication is an international, peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles that pay specific attention to the qualitative, discourse analytical approach to issues in communication research. Besides the classical social scientific methods in communication research, such as content analysis and frame analysis, a more explicit study of the structures of discourse (text, talk, images or multimedia messages) allows unprecedented empirical insights into the many phenomena of communication. Since contemporary discourse study is not limited to the account of 'texts' or 'conversation' alone, but has extended its field to the study of the cognitive, interactional, social, cultural, political and historical 'contexts' of discourse, it is also able to be integrated in the broader study of the societal dimensions of communication.
Discourse & Communication publishes substantial research articles, discussion notes as well as reviews and review articles. Its diversity is also apparent in the variety of its theories, methods and approaches, thus avoiding the frequent limitation to one school, approach or academic sect. The only criteria will be the quality, the originality and the analytical sophistication of its articles.
Discourse & Communication specifically addresses readers in any field of communication who are interested in qualitative, discourse analytical approaches, on the one hand, and scholars in discourse studies, linguistics, pragmatics, semiotics and related fields who are interested in issues of communication, on the other hand.
| Teun A van Dijk | Pompeu Fabra University, Spain; Centre of Discourse Studies, Spain |
| Jessica Robles | Loughborough University, UK |
| David L. Altheide | Arizona State University, USA |
| Mats Alvesson | Lund University, Sweden |
| Karen Lee Ashcraft | University of Colorado Boulder, USA |
| Francesca Bargiela | University of Warwick, UK |
| John A. Bateman | University of Bremen, Germany |
| Janet Bavelas | University of Victoria, Canada |
| Charles Bazerman | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Monika Bednarek | University of Sydney, Australia |
| Allan Bell | Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand |
| Aditi Bhatia | Hong Kong Polytech University |
| Vijay K Bhatia | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Ruth Breeze | Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain |
| Donal Carbaugh | University of Massachusetts, USA |
| Donald J Cegala | Ohio State University, USA |
| Patrick Charaudeau | University of Paris XIII, France |
| Ling Chen | Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong |
| George Cheney | University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA |
| Francois Cooren | University of Montreal, Canada |
| Stanley Deetz | University of Colorado at Boulder, USA |
| Frederick Erickson | Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, USA |
| Norman Fairclough | Lancaster University, UK |
| Gail Fairhurst | University of Cincinnati, USA |
| Matteo Fuoli | University of Birmingham , UK |
| Cynthia Gallois | University of Queensland, Australia |
| William A Gamson | Boston College, USA |
| Doris Graber | University of Illinois at Chicago, USA |
| Phil Graham | University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia |
| David Grant | Griffith University, Australia |
| Cynthia Hardy | University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Susan C Herring | Indiana University, USA |
| Janet Holmes | Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand |
| Sik Hung Ng | City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Cheris Kramarae | University of Oregon, USA |
| Curtis LeBaron | Brigham Young University, US, USA |
| Theo van Leeuwen | University of Southern Denmark |
| Jay Lemke | City University New York, USA |
| Tamar Liebes | Hebrew University, Israel |
| Sonia Livingstone | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| David Machin | Örebro University, Sweden |
| Margaret McLaughlin | University of Southern California, USA |
| Ulrike Meinhof | University of Southampton, UK |
| Marcyliena Morgan | Stanford University, USA |
| Dennis Mumby | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA |
| Kristine Muñoz | University of Iowa, USA |
| Anita Pomerantz | Temple University, Philadelphia, USA |
| Linda L Putnam | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| John Richardson | The University of Liverpool, UK |
| Cynthia Stohl | University of California, Santa Barbara, USA |
| Joanna Thornborrow | University of Brest, France |
| Karen Tracy | University of Colorado, Boulder, USA |
| Gaye Tuchman | University of Connecticut, USA |
| Ruth Wodak | Lancaster University, UK |
| Michele Zappavigna | University of New South Wales, Australia |
| Yunxia Zhu | University of Queensland, Australia |
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 & Communication 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 Funding
2.5 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 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 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 & Communication, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
The recommended length of articles is 7000 words, including footnotes and references with an abstract of up to 150 words and up to 10 key words.
Discourse & Communication publishes substantial research articles, discussion notes as well as reviews and review articles. Its diversity is also apparent in the variety of its theories, methods and approaches, thus avoiding the frequent limitation to one school, approach or academic sect. The only criteria will be the quality, the originality and the analytical sophistication of its articles.
Contributions that share (more) of the following criteria will be preferred:
1. Systematic communication study. Discourse & Communication is first of all a journal for the global community of communication scholars. Its articles should therefore primarily deal with current theories, aims, issues and problems of communication in their social, political and cultural contexts.
2. Systematic discourse analysis. Discourse & Communication is at the same time a discourse analytical journal. That is, articles should provide a detailed, systematic and theoretically based analysis of communication 'messages' defined in terms of text, talk, verbal interaction or semiotic practices. It is insufficient to merely quote, summarize or paraphrase such discourse, or to comment only on their 'content' without paying attention to any kind of non-trivial discourse structures. The journal aims to contribute significantly to the study of communication issues through an analysis of the discourses involved in communication. At the same time, such a contribution will be relevant for our understanding of the roles and functions of discourse in communication and society.
3. Empirical basis. Papers in Discourse & Communication feature detailed and systematic discourse analysis of a specific corpus of discourses. D&C does not publish exclusively theoretical papers, although each paper should of course 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 D&C Forum/Discussion section. It goes without saying that both theory and analysis should make an original contribution to the field.
4. Explicit social analysis. Discourse & Communication stimulates and welcomes articles that critically study the social, political and cultural contexts of discourse and communication, and that focus on specific social issues and problems.
5. A sizeable corpus of data. Articles are preferred that are based on a sizeable corpus of interesting discourses collected by the author(s) themselves, and not merely on a single or few discourses. Authors are expected to have a thorough knowledge of, and experience with, the corpus, domain or genre of discourse being analyzed, 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.
6. Multidisciplinary, multicultural, international. The study of the relations between discourse and communication takes place in several disciplines, in many countries and by women and men from many different cultural backgrounds. Discourse & Communication highly values this diversity and particularly invites contributions which reflect such diversity in their authorship, theories, methods, data and the use of scholarly literature.
7. Accessibility. Discourse & Communication 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 concepts.
Book Reviews: Book reviews should be submitted by email to the Book Reviews Editor, Jessica Robles: J.J.Robles@lboro.ac.uk
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 & Communication 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.
Discourse & Communication requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
Discourse & Communication 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 & Communication 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 & Communication 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 & Communication 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 & Communication is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/dcm 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.
Submitting a book review: Book reviews should be submitted by email to the Book Reviews Editor, Prof. Sumin Zhao: Sumin.zhao@ed.ac.uk
Further information: For questions about submissions and editorial policy, write to the editor: vandijk@discourses.org.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised.
We encourage all authors to add their ORCIDs to their Sage Track accounts and include their ORCIDs as part of the submission process. If you don’t already have one you can create one here.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
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 & Communication editorial office as follows:
The Editor
Discourse & Communication
E-mail: vandijk@discourses.org