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Article published In:
International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 28:3 (2023) ► pp.344–377

Research trends in corpus linguistics

A bibliometric analysis of two decades of Scopus-indexed corpus linguistics research in arts and humanities

ORCID logo | University of Queensland
ORCID logo | State Polytechnic of Sriwijaya
ORCID logo | University of Queensland

This paper uses a bibliometric analysis to map the field of Corpus Linguistics (CL) research in arts and humanities over the last 20 years, tracking changes in popular CL research topics, outlets, highly cited authors, and geographical origins based on the metadata of 5,829 CL-related articles from 429 Scopus-indexed journals. Results reveal an increase in corpus-assisted discourse studies, lexical bundles and academic writing, alongside newer topics including multilingualism and social media. CL studies span 193 languages/dialects with a significant rise in Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Italian CL research over the past decade. Clusters of highly cited CL researchers are identified spanning (inter)disciplinary research areas. An increase of CL researchers in China, Poland, South Korea, Japan, and more is evidence of the now global reach of CL research. These findings mirror diachronic socio-cultural developments in applied linguistics and society more generally and provide insights into what CL research might come next.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, bibliometric analysis, research trends, citation analysis, Scopus
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Bibliometrics and corpus linguistics
  • 3.Method
    • 3.1Dataset inclusion criteria
    • 3.2Exclusion criteria
    • 3.3Evaluation of sample representativeness
    • 3.4Final dataset
    • 3.5Analytical procedures
      • RQ1: Research topics and languages
      • RQ2: Authors and citations
      • RQ3: Journals and geographical sources
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Research topics and languages of investigation
      • 4.1.1Research topics
      • 4.1.2Languages of investigation
    • 4.2Who are the most cited authors?
    • 4.3Which journals and countries of publication are the most influential in CL research?
      • 4.3.1Countries of publication
      • 4.3.2Journals issuing CL research
  • 5.Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 14 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21072.cro
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