About the survey
I (Liz Coppock) am conducting a survey to find out what linguists consider to be top-tier journals in linguistics. The reason is that funding and allotted research time sometimes depends on estimates of publication "quality". Quality is sometimes evaluated using the Norwegian system, which divides journals into three levels, which can be labelled roughly: "top tier", "other peer-reviewed publications", and "non-peer-reviewed". The purpose of this survey is to find out whether the Norwegian evaluation of which journals are "top tier" reflects the general consensus in the linguistics community.
The survey is still running: Go here if you would be willing to participate. It should take less than 10 minutes.
Main Results
So far I have collected 23 responses, mainly from well-respected professors, in a variety of specializations, from a wide variety of places (see below for details).
Calculating winnners: The most-in-specialty method
I propose to calculate the "winners" according to the following formula: A journal is perceived by the scientific community within a given field (here, linguistics) to be top-tier if: there is some sub-specialty within that field (e.g. sociolinguistics) such that most of the people in that sub-specialty consider the journal to be top-tier (either in their own specialty or in general). Let's call it the most-in-specialty method.
This can be straightforwardly computed based on the information that collected in the survey, because the participants were asked to list their specialty areas and to select a journal if they consider it top-tier either in general or in one of their specialty areas.
The main rationale behind this method is that it is as valuable to publish in the top-rated technical journals in one's specialty as it is to publish in a general journal like Language. Also, the various specialties are not equally represented among the respondants (mostly semanticists), and not everybody can comment on all specialties, which could lead to the problem that less popular specialties like phonology are underrepresented. The most-in-specialty gives each specialty an equal voice.
However, it does mean that people with more specialties are counted more than once. Computational linguistics, for example, is often paired with other specialties and may be over-represented.
And the winners are...
The most-in-specialty method yields the following list, where the specialties in parentheses indicate the specialties "responsible" for getting the journal onto the list:
Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings (Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics)
Association for Computational Linguistics. European Chapter (EACL). Proceedings of the Conference. (Computational Linguistics)
Cognitive Linguistics (Computational Linguistics)
Computational Linguistics - ACL (Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics)
Journal of Linguistics (Computational Linguistics, Morphology, Semantics, Syntax)
Journal of Phonetics (Computational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics)
Journal of Semantics (Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax)
Language (Computational Linguistics, Morphology, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Syntax)
Language Variation and Change (Psycholinguistics, Sociolinguistics)
Language and Cognition (Psycholinguistics)
Language in society (London. Print) (Psycholinguistics)
Lingua (Syntax)
Linguistic Inquiry (Computational Linguistics, Morphology, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Syntax)
Linguistics (Computational Linguistics)
Linguistics and Philosophy (Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax)
Natural Language Semantics (Pragmatics, Semantics, Syntax)
Natural language and linguistic theory (Computational Linguistics, Morphology, Pragmatics, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Syntax)
Phonology (Psycholinguistics, Semantics)
Semantics and Pragmatics (Pragmatics, Semantics)
Syntax (Syntax)
One possible "bug" in the most-in-specialty formula is that a journal might get in through the "back door". For example, Cognitive Linguistics is arguably not a computational linguistics journal, but most of the specialists in computational linguistics perceived it to be a top-tier journal. Does that count?
Comparison
9 of the winners by the most-in-specialty method are Level 2 according to the Norwegian system; 11 are not.
Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings - no
Association for Computational Linguistics. European Chapter (EACL). Proceedings of the Conference. - no
Cognitive Linguistics - yes
Computational Linguistics - ACL - yes
Journal of Linguistics - no
Journal of Phonetics - yes
Journal of Semantics - no
Language - yes
Language Variation and Change - no
Language and Cognition - no
Language in society (London. Print) - yes
Lingua - yes
Linguistic Inquiry - yes
Linguistics - no
Linguistics and Philosophy - no
Natural Language Semantics - no
Natural language and linguistic theory - yes
Phonology - yes
Semantics and Pragmatics - no
Syntax - no
21 of the journals on the Norwegian list are non-winners by the most-in-specialty method.
Applied Linguistics
Benjamins Translation Library
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen
IMPACT: Studies in Language and Society
Journal of Child Language
Journal of Linguistics
Language Learning
Linguistic typology
London Oriental and African Language Library
Meta : Journal des traducteurs
Nordand : nordisk tidsskrift for andrespr?ksforskning
Sign Language and Linguistics
Studies in Narrative
Target
Text & Talk
Text - an Interdisciplinary Journal For the Study of Discourse
The Linguistic Review
Translator
Viritt?j? : Kotikielen Seuran aikakauslehti
Nitty-gritties
Specialities
Again, there were 23 participants, broken down by specialty as follows. When the specialty has more than 2 participants, the journals that most of the people in that specialty considered top-tier are listed, along with the number of people within that specialty who voted for it.
