This issue of English Today sees a new editorial team taking over the journal, though with Raj Mesthrie as Advisory Editor providing continuity and guidance for the remainder of 2013. Readers will not see radical changes to a well-tried formula, with most issues containing an eclectic mix of articles from teachers and researchers from around the world as the norm. We will always encourage submissions on the widest range of topics related to the study of the English language.
While the look and ‘feel’ of the journal will remain essentially unaltered, readers can expect some innovations. English Today has now been accorded the distinction of acceptance by Thompson Reuters for inclusion in both their Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences Indices. Accordingly, as signalled in the Notes for contributors at the end of this issue, the main new development is that while all submissions will be reviewed by the Editors, authors who want to do so can signal that they would like their submissions to go forward for additional external peer review. Such articles might be up to c.6,000 words long, as distinct from those up to c.4,000 words which has long been the norm for the journal. Articles which the editors send for external peer review will be the result of detailed research which will stand up to the highest levels of scrutiny. At the same time, since all articles accepted for English Today will have been rigorously reviewed by editors, we fully expect that most authors, especially (but not only) those sending their work to the journal for the first time, will wish their work to be reviewed by the editors in this established way.
We are introducing three other innovations this year too. Starting with this issue we hope to have a regular slot featuring book and multimedia reviews, and so would like readers' suggestions for items to be reviewed and offers from colleagues willing to act as reviewers. Two other innovations will appear from time to time, depending on their popularity. ‘English Language Initiatives’ (ELI) will give anyone who is promoting the English language in a new way (for example through an unusual educational or commercial activity) a chance, in around 2,000 words, to inform a wide readership about their work. And, with the ever-growing popularity of English Language studies as a university subject, ‘English Language Bachelor of Arts’ (ELBA) will give colleagues worldwide an opportunity to outline a particular undergraduate degree programme with which they are involved, again in around 2,000 words. We will publish one ELI and one ELBA feature in each issue if we receive suitable material.
In this issue we feature articles with a wide global and subject spread. Contributions come from Colombia, Hong Kong, Kenya, India, Japan, Macao, Malaysia, the USA and the UK, and cover such diverse subjects as popular music lyrics, spelling pronunciation, attitudes to accents and the language of cookery. Stephen writes on how English is regarded in Malaysia, Qi Zhang considers Hong Kong speakers' views of accents, and, continuing the matter of language attitudes, Sung investigates who provides useful role models for pronunciation. Readers interested in connections between spellings and pronunciation should find Huber's argument on French loans telling, while Waitiki sets out evidence of spelling-speaking interaction from Kenya, and Shipley's book review continues the spellings theme. Kazim speculates on the place of Tamil-English code mixing following its use in a spectacularly successful song, and Dunnett's article also follows the thread of foreign influences on English with observations on the ever-interesting matter of food. ELT issues also feature: Martínez Torres focuses on English for Academic Purposes in Colombia; Abe presents the fruits of a specifically Japan-oriented investigation into communicative language teaching; Kun Zhang considers the influence of different mediums of instruction in the acquisition of English.
