Functions of Language

Editors
ORCiD logo with linkElena Smirnova | University of Neuchâtel
ORCiD logo with linkSumin Zhao | University of Edinburgh
Review Editor
ORCiD logo with linkMark Nartey | Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Managing Editor
ORCiD logo with linkWout Van Praet | UZH Universität Zürich | wout.vanpraet at es.uzh.ch

Functions of Language is an international journal of linguistics which explores the functionalist perspective on the organisation and use of natural language. It publishes articles and reviews books from the full spectrum of functionalist linguistics, seeking to bring out the fundamental unity behind the various schools of thought, while stimulating discussion among functionalists. It encourages the interplay of theory and description, and provides space for the detailed analysis, qualitative or quantitative, of linguistic data from a broad range of languages. Its scope is broad, covering such matters as prosodic phenomena in phonology, the clause in its communicative context, and regularities of pragmatics, conversation and discourse, as well as the interaction between the various levels of analysis. The overall purpose is to contribute to our understanding of how the use of languages in speech and writing has impacted, and continues to impact, upon the structure of those languages.

Functions of Language publishes its articles Online First.

ISSN: 0929-998X | E-ISSN: 1569‑9765
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol
Latest articles

5 February 2026

  • Richard L. Sparks. 2025. Second language anxiety: Affective or linguistic variable?
    Reviewed by Zhen Bao
  • 3 February 2026

  • The many things that thing can become: A story of discourse and grammar in Sà’án Sàvǐ ñà Ñuù Xnúvíkó (Mixtepec Mixtec)
    Guillem Belmar ViernesJeremías Salazar | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 285–313
  • 29 January 2026

  • A computational approach to mapping replacement processes in language change
    Malte Rosemeyer | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 314–338
  • 23 January 2026

  • The link between syntax, semantics, discourse, and lexicon in counteridenticals: A multivariate extension of co-varying collexeme analysis
    Jesús Olguín MartínezStefan Th. Gries | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 339–365
  • 5 January 2026

  • Kristin Davidse, Ngum Meyuhnsi NjendeGerard O’Grady. 2023. Specificational and presentational there-clefts: Redefining the field of clefts
    Reviewed by William B. McGregor
  • 11 December 2025

  • Giorgia Mannaioli. 2025. Vagueness as an implicitating persuasive strategy
    Reviewed by Lingyu Yi
  • 18 November 2025

  • Noun incorporation in English: A typological perspective
    Dana LouagieAn Van linden | FOL 32:2 (2025) pp. 224–278
  • 12 November 2025

  • Jieun KiaerAlfred W. T. Lo. 2025. Fandom language learning: A digital transformation of language education in the AI age
    Reviewed by Yawen HanDongyuan Yu | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 386–390
  • 13 October 2025

  • Bo WangYuanyi Ma. 2025. Introducing Chinese discourse: Methods of analysis empowered by Systemic Functional Linguistics
    Reviewed by Everard Jun-Jie Ma | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 382–385
  • 3 October 2025

  • A critical redesign of the attitude spectrum: Analyzing evaluative explicitness in institutional discourse
    Congcong Wang | FOL 32:2 (2025) pp. 200–223
  • 25 September 2025

  • The semantic continuum from disposition to causative meaning: Diachronic changes of the Chinese NP1++NP2+VP construction
    Shan ZuoFuyin Thomas Li | FOL 32:2 (2025) pp. 163–199
  • Juan He. 2025. Weibo news package: A systemic functional perspective on the text-reader relationship
    Reviewed by Yumeng Wang, Lu LiLianrui Yang | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 377–381
  • 4 July 2025

  • Changes to the editorial team
    FOL 32:1 (2025) pp. 1–2
  • 3 June 2025

  • Some as an indefinite article in Present Day English: A case of paradigmatization and constructional competition
    Lotte SommererFlorent Perek | FOL 32:1 (2025) pp. 131–161
  • 16 May 2025

  • Today’s innovations, tomorrow’s conventions: Usage-based approaches to incipient developments in English
    David LorenzDavid Tizón-Couto | FOL 32:1 (2025) p. 3
  • 12 May 2025

  • I’m all virtual-peopled out : Creativity and productivity in the case of the English ‘exhaustive’ construction
    Eva Zehentner | FOL 32:1 (2025) pp. 43–73
  • 4 April 2025

