Ethical statement

Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology seeks to publish original, rigorous research articles. Any original research material submitted to our journal will undergo independent review by experts who are not part of our editorial staff. Lexis, Journal in English Lexicology’s editorial board endeavors to implement highly ethical submission and publication processes, in accordance with acknowledged best practices and international scientific publishing standards.

Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology is hosted by the Centre d’Études Linguistiques – Corpus, Discours et Sociétés (CEL) at the University of Lyon (Jean Moulin Lyon 3), conducts its publication activities in an independent fashion, under the authority of its editorial board, supervised by the journal’s Editor and Head of publication.

In order to guarantee respect for intellectual property, the journal has a policy of detecting plagiarism by online detection programs (Compilatio©).

Authors are not paid and the review does not charge for the submission or publication of articles.

Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology is regulated by the Creative Commons: Attribution – ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence.

Intellectual property protection

Authors of a text submitted to Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology have to authorize the journal to publish their article under a non-exclusive contract ceding rights in his/her name and in the names of his/her co-authors. The contract will be sent before the article is published and can be downloaded below (see “Attachments”). By virtue of the cultural, scientific and educational nature of the journal the contract states that the cession of authorial rights is made without payment. The text submitted must be original and the illustrations free of copyright. If the observations and data are not original and personal, borrowings from earlier personal works or the works of other authors must be duly indicated (citation rights) and/or be the subject of an authorization of use from the owners of elements that are used.

Authors have to present a text free of all issues of plagiarism or counterfeiting (paragraphs copied from another author, phrases or illustrations – photographs, figures, sketches, maps, images, … – copied without indicating exactly and with the agreement of the borrowing’s author precise references and sources, pirated data…). They must also guarantee that the illustrations (maps, figures, photographs) are original or that their reproduction has been authorized by their author(s), their copyholder(s) or their publisher (written authorizations should be forwarded to Lexis). The source of illustrations must be clearly indicated in the text of the caption. Each article proposal is checked with the anti-plagiarism software Compilatio©.

Authors guarantee that their proposed article contains no matter of a defamatory, hateful, fraudulent or knowingly inexact character. Authors guarantee that all the publications used in their work have been cited appropriately.

Commitment of the journal

Our ethical guidelines apply to all the steps of our publication process, which are available for review in our “Submit an article” section.

Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology adhere to the following principles:

• Criteria used for evaluating submissions are available from the journal’s website, such as presenting an exact list of the members of the scientific management, of the reading committee and of the scientific committee, together with their affiliation, guaranteeing the recognition of the latter in the fields covered by the disciplinary fields and the scope of the journal, presenting information bearing on authorial rights and associated licenses, clearly described and indicated, taking reasonable measures to identify and prevent the publication of documents containing errors, and, in the case of plagiarism, misuse of quotations, falsification or fabrication of data, etc.

• The editorial board endeavors to guarantee a fair and balanced evaluation of submissions. Evaluation forms with comments from reviewers are sent to authors in a timely fashion.

• The decision to accept or reject an individual article is solely based on the submission’s originality, clarity, scientific relevance and validity.

• All submissions are independently reviewed by two experts who are not part of our editorial staff. Should their respective opinions strongly differ, a third reviewer will systematically be asked to provide his/her opinion.

• Authors may not suggest potential reviewers for their articles.

• Authors’ identities are not known to reviewers. Prior to sending submissions to reviewers, Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology takes all necessary steps to ensure that the identities of authors are masked.

• Reviewers’ identities are not known to authors.

• Reviewers are requested to consult the COPE ethical guidelines for peer reviewers.

• The decision to accept or reject an individual article is made independently by the editorial board, together with the guest-editors, after reviewing the recommendations provided by the reviewers. Decisions are final and may not be appealed.

• Authors are required to state any potential conflicts of interest, especially if the article deals with products or services that can be marketed, or if it describes organizations; disclosures shall appear at the end of the article.

• If the findings described by authors in their articles result from research programs that have benefited from financial support or funding, relevant disclosures shall be made by authors.

