Navigating the New Frontier: An Analysis of Applied Linguistics Journals' Editorial Policies on AI Use in Scientific Publishing

Abstract

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence tools, such as large language models, has influenced various industries, and scientific publishing is no exception. The adoption of AI in academic research has raised serious practical and ethical concerns, urging scientific publishing committees to reconsider their ethical and practical publishing policies. Although many journals now provide editorial guidelines on AI use, there is still significant variability in their content and accessibility. In this article, we analyse the editorial policies of the top 50 applied linguistics journals to find the ethical and practical uses of AI in applied linguistics publications. Thematic analysis was combined with content analysis to systematically examine the presence or absence of recurring themes in the AI-related policies of the selected journals. Six themes were identified for analysis: authorship, complete rejection of AI, ethical AI use, transparency and disclosure, data integrity, and adaptability of policies. Descriptive statistics were used to quantify the frequencies of each theme and identify variations across journals and their respective publishers. This study's findings underscore the need for clear, standardised policies governing AI use to ensure ethical practices and foster trust among researchers, publishers, and the broader scientific community.