Natural Language Engineering
Natural Language Processing (formerly Natural Language Engineering, ISO 4 abbreviation Nat. Lang. Proc., formerly ISSN 1351-3249) is a peer-reviewed bimonthly journal in natural language processing published by Cambridge University Press. It was founded in 1995 as Natural Language Engineering, took its present title in 2024, and has been published under a fully open-access model since 2024.Natural Language Processing（前名 Natural Language Engineering，ISO 4 缩写 Nat. Lang. Proc.，原 ISSN 1351-3249）是剑桥大学出版社出版的自然语言处理领域同行评审学术双月刊。该刊于 1995 年以 Natural Language Engineering 之名创刊，2024 年更为现名，并自 2024 年起转为完全开放获取。
Scope
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is an open access journal meeting the needs of professionals and researchers working in all areas of natural language processing. Its aim is to bridge the gap between traditional computational linguistics research and the implementation of practical applications with potential real-world use. The journal publishes original research articles on a broad range of methods and resources applied in NLP, language processing tasks and NLP applications, including but not limited to machine translation, translation technology, sentiment analysis, information retrieval, question answering, text summarisation, text simplification and speech processing.Natural Language Processing（NLP）是服务自然语言处理各领域专业人员与研究者的开放获取期刊，其宗旨是在计算语言学的传统研究与具有现实应用价值的实际系统实现之间架设桥梁。期刊发表自然语言处理中所应用的方法与资源的原创研究论文，涵盖的语言处理任务与应用包括但不限于：机器翻译、翻译技术、情感分析、信息检索、问答、文本摘要、文本简化与语音处理。[1]
- Core methods and resources: original research employing novel NLP methods and models, including the latest deep learning methods and large language models.核心方法与资源： 鼓励采用新型 NLP 方法与模型（含最新深度学习方法与大语言模型）的原创研究。
- Multilingual and low-resource languages: the journal particularly encourages work reporting findings from multilingual and low-resource language projects.多语言与低资源语言： 特别鼓励报告多语言项目与低资源语言项目成果的研究，这类工作在多数语言缺乏标注数据的背景下尤具价值。
- Surveys and special issues: survey papers describing the state of the art of a specific topic are welcome, and timely special issues on subjects such as large language models and generative AI are published.综述与专刊： 欢迎描述某一特定主题研究现状与前沿水平的综述论文，并定期出版聚焦大语言模型与生成式人工智能等时效性议题的专刊。
- Feature columns: alongside original articles the journal runs the Industry Watch and Emerging Trends columns, tracking developments in the field, and also accepts squibs and book reviews.特色栏目： 除原创论文外，期刊还设有 Industry Watch（产业观察）与 Emerging Trends（新兴趋势）两个专栏，持续跟踪本领域的技术与产业动态；此外也接受 squibs（短札）与书评。
The journal encourages interdisciplinary work combining linguistics, computer science and cognitive science, and it gives particular welcome to application-oriented niche topics, where the literature is often scarce and a dedicated special issue is therefore warranted.期刊鼓励语言学、计算机科学与认知科学交叉的跨学科研究，并特别欢迎应用导向的窄领域专题——这些新兴方向往往文献相对稀缺，需要专门的专辑加以梳理。
History
- Founding (1995): the journal was founded in 1995 as Natural Language Engineering under ISSN 1351-3249, published by Cambridge University Press, and was initially positioned as a technically oriented journal in natural language engineering.创刊（1995年）： 期刊于 1995 年创刊，初名 Natural Language Engineering，ISSN 1351-3249，由剑桥大学出版社出版，最初定位为自然语言工程——偏重系统实现的技术性期刊。
- Refocusing (2000s): as natural language processing moved from rule-based methods to statistical methods and then to deep learning, the journal's emphasis shifted from systems engineering towards a balance of theoretical and applied computational linguistics.定位演变（2000年代）： 随着自然语言处理从规则方法转向统计方法，再到深度学习，期刊的收录重点由系统工程实现逐步转向计算语言学理论与应用并重。
- Renaming (2024): the journal was renamed Natural Language Processing, aligning its title with the common name of the discipline and signalling its coverage of the large language model era.更名（2024年）： 期刊更名为 Natural Language Processing，与学科通用名称对齐，反映其对大语言模型时代的覆盖能力。
- Full open access (2024 to present): from 2024 the journal became fully open access under a Creative Commons licence and adopted the online ISSN 2977-0424, so that all articles are available without a subscription.全面开放获取（2024年至今）： 自 2024 年起期刊转为完全开放获取（采用知识共享许可协议），并启用新的在线 ISSN 2977-0424，读者无需订阅即可获取全部论文。
Editors
The journal is headed by an Executive Editor, supported by an international editorial board whose members come from universities and industrial research laboratories in Europe, North America and Asia, with expertise spanning natural language processing, computational linguistics, speech and language processing, and text analytics.期刊由执行主编（Executive Editor）统辖，并配有一支国际化编委会，编委成员多来自欧洲、北美与亚洲的大学及工业研究机构，专长覆盖自然语言处理、计算语言学、语音与语言处理、文本分析等方向。[1]
- Executive Editor: Ruslan Mitkov, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, and University of Alicante, Spain.执行主编： Ruslan Mitkov（兰卡斯特大学，英国；兼属阿利坎特大学，西班牙）。
- Editorial board: the full list of board members and recent board changes are published on the journal's official website.编委阵容： 完整编委会名单与近期编委变动见期刊官网。