  • Discourse markers in the making: Just so you know and it just so happens
    Gunther KaltenböckElnora ten Wolde | FOL 32:1 (2025) p. 74
  • 11 March 2025

  • On the discourse marker yěshì ‘also’ in Chinese constructions of blame
    Ying FanXiuli Guo | FOL 31:3 (2024) pp. 327–367
  • 4 March 2025

  • Emerging inferentials in English? A study of the evolving uses of the present perfect and have to
    Eric Mélac | FOL 32:1 (2025) pp. 105–130
  • 3 March 2025

  • From constructional innovation to linguistic change
    Alexander Bergs | FOL 32:1 (2025) pp. 16–42
  • 14 February 2025

  • Four types of English evidential -ly adverbs: Criteria, semantics and syntactic correlates
    Lois Kemp | FOL 31:3 (2024) pp. 239–261
  • 28 January 2025

  • Everything-cleft constructions in spoken British English: A neglected construction
    Eleni Seitanidi, Nele PõldvereCarita Paradis | FOL 31:3 (2024) pp. 289–326
  • 16 January 2025

  • Potential grammaticalization of epistemic phrases: What could be might be
    David Lorenz | FOL 31:3 (2024) pp. 262–288
  • 6 December 2024

  • Hans J. Ladegaard. 2024. Migrant workers’ narratives of return: Alienation and identity transformations
    Reviewed by PraiseGod Aminu | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 371–376
  • 5 December 2024

  • Rod Ellis, Carsten Roever, Natsuko ShintaniYan Zhu. 2024. Measuring second language pragmatic competence: A psycholinguistic perspective
    Reviewed by Nan Zhang | FOL 32:3 (2025) pp. 366–370
  • 3 December 2024

  • Doing things with grammar: Presupposition accommodation across grammatical categories
    Maria Khachaturyan, Erika SandmanThera Marie Crane | FOL 31:2 (2024) pp. 166–207
  • IssuesOnline-first articles

    Volume 32 (2025)

    Volume 31 (2024)

    Volume 30 (2023)

    Volume 29 (2022)

    Volume 28 (2021)

    Volume 27 (2020)

    Volume 26 (2019)

    Volume 25 (2018)

    Volume 24 (2017)

    Volume 23 (2016)

    Volume 22 (2015)

    Volume 21 (2014)

    Volume 20 (2013)

    Volume 19 (2012)

    Volume 18 (2011)

    Volume 17 (2010)

    Volume 16 (2009)

    Volume 15 (2008)

    Volume 14 (2007)

    Volume 13 (2006)

    Volume 12 (2005)

    Volume 11 (2004)

    Volume 10 (2003)

    Volume 9 (2002)

    Volume 8 (2001)

    Volume 7 (2000)

    Volume 6 (1999)

    Volume 5 (1998)

    Volume 4 (1997)

    Volume 3 (1996)

    Volume 2 (1995)

    Volume 1 (1994)

    Editorial info
    Editors
    ORCiD logo with linkElena Smirnova | University of Neuchâtel
    ORCiD logo with linkSumin Zhao | University of Edinburgh
    Review Editor
    ORCiD logo with linkMark Nartey | Lingnan University, Hong Kong
    Managing Editor
    ORCiD logo with linkWout Van Praet | UZH Universität Zürich | wout.vanpraet at es.uzh.ch
    Editorial Board
    Svenja Adolphs | University of Nottingham
    Walter Bisang | Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz
    ORCiD logo with linkKasper Boye | University of Copenhagen
    Cristiano Broccias | University of Genoa
    Alice Caffarel-Cayron | University of Sydney
    Cecilia Colombi | UC Davis
    Hendrik De Smet | University of Leuven
    Holger Diessel | University of Jena
    John W. Du Bois | University of California, Santa Barbara
    ORCiD logo with linkAnita Fetzer | University of Augsburg
    Lise Fontaine | Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
    ORCiD logo with linkCliff Goddard | Griffith University
    ORCiD logo with linkKees Hengeveld | University of Amsterdam
    Liesbet Heyvaert | University of Leuven
    Sally Humphrey | Australian Catholic University, North Sydney
    ORCiD logo with linkSusan Hunston | University of Birmingham
    ORCiD logo with linkLaura A. Janda | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    ORCiD logo with linkEvelien Keizer | University of Vienna
    J.R. Martin | University of Sydney
    ORCiD logo with linkTanja Mortelmans | University of Antwerp
    ORCiD logo with linkStella Neumann | University of Aachen
    ORCiD logo with linkDirk Noël | University of Hong Kong
    ORCiD logo with linkGerard O’Grady | University of Cardiff
    Mary J. Schleppegrell | University of Michigan
    Jack Sidnell | University of Toronto
    Gerard J. Steen | University of Amsterdam
    ORCiD logo with linkMaite Taboada | Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
    Subscription Info
    Current issue: 32:3, available as of February 2026

    General information about our electronic journals.

