## Hermes introduces new initiatives

As  editors  of Hermes ,  we  have  always  stressed  the  importance  of being able to offer our readers a journal in constant development both with respect to format and content. As part of this ongoing process of adapting to new and changing circumstances, we now introduce a set of changes serving to highlight the status of Hermes as an international journal of language and communication research. In practice, this has been the journal's role since its fi  rst issue in1988.

First of all, to more accurately refl  ect the journal's scope and purpose, we have adjusted its subtitle to Journal of Language and Communication Studies . We use an English subtitle in order to emphasise the adoption of a more explicit international language policy. As a result of this policy change, Hermes will primarily publish articles and reviews in English, French, German and Spanish, starting from issue 37 (September 2006). Manu  scripts may still be submitted in Danish if analysis and discussion of the subject-matter requires extensive use of this language, but only with specifi  c and prior approval from the editors. The editors may thus occasionally accept Danish manuscripts on issues specifi  cally relat  ing to Denmark or the Danish language or book reviews of special interest to  our  Danish  readers.  In  all  other  cases,  however,  we  ask  that  submissions be prepared in one of the journal's four offi  cial languages of publication.

This change is not only intended to accommodate our audience of international authors who, as is evidenced by the composition of contributions  to  the  thematic  section  of  the  current  issue,  already  submit wide  ly to the journal under the existing language policy. Our primary aim with this change has been to expand our international readership in  order  to  successfully  meet  our  overall  objective  of  disseminating research  of  an  international  standard  to  an  international  reader  ship. Research  projects  should  fall  within  areas  of  research  rele  vant  to the  Department  of  Language  and  Business  Communication  which publishes Hermes on behalf of the Aarhus School of Business. In other words, we continue our efforts to publish articles and reviews on issues relevant  to  linguistics,  business  communication  and  cultural  studies,

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but we now primarily accept contributions in English, French, German and Spanish.

Finally, we would like to make some additional comments unrelated to  our  new  initiatives.  First,  we  again  encourage  the  submission  not only  of  review  articles  and  long  book  reviews  (see  this  issue)  but also of short book reviews of about one page in length. If we receive more short book reviews, readers of Hermes will  be  introduced  to  a wider range of books, bearing in mind that each issue of the journal is subject to a page number restriction determined by postage charges and our low subscription rate. Second, the said restriction has forced us to postpone publication of two manuscripts already accepted for this issue's thematic section. The two contributions, which were submitted by  Masako  Suzuki  ( Ordsprog  og  idiomer )  and  Erla  Hallsteinsdottir ( Phra  seographie ), will be included in the next issue of Hermes which will be out in February 2006.