Conflict of Interest Policy

Transparency and objectivity are fundamental to maintaining integrity in academic publishing. A conflict of interest (COI) arises when financial, professional, personal, or institutional relationships may inappropriately influence the conduct, reporting, review, or publication of research.

1. Responsibilities for Authors

All authors must declare any actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest that could affect their manuscript. If no conflicts exist, authors must explicitly state:

"Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article."

2. Financial & Non-Financial Disclosures

• Financial COI: Research grants, honoraria, employment, consultancy fees, or commercial interests related to the research.
• Non-Financial COI: Personal rivalries, academic affiliations, close professional mentorship, or strong ideological preconceptions.

3. Recusal Policy for Editors and Reviewers

• Reviewers: Reviewers must recuse themselves from evaluating any manuscript if they share an institutional affiliation with the author, have co-authored with the author within the past 3 years, or have personal or financial conflicts.
• Editorial Board Submissions: When editors or board members submit manuscripts to Linguistics Initiative, they are entirely recused from editorial handling, reviewer assignment, and decision-making for their work. Such submissions are assigned to non-conflicted independent section editors and undergo double-blind peer review.