The journal Studies in Oral Folk Literature has its origin in the Folklore Archive of the Department of Catalan Studies of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (created in 1994 and the only one of its kind belonging to a Catalan university) and aims to become a platform for publishing research in the field of “oral folk literature”. From the current perspective, this literature is regarded as interactive artistic communication.

The name of the journal refers to oral folk literature (verbal art) insofar as it is part of the daily life of people who regularly communicate and interact by means of artistic messages. This literature, which spans a variety of genres (tales, legends, jokes, anecdotes, songs, proverbs, etc.) has been, and still is, largely transmitted in oral form, even though the current information and communication technologies also allow it to be circulated non-orally (for example, by mobile phone, e-mail and Internet).