Policies and Guidelines
Philosophy of Living in Languages
Living in Languages is an interdisciplinary, open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to translation studies and its intersections across the humanities and social sciences. We publish scholarly, creative, and hybrid work that treats translation as a critical and creative practice across languages, media, and disciplines. The journal operates on a not-for-profit, open-access model through the University at Albany Scholars Archive, hosted on the Digital Commons platform.
Who Can Submit
Anyone may submit an original work to be considered for publication in Living in Languages, provided they hold the copyright to the work or have authorization from the copyright owner to submit it. Submissions are welcome from scholars, translators, writers, and practitioners at any stage of career, across disciplines and institutions. There are no submission fees or article processing charges (APCs).
General Submission Rules
All submissions must be original, unpublished work that is not under review elsewhere. “Publication” in a working paper or preprint series does not constitute prior publication. By submitting work to Living in Languages, the author confirms that the material will not be submitted to another publication until the editorial decision process here is complete.
Questions about submission terms can be directed to the editorial team via the contact form .
Peer Review and Editorial Review
Beginning with submissions considered from 2026 onward, scholarly articles submitted to Living in Languages undergo double-blind peer review. Authors’ identities are withheld from reviewers, and reviewers’ identities are withheld from authors.
Earlier volumes were evaluated through editorial review prior to publication. Submissions were assessed by multiple members of the journal’s editorial team, ordinarily involving several editors, for scholarly quality, originality, relevance, and suitability for publication. Where a submission required specialized subject expertise beyond that of the editorial team, it was also referred for external peer review.
Formatting Requirements
Submissions should be anonymized and prepared in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf). Manuscripts should generally range between 5,000 and 9,000 words, unless otherwise specified for special issues. Longer submissions are welcome when creative or experimental forms, or the inclusion of original-language texts alongside translations, warrant additional length.
Creative or hybrid works may include multimedia files (JPEG, PNG, MP3, MP4) accompanied by contextual notes or an artist’s statement.
All accepted works must adhere to MLA 9th edition citation style. Although bepress provides limited technical support, it is the author’s responsibility to ensure submission files are legible, properly formatted, and free of identifying metadata.
Copyright and Licensing
Unless otherwise indicated on the individual article, works published in Living in Languages are made openly accessible under the Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) .
Authors retain copyright and full publishing rights to their work without restriction. By publishing in Living in Languages, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, and disseminate the work as its version of record. Authors remain free to archive, republish, revise, distribute, or otherwise reuse their work, including for commercial purposes. When appropriate, subsequent publication should acknowledge the work’s original publication in Living in Languages.
Authors may deposit the submitted version, accepted manuscript, and published Version of Record of their work in an institutional, disciplinary, or other repository of their choice without embargo. Authors are encouraged to include a citation and link to the version originally published in Living in Languages.
The CC BY-NC 4.0 license governs reuse of the published work by third parties. It permits others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, link to, and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given. The license does not restrict the rights of the author as copyright holder.
Material within an article that is owned by third parties or published under a separate license, permission, or applicable copyright exception is not necessarily covered by the article’s Creative Commons license. Such material should be identified accordingly.
Digital Preservation and Archiving
Living in Languages is committed to the long-term preservation and accessibility of its published content. Published articles, issues, and associated metadata are deposited in the University at Albany Scholars Archive, the University Libraries’ institutional repository.
Under the Scholars Archive Policies and Guidelines , all deposited content is covered by the University Libraries’ Digital Preservation Policy. Deposited content receives bit-level preservation, associated metadata is preserved, and the University Libraries follow established library and information-technology practices to support continued access to repository content over time.
The Digital Preservation Policy identifies long-term and persistent access to digital content as a central preservation objective. Through its deposit in Scholars Archive, Living in Languages participates in this institutional preservation framework to support the continued accessibility and integrity of the journal’s scholarly record.
Publication Ethics
Living in Languages maintains a separate Publication Ethics Statement governing the responsibilities of editors, reviewers, and authors; confidentiality and conflicts of interest; research and publication integrity; permissions; corrections and retractions; and the reporting of ethical concerns.
By submitting to Living in Languages, authors agree to abide by these policies, the journal’s Publication Ethics Statement , and the Scholars Archive Terms of Use .