Statement on the Use of Generative AI

For authors

Authors may use AI tools to support tasks such as organizing ideas, improving language and readability, or getting a general overview of existing literature in linguistics, literature, or language teaching. These tools must never replace the author's own critical thinking, analysis, and interpretation. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of everything submitted to the journal — including verifying any AI-generated content, facts, or references, since AI tools can produce incorrect or fabricated citations.

Authors should check the terms of any AI tool they use to protect the confidentiality of unpublished work and avoid granting the tool broader rights over their material than necessary. Basic grammar and spell-checking do not need to be disclosed, but any tool that substantively reshapes sentences, arguments, or the structure of the manuscript must be declared.

Disclosure requirement

Authors who use AI tools during manuscript preparation must include a short declaration in the manuscript, using wording similar to the template below:

AI tools must never be listed as an author or co-author. Authorship carries responsibilities — approving the final manuscript, being accountable for its accuracy, and standing behind its originality — that can only be held by a human contributor.

Figures and images

AI tools may assist with purely explanatory visuals — such as diagrams of text structure, concept maps, or timelines — as long as their use is disclosed in the figure caption and in the general AI declaration.

AI tools must never be used to generate, fabricate, or alter images that represent actual research data (such as photographs of primary sources, survey screenshots, or field documentation). Any adjustment to such images must be made using standard, established image-processing methods, not generative AI.

For reviewers

A manuscript under review is a confidential document. Reviewers must not upload a submitted manuscript, or any part of it, into an AI tool — doing so may breach the author's confidentiality and, where personal data is involved, applicable privacy rules.

Reviewers remain fully responsible for the scientific judgment expressed in their review. AI tools may only play a supportive role — for example, improving the clarity of a review report or assisting a general background literature search — and only through private tools that do not retain or reuse submitted content.

Disclosure requirement

For editors

Submitted manuscripts are confidential, and editors must not upload manuscripts, or any part of them, into an AI tool. Editorial evaluation and the final publication decision are responsibilities that can only be held by a human editor — AI tools cannot replace an editor's independent judgment or accountability for the outcome.

Editors may use AI tools in a limited, supportive capacity — for instance, refining the language of a decision letter or assisting a general literature search — using only private tools, and always with full human review before any communication is sent to authors.