• The journal reserves the right to publish, without prior authorization from authors, statements of errors or additional information about authors’ disclosures.

• The journal takes all necessary steps to prevent the publication of submissions where scientific misconduct (notably plagiarism and falsification of data) has been identified. When scientific misconduct is suspected, Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology reserves the right to require additional information from authors, and to retract an article from its website when their response is not satisfactory.

• The journal shall take all necessary measures when violation of intellectual property has been confirmed in a submission or an article that has already been published by Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology.

Publication policy regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology has a strict policy regarding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. All contributions submitted to the journal will be uploaded to Compilatio Magister+ for verification. Any analysis revealing that AI was used in 25% or more of the total contribution will result in immediate rejection by the editorial board.

By submitting a contribution to Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology, authors agree to provide original, personal, and autonomous research.

The journal’s editorial board authorizes the use of AI exclusively in the following cases:

For authors:

• Proofreading and editing (syntax, punctuation) of the submitted article

• Translation of the abstract FR/ENG or quotations

• Formatting of the bibliography

• When the subject of the research specifically relates to AI

• When the research methodology intrinsically requires the use of AI (e.g., processing a large volume of data)

• When AI is used in the collection or design of a corpus. In this case, the author must explicitly indicate all the tools used in the dedicated sections (methodology and bibliography)

For committees and reviewers:

• Proofreading and formal correction (syntax, punctuation) of contributions

• Translation of FR/ENG abstracts or quotations

• Formatting of bibliographies

By “proofreading and correction,” the editorial committee means any modification aimed at eliminating errors in syntax, grammar, spelling, and punctuation without altering the author’s intended meaning. If the AI tool modifies the content or argumentative structure, the committee will consider that the contribution has not been written independently. More generally, any use of AI must be carefully validated by the author to ensure the integrity of their original message.

The use of AI is strictly prohibited in all other cases, particularly for the generation or modification of textual, visual, and/or video content.

Regarding modifications to visual content, only global modifications (contrast, color, brightness) that do not alter the informational content of the image are accepted. Any structural modifications (such as the deletion or modification of results) are prohibited. In the event of authorized image retouching, the author will be asked to provide both the original and modified versions. The editorial committee reserves the right to refuse these modifications.

Furthermore, Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology considers all submissions to be confidential and undertakes to ensure double-blind review. Committees and reviewers are strictly prohibited from uploading all or part of a contribution (or review) to any AI (or other) tool in order to avoid compromising the confidentiality of the document and any sensitive data it may contain.

As the uses of AI are evolving quickly, the editorial committee reserves the right to accept proposals whose subject matter specifically focuses on the linguistic models used by AI. In this specific context, the generation of textual and audio content is accepted. It is therefore imperative that the author explicitly describe the methodology used (tools, prompts/queries, results, etc.) in order to ensure the reproducibility of their research.

The use of AI must be explicitly referenced in the section devoted to research methodology (or in a dedicated section), clearly stating the name of the tool used, the version, and the last date of use. The use of AI for the sole purpose of proofreading, orthographic and typographical corrections, or occasional translation does not need to be reported. Similarly, the use of AI as a document search engine or to aid in the understanding of concepts does not need to be reported by the author. Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology nevertheless recommends, within the scope of the aforementioned exceptions, that AI be used sparingly, notably for environmental reasons.

Each contribution must include the following statement:

“I, the undersigned [LAST NAME First Name], certify on my honor that I am presenting original, personal, and independent research. Any use of AI has been explicitly documented in accordance with the rules of scientific integrity and ethics established by Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology.”

The use of AI tools requires particular vigilance with regard to the personal data that may be processed by these tools. Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology cannot be held responsible for any misuse by authors.

By submitting an article or agreeing to join the journal’s committees, authors, committee members, and reviewers acknowledge that they have read and agree to comply with the ethical framework detailed above. Any contribution that uses AI in a manner that contravenes this framework will be rejected by the editorial committee.