Journal rankings · indicator year 2021
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2021
Literature and Literary Theory journal rankings 2021
64 ranked journals · Subfield in Arts and Humanities
Literature and Literary Theory has 64 ranked journals in 2021. The median OJR fell 0.50 on 2020 to 1.01, above the world average of 1.00; Q1 starts at OJR 2.11. The top three are Journal of Second Language Writing, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, and Language and Education.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2021. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Arts and Humanities (13)
64 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2020. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2018–2020, the window the 2021 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2018–2020 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2012 to 2021. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Journal of Second Language WritingElsevier BV · United States | 9.56Q1 | 6.13 0.98 up from 2020 | 103 | 13% | $3,830 | ||
2Journal of English for Academic PurposesElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 5.79Q1 | 3.90 0.57 up from 2020 | 207 | 15% | $3,730 | ||
3Language and EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 5.78Q1 | 3.16 0.53 up from 2020 | 116 | 31% | — | ||
4Language Culture and CurriculumRoutledge · United Kingdom | 4.93Q1 | 3.32 0.29 up from 2020 | 85 | 42% | — | ||
5English for Specific PurposesElsevier BV · United States | 4.59Q1 | 3.86 0.55 down from 2020 | 99 | 14% | $3,590 | ||
6Journal of Literacy ResearchSAGE Publishing · United States | 3.86Q1 | 3.68 0.30 up from 2020 | 78 | 10% | $3,650 | ||
7ELT JournalOxford University Press · United Kingdom | 3.79Q1 | 2.48 0.42 up from 2020 | 218 | 23% | $5,481 | ||
8Written CommunicationSAGE Publishing · United Kingdom | 3.69Q1 | 2.82 1.27 down from 2020 | 52 | 26% | $3,650 | ||
9Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Language EducationJohn Benjamins Publishing Company · Netherlands | 3.11Q1 | 1.16 0.34 down from 2020 | 53 | 11% | — | ||
10Computers & composition/Computers and compositionElsevier BV · United States | 2.97Q1 | 3.24 1.07 up from 2020 | 125 | 14% | $3,860 | ||
11Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated LearningOAUniversity of La Sabana · Colombia | 2.91Q1 | 1.57 0.07 down from 2020 | 36 | 100% | — | ||
12European Journal of Language PolicyLiverpool University Press · United Kingdom | 2.66Q1 | 1.43 0.52 down from 2020 | 37 | 14% | — | ||
13International Journal of TESOL StudiesOAUnited Kingdom | 2.40Q1 | 2.43no 2020 value | 44 | 100% | — | — | |
14TESL Canada JournalOACanada | 2.31Q1 | 1.32 0.03 down from 2020 | 72 | 100% | — | ||
15Porta Linguarum Revista Interuniversitaria de Didáctica de las Lenguas ExtranjerasOARovira i Virgili University · Spain | 2.15Q1 | 0.63 1.39 down from 2020 | 74 | 100% | — | ||
16Journal of Business and Technical CommunicationSAGE Publishing · United States | 2.11Q1 | 2.62 0.04 down from 2020 | 66 | 19% | $3,650 | ||
17LiteracyWiley · United Kingdom | 2.06Q2 | 2.50 0.77 up from 2020 | 66 | 30% | $3,470 | ||
18Research in the Teaching of EnglishRoutledge · United States | 2.05Q2 | 1.40 0.05 up from 2020 | 73 | 0% | — | ||
19Journal of English as a Lingua FrancaDe Gruyter · Germany | 1.91Q2 | 1.22 0.01 down from 2020 | 61 | 50% | $2,712 | ||
| 1.71Q2 | 0.71 0.16 up from 2020 | 31 | 100% | — | |||
21Australian Journal of Applied LinguisticsOAAustralia | 1.70Q2 | 1.27 0.51 down from 2020 | 32 | 100% | — | ||
22English EducationNational Council of Teachers of English | 1.67Q2 | 1.15 0.12 up from 2020 | 60 | 0% | — | ||
23Language ArtsNational Council of Teachers of English · United States | 1.66Q2 | 1.45 0.39 up from 2020 | 154 | 2% | — | ||
24Apples - Journal of Applied Language StudiesOAUniversity of Jyväskylä · Finland | 1.57Q2 | 1.13 0.27 down from 2020 | 47 | 100% | — | ||
25EuroAmerican Journal of Applied Linguistics and LanguagesOAE-JournALL · United States | 1.54Q2 | 0.33 1.03 down from 2020 | 40 | 100% | — | ||
26ESP TodayOAUniversity of Belgrade Faculty of Economics · Serbia | 1.45Q2 | 1.12 0.16 up from 2020 | 36 | 100% | — | ||
27The Australian Journal of Language and LiteracySpringer Nature · Singapore | 1.42Q2 | 1.21 0.10 down from 2020 | 50 | 20% | $3,190 | ||
28The EuroCALL ReviewOATechnical University of Valencia · Spain | 1.24Q2 | 0.91 0.13 down from 2020 | 36 | 100% | — | ||
