Computational Linguistics, established in 1974, is the official flagship journal of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) and the leading venue for scholarly work in natural language processing and the computational study of language.

The journal publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed research that advances our understanding of language through computation. We seek strong contributions in theoretical modeling, empirical investigation, system design, and scalable methods for language representation, generation, and understanding. We place particular emphasis on work that sheds light on challenging aspects of language modeling and interpretation, and that engages with emerging computational paradigms, including large-scale language models. We also welcome research that bridges theoretical, empirical, linguistic, and interdisciplinary perspectives.

To support timely and high-quality dissemination, Computational Linguistics maintains a rigorous yet efficient editorial process. As of 2025, the average time to first decision is 16.5 days (including desk rejections) and 55.0 days (excluding desk rejections).

All published articles are freely available online. Final versions are published electronically by MIT Press (E-ISSN: 1530-9312) and made open access immediately upon acceptance. Print issues (ISSN: 0891-2017) are released quarterly and distributed to libraries and individuals worldwide.

Original papers accepted by the journal may also be presented at ACL-sponsored conferences, such as ACL and EMNLP. Select papers may also be highlighted during the conference.

The current Editor-in-Chief is Wei Lu (since 2024). Meet the full editorial team here.

 

At a Glance

  • More information about the journal, including its focus and scope, review process, and categories of submissions, can be found here.
  • Detailed submission guidelines can be found here.
  • Guidelines and information for special issue proposals can be found here.

 

Highlights and Announcements

Current Issue

Vol. 51 No. 2 (2025): Computational Linguistics
Published: 2025-06-26

Long paper

Survey article

Last Words

View All Issues