Volume 5 (2014) Issue 2
pp. 143-144
Editorial
With the present issue, the Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching completes its fifth year of existence. It is true that half a decade is by far not long enough a period to pay special mention to, yet it can be stated that a good beginning has been made.
The planning of JLLT started late in 2009. After having worked as a co-editor of a German methodological journal, I felt that it was high time for me to launch a journal “of my own”, and that 2010 would be a good starting point to realise this idea. Soon, the idea became concrete, a name was found, and the journal was created in its present form. The next step was to find editorial board members, for which I kindly requested the participation of some renowned German professors and colleagues from other countries who might find the concept of this new journal appealing and whose expertise represented different fields of applied linguistics and / or language methodology. And they all accepted my invitation. With the completion of this issue, I would like to take the chance to thank all the editorial board members again. I am grateful for their involvement and constant support. Their involvement has kept the journal going on since the very first day when it was announced online.
In my editorial of JLLT 3 (2013) 2, I gave rather a detailed report on quantitative aspects referring to the types of contributions (articles, university reports, book reviews), the countries and continents of origin of the various authors, and the pageviews in toto as well as by countries. This has been done and does not have to be redone now. All I would like to add here is that the development described two years ago is incessantly going on. The fact that JLLT has succeeded in covering all the continents within so short a period of time was not to be expected when the journal was launched. With the total number of pageviews constantly growing, JLLT has a coverage of readers in the whole northern hemisphere. The countries with the presently highest numbers of pageviews are Germany, the United States, and France.
In this context, I would also like to thank all the authors who, at the start, showed great confidence and trust in the quality of this new journal by submitting their articles and who have done so continuously. It is worth mentioning that some of these authors have made more than one contribution to JLLT. The constant flow of articles from authors in different countries has enabled JLLT to exist up to the present day, and I hope that this flow will go on for many years to come. I would therefore like to express my special thanks to all the authors who have published their findings in JLLT.
The worldwide accessibility of JLLT and the fact that its online publications are completely free for authors and readers may play an important role with respect to its recent history. I would like to assure authors and readers that this free web accessibility will not change: JLLT will remain free of charge and continue being available in a full-text approach on the Internet. In addition, the identical paper versions will continue being published.
From a more theoretical perspective, I would like to add that linguistics is not an art in itself - or, as the French say; l’art pour l’art -, but that, depending on its orientation - theoretical or applied - it has a potential outcome that deepens our understanding of language in general and linguistic phenomena in particular. Research done in the fields of linguistics and language teaching has a positive impact on language acquisition and language learning because it contributes to informing language instructors so that they can adapt recent findings to their own teaching contexts. Students will, in turn, indirectly benefit from these research findings and be even more motivated to learn foreign languages. This interwovenness of theory and practice, of research and its concrete results, represents the very mission of the Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching, and this is what its name stands for.
Finally, dear readers and prospective contributors, please continue rendering us your support and please accept my invitation to move on together, along with the editorial board members, to the second half of JLLT’s first decade.
Thomas Tinnefeld
JLLT
Editor
Thomas Tinnefeld
JLLT
Editor