Semantics (15)
[Linguistic Inquiry (14), Natural Language Semantics (14), Natural language and linguistic theory (15), Phonology (8), Linguistics and Philosophy (13), Journal of Linguistics (8), Journal of Semantics (13), Language (15), Semantics and Pragmatics (9)]
Pragmatics (10)
[Linguistic Inquiry (9), Natural Language Semantics (9), Natural language and linguistic theory (10), Linguistics and Philosophy (10), Journal of Semantics (9), Language (10), Semantics and Pragmatics (6)]
Syntax (8)
[Linguistic Inquiry (8), Natural Language Semantics (7), Lingua (5), Natural language and linguistic theory (8), Linguistics and Philosophy (7), Journal of Linguistics (7), Journal of Semantics (6), Language (8), Syntax (6)]
Sociolinguistics (4)
[Journal of Phonetics (3), Linguistic Inquiry (3), Natural language and linguistic theory (4), Language Variation and Change (3), Language (4)]
Computational Linguistics (4)
[Journal of Phonetics (3), Linguistic Inquiry (3), Association for Computational Linguistics. European Chapter (EACL). Proceedings of the Conference. (3), Natural language and linguistic theory (4), Journal of Linguistics (3), Computational Linguistics - ACL (4), Linguistics (3), Language (4), Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings (3), Cognitive Linguistics (3)]
Psycholinguistics (3)
[Journal of Phonetics (2), Linguistic Inquiry (2), Natural language and linguistic theory (3), Phonology (2), Language in society (London. Print) (2), Computational Linguistics - ACL (2), Language Variation and Change (2), Language and Cognition (2), Language (3), Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings (2)]
Morphology (2)
[Linguistic Inquiry (2), Natural language and linguistic theory (2), Journal of Linguistics (2), Language (2)]
Philosophy of language (1)
Scandinavian Linguistics (1)
Language contact (1)
American Indigenous Languages (1)
Romance (1)
Greek (1)
Germanic (1)
language description and documentation (1)
Language Acquisition (1)
Phonology (1)
List of all journals voted for + number of votes
23 Natural language and linguistic theory
23 Language
20 Linguistic Inquiry
16 Linguistics and Philosophy
15 Natural Language Semantics
15 Journal of Semantics
13 Journal of Linguistics
12 Phonology
10 Semantics and Pragmatics
10 Journal of Phonetics
10 Computational Linguistics - ACL
08 Syntax
07 Lingua
07 Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Annual Meeting Conference Proceedings
06 Linguistics
06 Journal of Child Language
06 International Journal of American Linguistics
05 Language Variation and Change
05 Journal of Pragmatics
05 Association for Computational Linguistics. European Chapter (EACL). Proceedings of the Conference.
04 Mind and language
04 Language in society (London. Print)
04 Language and Cognition
04 Journal of Sociolinguistics
04 Cognitive Linguistics
03 Theoretical Linguistics
03 The Linguistic Review
03 Studia Linguistica
03 Linguistic typology
03 Language and Speech
03 Language and Linguistics Compass
03 Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
03 American Speech
02 Syntax and Semantics
02 Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung
02 Morphology
02 Applied Linguistics
01 Zeitschrift fur Dialektologie und Linguistik. Beihefte
01 Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory
01 Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy
01 Studia grammatica
01 SKY Journal of Linguistics
01 Research on Language & Computation
01 Oceanic Linguistics
01 Nordlyd
01 Nordic Journal of Linguistics
01 Machine Translation
01 Linguistische Berichte
01 Linguistic Variation Yearbook
01 Linguistic Analysis
01 Language and Hearing Research
01 Language Learning and Development
01 Language Dynamics and Change
01 Language Acquisition
01 Journal of the International Phonetic Association
01 Journal of Speech
01 Journal of South Asian Linguistics
01 Journal of Quantitative Linguistics
01 Journal of East Asian linguistics
01 International Journal of Applied Linguistics
01 International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING). Proceedings
01 Indogermanische Forschungen
01 Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America
01 Diachronica
01 Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
01 Benjamins Translation Library
Comments regarding omissions
There weren't really any psycholinguistics journals on the list (like JML or LCP), which I would have checked if they were options.
My list above marks only journals that I know well or use, so the lack of a check mark is non-criterial.
Most computational linguistics and psycholinguistics journals and many phonetics and sociolinguistics journals are missing from the list above, here's some of them:
Journal of the acoustical society of america
Computer speech and language
ACM Transactions on speech and language processing
Speech Communications
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Language and Society
Journal of Memory and Language
Language and Cognitive Processes
The list has several bizarre properties. First, it lists book series (some good, some unknown), such as Studies in NLLT, but omits many such (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, etc., etc.). Such book series are not journals and should not be included. Second, for a Norwegian list, it omits two important journals in Germanic: the Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics (a top-tier journal) and the Journal of Germanic Linguistics (not a top-tier one). It also is missing the Journal of Greek Linguistics (which is a second-tier journal, but certainly equivalent to other specialty journals, such as Oceanic Linguistics and the like).
Studia Logica
Journal of Logic, Language, and Information
Journal of Philosophical Logic
Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory
Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung
Computational linguistics (I would add that too, but there was only one other option)
Linguistische Berichte
SALT should be in here if CLS and WCCFL are.
Other notable comments
Note that the Norwegian system defines the top level (nivå 2) as the best 20% of the total set of peer-reviewed journals in the field (i.e. there must be four times as many level 1 journals as level 2, in any field). A difficult problem is establishing what the long list is, i.e. what is a field and what journals should count as being in it. For example, perhaps there are many Chinese journals. Should they be included? As far as I understand, the Norwegian criterion for inclusion in the long list of Journals in a Given Field (level 1 or 2), whence the 20% is calculated, is based on *where Norwegian academics publish*. Hence, if no Norwegian linguists publish in Transactions of the Philological Society (TPL), TPL is not on the list. There are currently only about 30 journals at level 2, because there are only about 150 peer-reviewed journals in which Norwegian linguists have published over the past few years (your list here includes 515 titles). For this reason, it is a great surprise to me to hear that other countries are using this list. (Footnote: The fact that some book series are included in the Norwegian list is due to the fact that they are registered with ISSN numbers.)