29Language Learning in Higher EducationDe Gruyter · Germany | 1.21Q2 | 0.49 0.20 down from 2020 | 80 | 35% | $2,712 | ||
30Technical Communication QuarterlyRoutledge · United States | 1.20Q2 | 1.86 0.04 down from 2020 | 95 | 9% | — | ||
31College Composition and CommunicationNational Council of Teachers of English · United States | 1.07Q2 | 1.09 0.09 up from 2020 | 115 | 0% | — | ||
32Revista Brasileira de Lingüística AplicadaOAFederal University of Minas Gerais · Brazil | 1.04Q2 | 0.80 0.05 up from 2020 | 106 | 100% | — | ||
33Children s Literature in EducationSpringer Nature · United States | 0.98Q3 | 0.69 0.29 up from 2020 | 87 | 33% | $3,190 | ||
34DELTA Documentação de Estudos em Lingüística Teórica e AplicadaOAPontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo · Brazil | 0.94Q3 | 0.93 0.23 up from 2020 | 140 | 100% | — | ||
35Narrative InquiryJohn Benjamins Publishing Company · Netherlands | 0.91Q3 | 1.27 1.57 down from 2020 | 89 | 12% | — | ||
36English in EducationTaylor & Francis · United Kingdom | 0.90Q3 | 0.87 0.21 up from 2020 | 147 | 28% | — | ||
37Journal of Cultural AnalyticsOACanada | 0.90Q3 | 1.32 1.38 down from 2020 | 81 | 100% | — | ||
38Language and LiteracyOALanguage and Literacy Researchers of Canada · Canada | 0.89Q3 | 0.61 0.04 down from 2020 | 67 | 100% | — | ||
39Research in Corpus LinguisticsOASpain | 0.81Q3 | 1.25 0.61 up from 2020 | 31 | 100% | — | ||
40ProjectionsBerghahn Books · United States | 0.79Q3 | 1.90 1.46 up from 2020 | 76 | 37% | — | ||
41Linguagem em (Dis)cursoOAUniversidade do Sul de Santa Catarina · Brazil | 0.78Q3 | 0.45 0.12 up from 2020 | 104 | 100% | — | ||
42Trabalhos em Linguística AplicadaOAUniversity of Campinas · Brazil | 0.77Q3 | 0.68 0.01 down from 2020 | 233 | 100% | — | ||
43International Journal of Humanities and Arts ComputingEdinburgh University Press · United Kingdom | 0.72Q3 | 1.04 0.29 up from 2020 | 37 | 31% | — | ||
44English Text ConstructionJohn Benjamins Publishing Company · Netherlands | 0.64Q3 | 0.39no change | 37 | 33% | — | ||
45Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & LiteratureOAAutonomous University of Barcelona · Spain | 0.58Q3 | 0.38 0.04 up from 2020 | 72 | 100% | — | ||
46Scientific Study of LiteratureJohn Benjamins Publishing Company · Netherlands | 0.56Q3 | 0.86 0.29 down from 2020 | 33 | 23% | — | ||
47Human Ecology ReviewOAANU Press · Australia | 0.48Q3 | 1.13 0.44 up from 2020 | 32 | 100% | — | ||
48Digital Studies / Le champ numériqueOAOpen Library of Humanities · Canada | 0.46Q3 | 0.56 0.08 down from 2020 | 49 | 100% | — | ||
49Literary GeographiesManchester Metropolitan University | 0.41Q4 | 0.23 0.12 up from 2020 | 77 | 0% | — | ||
50Digital humanities quarterlyOAAlliance of Digital Humanities Organizations · United States | 0.37Q4 | 0.48 0.08 up from 2020 | 169 | 100% | — |
Subfields of Arts and Humanities, with Literature and Literary Theory highlighted.
- Language and Linguistics154
- Philosophy94
- Archeology69
- Literature and Literary Theory64
- Music32
- History and Philosophy of Science27
- Visual Arts and Performing Arts24
- Conservation23
- Museology23
- History7
- Classics1
- General Arts and Humanities0
- Religious studies0
Journals
Citations made in 2021. Corpus-wide, 87.7% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
29 additional Literature and Literary Theory journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2018–2020, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2021. Publication window: 2018–2020. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 64
- Window papers (baseline)
- 106,881 +7.9% from indicator year 2018
- Median OJR
- 1.010 -25.1% from indicator year 2018
- Rising journals (2025)
- 2
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2018–2020 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 28 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 30 | 31 | 35 | 35 | 37 | 36 | 39 | 41 | 43 | 46 | 50 | 55 | 56 | 59 | 62 | 63 | 60 | 64 | 73 | 73 | 76 | 72 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 39,152 | 41,293 | 44,360 | 47,693 | 50,568 | 53,724 | 56,806 | 60,437 | 65,031 | 69,362 | 74,882 | 79,853 | 84,459 | 87,431 | 89,177 | 91,543 | 94,470 | 97,026 | 99,068 | 101,727 | 103,853 | 106,881 | 106,516 | 103,525 | 100,705 | 102,959 | |
| Median OJR | 0.77 | 0.91 | 1.05 | 0.99 | 1.12 | 1.014 | 1.18 | 1.10 | 0.94 | 0.901 | 1.26 | 1.31 | 1.49 | 1.303 | 1.299 | 1.335 | 1.11 | 1.339 | 1.35 | 1.24 | 1.51 | 1.010 | 1.02 | 0.93 | 0.903 | 0.89 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.