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Abstract Titles of journal research articles (RAs) serve the function of promoting new knowledge claims made in articles. They have been analyzed from the perspectives of length, syntactic structures, punctuation marks, and discourse functions, and have attracted considerable attention in applied linguistics and discourse studies in recent years. Professionalization embedded in journal article titles, a feature that is relatively overlooked, performs the promoting function by means of conceptual density and genre mixing. For the purpose of the present study, a specialized corpus was constructed consisting of 250 data-based RAs' English titles from five international journals in the field of applied linguistics (IJAET) (2009-2013). The journals are Applied Linguistics (AL), English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Modern Language Journal (MLJ), Language Learning (LL) and Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW). From the perspectives of intertextuality and interdiscursivity in genre theory, the data were analyzed focusing on basic syntactic features of titles (including length and punctuation marks), the relationships between mean conceptual density of titles per journal, the journal's impact factor per year, and the roles that genre mixing plays in titles' compound constructions. To examine the mean conceptual density of titles per journal, professional vocabularies and terminologies that appear in the IJAET were extracted. The results show that there are intra- and inter-disciplinary differences in the titles, and there also exists a close relationship between the mean conceptual density of professionalization in titles and the journals' impact factors. Specifically, as for the mean conceptual density, there is a significant difference between the international applied linguistic journal article titles and the international economic journal article titles. A comparison of the mean conceptual density of each journal title in IJAET with a full consideration of the mean length and tokens of the titles indicates that the shorter the length, the fewer the tokens, and the higher the mean conceptual density, which mirrors the intertwined influence of the nature and preference of journals as well as the authors' individual writing styles. The Spearman correlation analysis performed on the data also shows that the mean conceptual density of each journal titles is significantly correlated with annual impact factors of each journal (r=0.321, p<0.05); however, the highest impact factor of AL may indicate that a modest conceptual density of titles may be more helpful in promoting the new knowledge claims made in articles. Genre mixing is mainly found in compound constructions of article titles and is low in frequency in the data. Although it may weaken the professionalization reflected in titles, genre mixing can arouse potential readers' curiosity, thus ″luring″ readers to read on to learn and understand more about the articles. Article titles, as a carrier for explicit and implicit interactions between authors and readers in addition to setting an initial persuasive and promotional stage for new knowledge construction, stick to the following principles, i.e. they are concise in structure, appropriate in expression and conspicuous in topic, maximizing the promoting purpose through a synergy effect. Degrees of the density of professionalization of article titles are contingent upon authors' awareness of target readers' expectations and the academic conventions of journals, reflecting the characteristic features of intertextuality and interdiscursitivity in titles. In terms of intertextuality, the effort to concentrate on the key points of the target research in titles by drawing on professional vocabularies, terminologies and quotations strengthens the appropriateness and professionalization in titles and stimulates potential readers' resonance and interests as well. Meanwhile, the dynamic and static characteristics of mixing in titles breed academic genre's affinity, flexibility and innovativeness. In terms of discursivity, article titles, as a ″win-win″ interactive space between authors and readers, call for the adherence to academic conventions of discourse community while highlighting the authority and research values. Genre mixing may blur the boundary of different genres, but it helps readers to understand research reported in articles through titles. Considering knowledge as an outcome of socially context-dependent construction process, we argue that the conceptual density of professionalization and genre mixing in journal article titles, while following specific communal conventions, are important discourse strategies authors pursue for promoting research reported in their articles. By exploring the conceptual density of genre mixing, we are more capable of revealing the promotion nature of discourse strategies RA authors adopt for making new knowledge claims in journal research articles.
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