LibGuides: Linguistics: Finding Journal Articles and Conference Papers

Locate articles, conference papers, chapters, and other research materials

The goal of a literature search is to read and summarize the scholarship for a particular topic including substantive findings, theories, and methodologies. Literature searches involve scholarly secondary sources like journal articles, book chapters, and books. For more on types of literature reviews see UTL's Systematic Reviews guide.

Following are good starting points for linguistics researchers.

ACL Anthology
Open digital repository of research papers in computational linguistics from the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL). Provides free access to over 100,000 conference and workshop papers on computational linguistics and natural language processing.

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Research from the top publisher in computer science.
Updated frequently. The product has two parts:
- The ACM Full-Text collection. The full-text of ACM publications.
- The ACM Guide to Computing Literature. Described as, “the most comprehensive bibliographic database in existence today focused exclusively on the field of computing."
AILLA (The Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America) This link opens in a new window
A digital archive of recordings and texts in and about the indigenous languages of Latin America.
A digital archive of recordings and texts in and about the indigenous languages of Latin America. Includes recordings of naturally-occurring discourse in a wide range of genres, including narratives, ceremonies, oratory, conversations, and songs. Many of these recordings are accompanied by transcriptions and translations in either Spanish, English, or Portuguese. Also collects materials about these languages, such as grammars, dictionaries, ethnographies, and research notes.
Anthropological Index Online This link opens in a new window
From the Royal Anthropological Institute an index to films and articles in over 40 languages.
Updated monthly. Provides basic bibliographic references to over 700 periodicals in the British Museum's Museum of Mankind Library (incorporating the former Royal Anthropological Institute Library). A browsable list of journal titles and abbreviations is also available.
AnthroSource This link opens in a new window
Dates of coverage vary. Unlimited users.
Updated regularly. Provides indexing and full text access to peer-reviewed journals published by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), the world's largest organization of anthropologists. Also includes indexing for archived issues of all the Association's journals, newsletters and bulletins.
Communication & Mass Media Complete (CMMC) This link opens in a new window
Applied linguistics, especially regarding communication studies.
Updated regularly. Provides indexing for some 400 periodicals, including full text for over 200 titles, in areas related to communication and mass media. CMMC incorporates CommSearch (formerly produced by the National Communication Association (NCA)), and Mass Media Articles Index (formerly produced by Pennsylvania State University). CommSearch offered bibliographic and keyword references to 26 journals in communication studies, with coverage extending to the inaugural issue of each -- some from as far back 1915. It also included cover-to-cover indices of NCA's six journals (from their first editions to the present), and abstracts from their earliest appearance in NCA journals. Mass Media Articles Index provided citation coverage of over 40,000 articles related to mass media and published in over 60 research journals, as well as major journalism reviews, recent encyclopedias, and handbooks in the area of communications studies.
Dissertations and Theses Global This link opens in a new window
Special indexing of doctoral dissertations, with much full text.
Updated monthly. Contains more than 2 million doctoral dissertations and master's theses. Provides full text for many dissertations and theses, including most done after 1997. All subject areas are covered. The database includes more than 90 percent of the doctoral dissertations accepted each year in North America with selective coverage for other parts of the world. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts. Only bibliographic citations are available for earlier years. More than 55,000 new citations are added to the database every year. Many dissertations from The University of Texas at Austin are included in the database, though theses from the University are only rarely included.

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ERIC: Education Resources Information Center This link opens in a new window
Indexes the literature of education research, including research related to language learning.
Updated monthly. Provides a digital library of education-related resources. Contains over 1.1 million citations covering research documents, journal articles, technical reports, program descriptions and evaluations, and curricular materials in the field of education.

Also includes more than 107,000 full text non-journal documents indexed by the ERIC database. Approximately one-half of the entries in the ERIC database are to ERIC documents. Microfiche copies of ERIC documents, including those prior to 1996, are in the Collections Deposit Library (CDL) Microforms Collection at MCFICHE 4913.
Humanities Full Text This link opens in a new window
Indexing (with much full text) of research across the humanities, including good coverage of linguistics.
Provides access to articles from many of the most important academic journals in the humanities with the full text of articles from over 300 periodicals dating back to 1995, and high-quality indexing for almost 700 journals—of which 470 are peer-reviewed—dating as far back as 1984. The database provides coverage of feature articles, interviews, bibliographies, obituaries, and original works of fiction, drama, poetry and book reviews, as well as reviews of ballets, dance programs, motion pictures, musicals, radio and television programs, plays, operas, and more.
INSPEC This link opens in a new window
Primary index to the world's computer and control literature, so important for computational linguistics.
Updated weekly. Indexes the research literature of physics; electrical engineering and electronics; & computers and control. Offers over 15 million records and strong international coverage. The archive portion, which was formerly separate, is now integrated with the current file.
Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts (LLBA) This link opens in a new window
1973-present. The primary index to the research literature of linguistics.
Monthly updates, with about 14,000 new records added a year. Indexes the international literature in linguistics and related disciplines in the language sciences. Covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Complete coverage is given to various fields of linguistics including descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics. Provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,500 serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, and dissertations.
MLA International Bibliography
Important index of the literature of language, including linguistics.
Updated ten times per year. Indexes critical materials on literature, criticism, drama, languages, linguistics, and folklore. Provides access to citations from over 4,400 journals, series, books, essay collections, working papers, proceedings, dissertations, and bibliographies. Produced by the Modern Language Association.
PsycINFO (Ebsco) This link opens in a new window
Principal index to the research literature of psychology.
Updated monthly. Indexes and abstracts over 1,700 sources, including international material selected from periodicals written in over 35 languages. Contains current chapter and book coverage with worldwide English-language material published from 1987 to the present, and adds over 60,000 references annually through monthly updates. Covers the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines.
Has over 1.8 million individual records, some dating back to 1887, and includes abstracts from Psychological Abstracts back to 1927, Psychological Bulletin from 1921-1926, and all APA journals and the American Journal of Psychology back to their first issues. Corresponds in part to the print index Psychological Abstracts.
Texas ScholarWorks This link opens in a new window
UT Austin's institutional repository, including electronic dissertations and theses.
Updated regularly. Holds digital works and provides related services that constitute an institutional repository for the University of Texas at Austin. Archives and provides persistent and reliable access to the digital works of faculty, staff, and students and aims to provide the greatest possible dissemination and recognition to these works as possible. Digital works include research and scholarship, as well as works that reflect the intellectual and service environment of the campus.
Web of Science This link opens in a new window
Provides wide-ranging interdisciplinary subject indexing of the journal and conference literature. Especially important for its cited-reference search feature.
Updated weekly. The Web of Science Core Collection is a group of databases (Science Citation Index Expanded, 1900-present; Social Sciences Citation Index, 1900-present; Arts & Humanities Citation Index, 1975-present) that together cover more than 21,000 journals across all disciplines. The Emerging Sources Citation Index (2005-present) tracks thousands of additional journals that are being considered for inclusion in the main citation indexes. Other files track references from conference proceedings (1990-present) and citations to books (2005-present).
The Web of Science platform currently also provides temporary access to several databases that are not part of the Core Collection, including Biosis Citation Index, Data Citation Index, and Zoological Record.