    Subscription rates

    All prices for print + online include postage/handling.

    Online-onlyPrint + online
    Volume 33 (2026): 3 issues; ca. 375 pp.EUR 309.00EUR 428.00

    Individuals may apply for a special online-only subscription rate of EUR 65.00 per volume.
    Private subscriptions are for personal use only, and must be pre-paid and ordered directly from the publisher.

    Available back-volumes

    Online-onlyPrint + online
    Complete backset
    (Vols. 1‒32; 1994‒2025)
    76 issues;
    10,500 pp.
    EUR 7,820.00EUR 8,525.00
    Volume 32 (2025) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 300.00EUR 404.00
    Volume 31 (2024) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 291.00EUR 367.00
    Volume 30 (2023) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 283.00EUR 334.00
    Volumes 27‒29 (2020‒2022) 3 issues; avg. 375 pp.EUR 283.00 per volumeEUR 327.00 per volume
    Volume 26 (2019) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 277.00EUR 321.00
    Volume 25 (2018) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 269.00EUR 312.00
    Volume 24 (2017) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 261.00EUR 303.00
    Volume 23 (2016) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 261.00EUR 294.00
    Volume 22 (2015) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 261.00EUR 285.00
    Volume 21 (2014) 3 issues; 375 pp.EUR 261.00EUR 277.00
    Volume 20 (2013) 2 issues; 300 pp.EUR 232.00EUR 239.00
    Volumes 1‒19 (1994‒2012) 2 issues; avg. 300 pp.EUR 225.00 per volumeEUR 232.00 per volume
    Author info

    Manuscripts should be submitted via the online submission and tracking system .

    Before submitting to Functions of Language, please consult this Checklist to make sure that the topic of your contribution is relevant to this journal.

    Please also consult the Short Guide to EM for Authors and the journal's style sheet; manuscripts not conforming with the style sheet will not be considered.

    Papers submitted for consideration should not have been published in any form before in any widely available publication, nor may they be under review elsewhere. They will be reviewed by at least two referees. Please make sure that you have anonymized your paper before you submit it.

    Contributions should be in English. Authors who are not expert users of written academic English should have their text carefully checked by such an expert user (preferably a linguist familiar with the discourse of our discipline) before submitting the paper.

    All editorial questions should be sent to the Managing Editor:
    Wout Van Praet, wout.vanpraet at es.uzh.ch

    All questions about book reviews should be sent to the Reviews Editor:
    Mark Nartey, marknartey at ln.edu.hk

    Ethics

    John Benjamins journals are committed to maintaining the highest standards of publication ethics and to supporting ethical research practices.

    Authors and reviewers are kindly requested to read this Ethics Statement.

    Please also note the guidance on (the declaration of) the use of Artificial Intelligence.

    Rights and Permissions

    Authors must ensure that they have permission to use any third-party material in their contribution; the permission should include perpetual (not time-limited) world-wide distribution in print and electronic format.

    For information on authors' rights, please consult the rights information page.

    Open Access

    Articles accepted for this journal can be made Open Access through payment of an Article Publication Charge (APC) of EUR 1800 (excl. tax). To arrange this, please contact openaccess at benjamins.nl as soon as your paper has been accepted for publication. More information can be found on the publisher's Open Access Policy page.

    Corresponding authors from institutions with which John Benjamins has a Read & Publish arrangement can publish Open Access without paying a fee. Please consult this list of institutions for up-to-date information on which articles qualify.

    For information about permission to post a version of your article online or in an institutional repository ('green' open access or self-archiving), please consult the rights information page.

    If the article is not (to be made) Open Access, there is no fee for the author to publish in this journal.

    Archiving

    John Benjamins Publishing Company has an agreement in place with Portico for the archiving of all its online journals and e-books.

    Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue