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• Quantification, alternative semantics and phases
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• An analysis of Chinese quantifiers 'ge', 'dou' and 'quan' and their co-occurrence
• Distribution and licensing condititions of Negative Polarity Items in Mandarin Chinese
• The NP/DP Distinction in Slavic: A comparative approach
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• Two types of raising in Korean
• Serial verb constructions in Mandarin Chinese
• From Turncoats to Backstabbers:  How headedness and word order determine the productivity of agentive and instrumental compounding in English

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• An Investigation into the Perceived Similarity of the Speech of Identical Twins and Same Sex Siblings
• Detecting Authenticity of Audio Files Compressed by Social Media Platforms
• Investigating Changes from Neutral to Soft and Whispered Speech and their Impact on Automatic Speaker Recognition
• The Effect of Anger and Fear on Forensic Authomatic Speaker Recognition System Performance
• The Impact of Face Coverings on Speech Comprehension and Perceptions of Speaker Attributes
• Tracking Linguistic Differences in the Ultrasound Images of the Tongue in Spoken and Silent Speech Conditions Using Pose Estimation

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Trends and hot topics in linguistics studies from 2011 to 2021: A bibliometric analysis of highly cited papers

Associated data.

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/ supplementary material .

High citations most often characterize quality research that reflects the foci of the discipline. This study aims to spotlight the most recent hot topics and the trends looming from the highly cited papers (HCPs) in Web of Science category of linguistics and language & linguistics with bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric information of the 143 HCPs based on Essential Citation Indicators was retrieved and used to identify and analyze influential contributors at the levels of journals, authors, and countries. The most frequently explored topics were identified by corpus analysis and manual checking. The retrieved topics can be grouped into five general categories: multilingual-related , language teaching , and learning related , psycho/pathological/cognitive linguistics-related , methods and tools-related , and others . Topics such as bi/multilingual(ism) , translanguaging , language/writing development , models , emotions , foreign language enjoyment (FLE) , cognition , anxiety are among the most frequently explored. Multilingual and positive trends are discerned from the investigated HCPs. The findings inform linguistic researchers of the publication characteristics of the HCPs in the linguistics field and help them pinpoint the research trends and directions to exert their efforts in future studies.

1. Introduction

Citations, as a rule, exhibit a skewed distributional pattern over the academic publications: a few papers accumulate an overwhelming large citations while the majority are rarely, if ever, cited. Correspondingly, the highly cited papers (HCPs) receive the greatest amount of attention in the academia as citations are commonly regarded as a strong indicator of research excellence. For academic professionals, following HCPs is an efficient way to stay current with the developments in a field and to make better informed decisions regarding potential research topics and directions to exert their efforts. For academic institutions, government and private agencies, and generally the science policy makers, they keep a close eye on and take advantage of this visible indicator, citations, to make more informed decisions on research funding allocation and science policy formulation. Under the backdrop of ever-growing academic outputs, there is noticeable attention shift from publication quantity to publication quality. Many countries are developing research policies to identify “excellent” universities, research groups, and researchers ( Danell, 2011 ). In a word, HCPs showcase high-quality research, encompass significant themes, and constitute a critical reference point in a research field as they are “gold bullion of science” ( Smith, 2007 ).

2. Literature review

Bibliometrics, a term coined by Pritchard (1969) , refers to the application of mathematical methods to the analysis of academic publications. Essentially this is a quantitative method to depict publication patterns within a given field based on a body of literature. There are many bibliometric studies on natural and social sciences in general ( Hsu and Ho, 2014 ; Zhu and Lei, 2022 ) and on various specific disciplines such as management sciences ( Liao et al., 2018 ), biomass research ( Chen and Ho, 2015 ), computer sciences ( Xie and Willett, 2013 ), and sport sciences ( Mancebo et al., 2013 ; Ríos et al., 2013 ), etc. In these studies, researchers tracked developments, weighed research impacts, and highlighted emerging scientific fronts with bibliometric methods. In the field of linguistics, bibliometric studies all occurred in the past few years ( van Doorslaer and Gambier, 2015 ; Lei and Liao, 2017 ; Gong et al., 2018 ; Lei and Liu, 2018 , 2019 ). These bibliometric studies mostly examined a sub-area of linguistics, such as corpus linguistics ( Liao and Lei, 2017 ), translation studies ( van Doorslaer and Gambier, 2015 ), the teaching of Chinese as a second/foreign language ( Gong et al., 2018 ), academic journals like System ( Lei and Liu, 2018 ) or Porta Linguarum ( Sabiote and Rodríguez, 2015 ), etc. Although Lei and Liu (2019) took the entire discipline of linguistics under investigation, their research is exclusively focused on applied linguistics and restricted in a limited number of journals (42 journals in total), leaving publications in other linguistics disciplines and qualified journals unexamined.

Over the recent years, a number of studies have been concerned with “excellent” papers or HCPs. For example, Small (2004) surveyed the HCPs authors’ opinions on why their papers are highly cited. The strong interest, the novelty, the utility, and the high importance of the work were among the most frequently mentioned. Most authors also considered that their selected HCPs are indeed based on their most important work in their academic career. Aksnes (2003) investigated the characteristics of HCPs and found that they were generally authored by a large number of scientists, often involving international collaboration. Some researchers even attempted to predict the HCPs by building mathematical models, implying “the first mover advantage in scientific publication” ( Newman, 2008 , 2014 ). In other words, papers published earlier in a field generally are more likely to accumulate more citations than those published later. Although many papers addressed HCPs from different perspectives, they held a common belief that HCPs are very different from less or zero cited papers and thus deserve utmost attention in academic research ( Aksnes, 2003 ; Blessinger and Hrycaj, 2010 ; Yan et al., 2022 ).

Although an increased focus on research quality can be observed in different fields, opinions diverge on the range and the inclusion criterion of excellent papers. Are they ‘highly cited’, ‘top cited’, or ‘most frequently cited’ papers? Aksnes (2003) noted two different approaches to define a highly cited article, involving absolute or relative thresholds, respectively. An absolute threshold stipulates a minimum number of citations for identifying excellent papers while a relative threshold employs the percentile rank classes, for example, the top 10% most highly cited papers in a discipline or in a publication year or in a publication set. It is important to note that citations differ significantly in different fields and disciplines. A HCP in natural sciences generally accumulates more citations than its counterpart in social sciences. Thus, it is necessary to investigate HCPs from different fields separately or adopt different inclusion criterion to ensure a valid comparison.

The present study has been motivated by two considerations. First, the sizable number of publications of varied qualities in a scientific field makes it difficult or even impossible to conduct any reliable and effective literature research. Focusing on the quality publications, the HCPs in particular, might lend more credibility to the findings on trends. Second, HCPs can serve as a great platform to discover potentially important information for the development of a discipline and understand the past, present, and future of the scientific structure. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the hot topics and publication trends in the Web of Science category of linguistics or language & linguistics (shortened as linguistics in later references) with bibliometric methods. The study aims to answer the following three questions:

• Who are the most productive and impactful contributors of the HCPs in WoS category of linguistics or language & linguistics in terms of publication venues, authors, and countries?
• What are the most frequently explored topics in HCPs?
• What are the general research trends revealed from the HCPs?

3. Materials and methods

Different from previous studies which used an arbitrary inclusion threshold (e.g., Blessinger and Hrycaj, 2010 ; Hsu and Ho, 2014 ), we rely on Essential Science Indicator (ESI) to identify the HCPs. Developed by Clarivate, a leading company in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics, ESI reveals emerging science trends as well as influential individuals, institutions, papers, journals, and countries in any scientific fields of inquiry by drawing on the complete WoS databases. ESI has been chosen for the following three reasons. First, ESI adopts a stricter inclusion criterion for HCPs identification. That is, a paper is selected as a HCP only when its citations exceed the top 1% citation threshold in each of the 22 ESI subject categories. Second, ESI is widely used and recognized for its reliability and authority in identifying the top-charting work, generating “excellent” metrics including hot and highly cited papers. Third, ESI automatically updates its database to generate the most recent HCPs, especially suitable for trend studies for a specified timeframe.

3.1. Data source

The data retrieval was completed at the portal of our university library on June 20, 2022. The methods to retrieve the data are described in Table 1 . The bibliometric indicators regarding the important contributors at journal/author/country levels were obtained. Specifically, after the research was completed, we clicked the “Analyze Results” bar on the result page for the detailed descriptive analysis of the retrieved bibliometric data.

Retrieval strategies.

Several points should be noted about the search strategies. First, we searched the bibliometric data from two sub-databases of WoS core collection: Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). There is no need to include the sub-database of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) because publications in the linguistics field are almost exclusively indexed in SSCI and A&HCI journals. WoS core collection was chosen as the data source because it boasts one of the most comprehensive and authoritative databases of bibliometric information in the world. Many previous studies utilized WoS to retrieve bibliometric data. van Oorschot et al. (2018) and Ruggeri et al. (2019) even indicated that WoS meets the highest standards in terms of impact factor and citation counts and hence guarantees the validity of any bibliometric analysis. Second, we do not restrict the document types as HCPs selection informed by ESI only considers articles and reviews. Third, we do not set the date range as the dataset of ESI-HCPs is automatically updated regularly to include the most recent 10 years of publications.

The aforementioned query obtained a total of 143 HCPs published in 48 journals contributed by 352 authors of 226 institutions. We then downloaded the raw bibliometric parameters of the 143 HCPs for follow-up analysis including publication years, authors, publication titles, countries, affiliations, abstracts, citation reports, etc. A complete list of the 143 HCPs can be found in the Supplementary Material . We collected the most recent impact factor (IF) of each journal from the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

3.2. Data analysis

3.2.1. citation analysis.

A citation threshold is the minimum number of citations obtained by ranking papers in a research field in descending order by citation counts and then selecting the top fraction or percentage of papers. In ESI, the highly cited threshold reveals the minimum number of citations received by the top 1% of papers from each of the 10 database years. In other words, a paper has to meet the minimum citation threshold that varies by research fields and by years to enter the HCP list. Of the 22 research fields in ESI, Social Science, General is a broad field covering a number of WoS categories including linguistics and language & linguistics . We checked the ESI official website to obtain the yearly highly cited thresholds in the research field of Social Science , General as shown in Figure 1 ( https://esi.clarivate.com/ThresholdsAction.action ). As we can see, the longer a paper has been published, the more citations it has to receive to meet the threshold. We then divided the raw citation numbers of HCPs with the Highly Cited Thresholds in the corresponding year to obtain the normalized citations for each HCP.

Highly cited thresholds in the research field of Social Sciences, General.

3.2.2. Corpus analysis and manual checking

To determine the most frequently explored topics in these HCPs, we used both corpus-based analysis of word frequency and manual checking. Specifically, the more frequently a word or phrase occurs in a specifically designed corpus, the more likely it constitutes a research topic. In this study, we built an Abstract corpus with all the abstracts of the 143 HCPs, totaling 24,800 tokens. The procedures to retrieve the research topics in the Abstract corpus were as follows. First, the 143 pieces of abstracts were saved as separate .txt files in one folder. Second, AntConc ( Anthony, 2022 ), a corpus analysis tool for concordancing and text analysis, was employed to extract lists of n-grams (2–4) in decreasing order of frequency. We also generated a list of individual nouns because sometimes individual nouns can also constitute research topics. Considering our small corpus data, we adopted both frequency (3) and range criteria (3) for topic candidacy. That is, a candidate n-gram must occur at least 3 times and in at least 3 different abstract files. The frequency threshold guarantees the importance of the candidate topics while the range threshold guarantees that the topics are not overly crowded in a few number of publications. In this process, we actually tested the frequency and range thresholds several rounds for the inclusion of all the potential topics. In total, we obtained 531 nouns, 1,330 2-grams, 331 3-grams, and 81 4-grams. Third, because most of the retrieved n-grams cannot function as meaningful research topics, we manually checked all the candidate items and discussed extensively to decide their roles as potential research topics until full agreements were reached. Finally, we read all the abstracts of the 143 HCPs to further validate their roles as research topics. In the end, we got 118 topic items in total.

4.1. Main publication venues of HCPs

Of the 48 journals which published the 143 HCPs, 17 journals have contributed at least 3 HCPs ( Table 2 ), around 71.33% of the total examined HCPs (102/143), indicating that HCPs tend to be highly concentrated in a limited number of journals. The three largest publication outlets of HCPs are Bilingualism Language and Cognition (16), International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (11), and Modern Language Journal (10). Because each journal varies greatly in the number of papers published per year and the number of HCPs is associated with journal circulations, we divided the total number of papers (TP) in the examined years (2011–2021) with the number of the HCPs to acquire the HCP percentage for each journal (HCPs/TP). The three journals with the highest HCPs/TP percentage are Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2.26), Modern Language Journal (2.08), and Bilingualism Language and Cognition (1.74), indicating that papers published in these journals have a higher probability to enter the HCPs list.

Top 17 publication venues of HCPs.

N: the number of HCPs in each journal; N%: the percentage of HCPs in each journal in the total of 143 HCPs; TP: the total number of papers in the examined timespan (2011–2021); N/TP %: the percentage of HCPs in the total journal publications in the examined time span; TC/HCP: average citations of each HCP; R: journal ranking for the designated indicator; IF: Impact Factor in the year of 2022.

In terms of the general impact of the HCPs from each journal, we divided the number of HCPs with their total citations (TC) to obtain the average citations for each HCP (TC/HCP). The three journals with the highest TC/HCP are Journal of Memory and Language (837.86), Computational Linguistics (533.75), and Journal of Pragmatics (303.75). It indicates that even in the same WoS category, HCPs in different journals have strikingly different capability to accumulate citations. For example, the TC/HCP in System is as low as 31.73, which is even less than 4% of the highest TC/HCP in Journal of Memory and Language .

In regards to the latest journal impact factor (IF) in 2022, the top four journals with the highest IF are Computational Linguistics (7.778) , Modern Language Journal (7.5), Computer Assisted Language Learning (5.964), and Language Learning (5.24). According to the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) quantile rankings in WoS category of linguistics , all the journals on the list belong to the Q 1 (the top 25%), indicating that contributors are more likely to be attracted to contribute and cite papers in these prestigious high impact journals.

4.2. Authors of HCPs

A total of 352 authors had their names listed in the 143 HCPs, of whom 33 authors appeared in at least 2 HCPs as shown in Table 3 . We also provided in Table 3 other indicators to evaluate the authors’ productivity and impact including the total number of citations (TC), the number of citations per HCP, and the number of First author or Corresponding author HCPs (FA/CA). The reason we include the FA/CA indicator is that first authors and corresponding authors are usually considered to contribute the most and should receive greater proportion of credit in academic publications ( Marui et al., 2004 ; Dance, 2012 ).

Authors with at least 2 HCPs.

N: number of HCPs from each author; FA/CA: first author or corresponding author HCPs; TC: total citations of the HCPs from each author; C/HCP: average citations per HCP for each author.

In terms of the number of HCPs, Dewaele JM from Birkbeck Univ London tops the list with 7 HCPs with total citations of 492 (TC = 492), followed by Li C from Huazhong Univ Sci & Technol (#HCPs = 5; TC = 215) and Saito K from UCL (#HCPs = 5; TC = 576). It is to be noted that both Li C and Saito K have close academic collaborations with Dewaele JM . For example, 3 of the 5 HCPs by Li C are co-authored with Dewaele JM . The topics in their co-authored HCPs are mostly about foreign language learning emotions such as boredom , anxiety , enjoyment , the measurement , and positive psychology .

In regards to TC, Li, W . from UCL stands out as the most influential scholar among all the listed authors with total citations of 956 from 2 HCPs, followed by Norton B from Univ British Columbia (TC = 915) and Vasishth S from Univ Potsdam (TC = 694). The average citations per HCP from them are also the highest among the listed authors (478, 305, 347, respectively). It is important to note that Li, W.’ s 2 HCPs are his groundbreaking works on translanguaging which almost become must-reads for anyone who engages in translanguaging research ( Li, 2011 , 2018 ). Besides, Li, W. single authors his 2 HCPs, which is extremely rare as HCPs are often the results from multiple researchers. Norton B ’s HCPs are exploring some core issues in applied linguistics such as identity and investment , language learning , and social change that are considered the foundational work in its field ( Norton and Toohey, 2011 ; Darvin and Norton, 2015 ).

From the perspective of FA/CA papers, Li C from Huazhong Univ Sci and Technol is prominent because she is the first author of all her 5 HCPs. Her research on language learning emotions in the Chinese context is gaining widespread recognition ( Li et al., 2018 , 2019 , 2021 ; Li, 2019 , 2021 ). However, as a newly emerging researcher, most of her HCPs are published in the very recent years and hence accumulate relatively fewer citations (TC = 215). Mondada L from Univ Basel follows closely and single authors her 3 HCPs. Her work is mostly devoted to conversation analysis , multimodality , and social interaction ( Mondada, 2016 , 2018 , 2019 ).

We need to mention the following points regarding the productive authors of HCPs. First, when we calculated the number of HCPs from each author, only the papers published in the journals indexed in the investigated WoS categories were taken in account ( linguistics; language & linguistics ), which came as a compromise to protect the linguistics oriented nature of the HCPs. For example, Brysbaert M from Ghent University claimed a total of 8 HCPs at the time of the data retrieval, of which 6 HCPs were published in WoS category of psychology and more psychologically oriented, hence not included in our study. Besides, all the authors on the author list were treated equally when we calculated the number of HCPs, disregarding the author ordering. That implies that some influential authors may not be able to enter the list as their publications are comparatively fewer. Second, as some authors reported different affiliations at their different career stages, we only provide their most recent affiliation for convenience. Third, it is highly competitive to have one’s work selected as HCPs. The fact that a majority of the HCPs authors do not appear in our productive author list does not diminish their great contributions to this field. The rankings in Table 3 does not necessarily reflect the recognition authors have earned in academia at large.

4.3. Productive countries of HCPs

In total, the 143 HCPs originated from 33 countries. The most productive countries that contributed at least three HCPs are listed in Table 4 . The USA took an overwhelming lead with 59 HCPs, followed distantly by England with 31 HCPs. They also boasted the highest total citations (TC = 15,770; TC = 9,840), manifesting their high productivity and strong influence as traditional powerhouses in linguistics research. In regards to the average citations per HCP, Germany , England and the USA were the top three countries (TC/HCP = 281.67, 281.14, and 267.29, respectively). Although China held the third position with 19 HCPs published, its TC/HCP is the third from the bottom (TC/HCP = 66.84). One of the important reasons is that 13 out of the 19 HCPs contributed by scholars in China are published in the year of 2020 or 2021. The newly published HCPs may need more time to accumulate citations. Besides, 18 out of the 19 HCPs in China are first author and/or corresponding authors, indicating that scholars in China are becoming more independent and gaining more voice in English linguistics research.

Top 18 countries with at least 3 HCPs.

Two points should be noted here as to the productive countries. First, we calculated the HCP contributions from the country level instead of the region level. In other words, HCP contributions from different regions of the same country will be combined in the calculation. For example, HCPs from Scotland were added to the HCPs from England . HCPs from Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan are put together with the HCPs from Mainland China . In this way, a clear picture of the HCPs on the country level can be painted. Second, we manually checked the address information of the first author and corresponding author for each HCP. There are some cases where the first author or the corresponding author may report affiliations from more than one country. In this case, every country in their address list will be treated equally in the FA/CA calculation. In other word, a HCP may be classified into more than one country because of the different country backgrounds of the first and/or the corresponding author.

4.4. Top 20 HCPs

The top 20 HCPs with the highest normed citations are listed in decreasing order in Table 5 . The top cited publications can guide us to better understand the development and research topics in recent years.

Top 20 HCPs.

To save space, not full information about the HCPs is given. Some article titles have been abbreviated if they are too lengthy; for the authors, we report the first two authors and use “et al” if there are three authors or more; RC: raw citations; NC: normalized citations

By reading the titles and the abstracts of these top HCPs, we categorized the topics of the 20 HCPs into the following five groups: (i) statistical and analytical methods in (psycho)linguistics such as sentimental analysis, sentence simplification techniques, effect sizes, linear mixed models (#1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14), (ii) language learning/teaching emotions such enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, stress (#11, 15, 16, 18, 19), (iii) translanguaging or multilinguilism (#5, 13, 20, 17), (iv) language perception (#2, 7, 10), (v) medium of instruction (#8, 12). It is no surprise that 6 out of the top 20 HCPs are about statistical methods in linguistics because language researchers aspire to employ statistics to make their research more scientific. Besides, we noticed that the papers on language teaching/learning emotions on the list are all published in the year of 2020 and 2021, indicating that these emerging topics may deserve more attention in future research. We also noticed two Covid-19 related articles (#16, 19) explored the emotions teachers and students experience during the pandemic, a timely response to the urgent need of the language learning and teaching community.

It is of special interest to note that papers from the journals indexed in multiple JCR categories seem to accumulate more citations. For example, Journal of Memory and Language , American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology , and Computational Linguistics are indexed both in SSCI and SCIE and contribute the top 4 HCPs, manifesting the advantage of these hybrid journals in amassing citations compared to the conventional language journals. Besides, different to findings from Yan et al. (2022) that most of the top HCPs in the field of radiology are reviews in document types, 19 out of the top 20 HCPs are research articles instead of reviews except Macaro et al. (2018) .

4.5. Most frequently explored topics of HCPs

After obtaining the corpus based topic items, we read all the titles and abstracts of the 143 HCPs to further validate their roles as research topics. Table 6 presents the top research topics with the observed frequency of 5 or above. We grouped these topics into five broad categories: bilingual-related, language learning/teaching-related, psycho/pathological/cognitive linguistics-related, methods and tools-related, and others . The observed frequency count for each topic in the abstract corpus were included in the brackets. We found that about 34 of the 143 HCPs are exploring bilingual related issues, the largest share among all the categorized topics, testifying its academic popularity in the examined timespan. Besides, 30 of the 143 HCPs are investigating language learning/teaching-related issues, with topics ranging from learners (e.g., EFL learners, individual difference) to multiple learning variables (e.g., learning strategy, motivation, agency). The findings here will be validated by the analysis of the keywords.

Categorization of the most explored research topics.

N: the number of the HCPs in each topic category; ELF: English as a lingua franca; CLIL: content and language integrated learning; FLE: foreign language enjoyment; FLCA: foreign language classroom anxiety

Several points should be mentioned regarding the topic candidacy. First, for similar topic expressions, we used a cover term and added the frequency counts. For example, multilingualism is a cover term for bilinguals, bilingualism, plurilingualism, and multilingualism . Second, for nouns of singular and plural forms (e.g., emotion and emotions ) or for items with different spellings (e.g., meta analysis and meta analyses ), we combined the frequency counts. Third, we found that some longer items (3 grams and 4 grams) could be subsumed to short ones (2 grams or monogram) without loss of essential meaning (e.g., working memory from working memory capacity ). In this case, the shorter ones were kept for their higher frequency. Fourth, some highly frequent terms were discarded because they were too general to be valuable topics in language research, for example, applied linguistics , language use , second language .

5. Discussion and implications

Based on 143 highly cited papers collected from the WoS categories of linguistics , the present study attempts to present a bird’s eye view of the publication landscape and the most updated research themes reflected from the HCPs in the linguistics field. Specifically, we investigated the important contributors of HCPs in terms of journals, authors and countries. Besides, we spotlighted the research topics by corpus-based analysis of the abstracts and a detailed analysis of the top HCPs. The study has produced several findings that bear important implications.

The first finding is that the HCPs are highly concentrated in a limited journals and countries. In regards to journals, those in the spheres of bilingualism and applied linguistics (e.g., language teaching and learning) are likely to accumulate more citations and hence to produce more HCPs. Journals that focus on bilingualism from a linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neuroscientific perspective are the most frequent outlets of HCPs as evidenced by the top two productive journals of HCPs, Bilingualism Language and Cognition and International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism . This can be explained by the multidisciplinary nature of bilingual-related research and the development of cognitive measurement techniques. The merits of analyzing publication venues of HCPs are two folds. One the one hand, it can point out which sources of high-quality publications in this field can be inquired for readers as most of the significant and cutting-edge achievements are concentrated in these prestigious journals. On the other hand, it also provides essential guidance or channels for authors or contributors to submit their works for higher visibility.

In terms of country distributions, the traditional powerhouses in linguistics research such as the USA and England are undoubtedly leading the HCP publications in both the number and the citations of the HCPs. However, developing countries are also becoming increasing prominent such as China and Iran , which could be traceable in the funding and support of national language policies and development policies as reported in recent studies ( Ping et al., 2009 ; Lei and Liu, 2019 ). Take China as an example. Along with economic development, China has given more impetus to academic outputs with increased investment in scientific research ( Lei and Liao, 2017 ). Therefore, researchers in China are highly motivated to publish papers in high-quality journals to win recognition in international academia and to deal with the publish or perish pressure ( Lee, 2014 ). These factors may explain the rise of China as a new emerging research powerhouse in both natural and social sciences, including English linguistics research.

The second finding is the multilingual trend in linguistics research. The dominant clustering of topics regarding multilingualism can be understood as a timely response to the multilingual research fever ( May, 2014 ). 34 out of the 143 HCPs have such words as bilingualism, bilingual, multilingualism , translanguaging , etc., in their titles, reflecting a strong multilingual tendency of the HCPs. Multilingual-related HCPs mainly involve three aspects: multilingualism from the perspectives of psycholinguistics and cognition (e.g., Luk et al., 2011 ; Leivada et al., 2020 ); multilingual teaching (e.g., Schissel et al., 2018 ; Ortega, 2019 ; Archila et al., 2021 ); language policies related to multilingualism (e.g., Shen and Gao, 2018 ). As a pedagogical process initially used to describe the bilingual classroom practice and also a frequently explored topic in HCPs, translanguaging is developed into an applied linguistics theory since Li’s Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language ( Li, 2018 ). The most common collocates of translanguaging in the Abstract corpus are pedagogy/pedagogies, practices, space/spaces . There are two main reasons for this multilingual turn. First, the rapid development of globalization, immigration, and overseas study programs greatly stimulate the use and research of multiple languages in different linguistic contexts. Second, in many non-English countries, courses are delivered through languages (mostly English) besides their mother tongue ( Clark, 2017 ). Students are required to use multiple languages as resources to learn and understand subjects and ideas. The burgeoning body of English Medium Instruction literature in higher education is in line with the rising interest in multilingualism. Due to the innate multidisciplinary nature, it is to be expected that, multilingualism, the topic du jour, is bound to attract more attention in the future.

The third finding is the application of Positive Psychology (PP) in second language acquisition (SLA), that is, the positive trend in linguistic research. In our analysis, 20 out of 143 HCPs have words or phrases such as emotions, enjoyment, boredom, anxiety , and positive psychology in their titles, which might signal a shift of interest in the psychology of language learners and teachers in different linguistic environments. Our study shows Foreign language enjoyment (FLE) is the most frequently explored emotion, followed by foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), the learners’ metaphorical left and right feet on their journey to acquiring the foreign language ( Dewaele and MacIntyre, 2016 ). In fact, the topics of PP are not entirely new to SLA. For example, studies of language motivations, affections, and good language learners all provide roots for the emergence of PP in SLA ( Naiman, 1978 ; Gardner, 2010 ). In recent years, both research and teaching applications of PP in SLA are building rapidly, with a diversity of topics already being explored such as positive education and PP interventions. It is to be noted that SLA also feeds back on PP theories and concepts besides drawing inspirations from it, which makes it “an area rich for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization of ideas” ( Macintyre et al., 2019 ).

It should be noted that subjectivity is involved when we decide and categorize the candidate topic items based on the Abstract corpus. However, the frequency and range criteria guarantee that these items are actually more explored in multiple HCPs, thus indicating topic values for further investigation. Some high frequent n-grams are abandoned because they are too general or not meaningful topics. For example, applied linguistics is too broad to be included as most of the HCPs concern issues in this research line instead of theoretical linguistics. By meaningful topics, we mean that the topics can help journal editors and readers quickly locate their interested fields ( Lei and Liu, 2019 ), as the author keywords such as bilingualism , emotions , and individual differences . The examination of the few 3/4-grams and monograms (mostly nouns) revealed that most of them were either not meaningful topics or they could be subsumed in the 2-grams. Besides, there is inevitably some overlapping in the topic categorizations. For example, some topics in the language teaching and learning category are situated and discussed within the context of multilingualism. The merits of topic categorizations are two folds: to better monitor the overlapping between the Abstract corpus-based topic items and the keywords; to roughly delineate the research strands in the HCPs for future research.

It should also be noted that all the results were based on the retrieved HCPs only. The study did not aim to paint a comprehensive and full picture of the whole landscape of linguistic research. Rather, it specifically focused on the most popular literature in a specified timeframe, thus generating the snapshots or trends in linguistic research. One of the important merits of this methodology is that some newly emerging but highly cited researchers can be spotlighted and gain more academic attention because only the metrics of HCPs are considered in calculation. On the contrary, the exclusion of some other highly cited researchers in general such as Rod Ellis and Ken Hyland just indicates that their highly cited publications are not within our investigated timeframe and cannot be interpreted as their diminishing academic influence in the field. Besides, the study does not consider the issue of collaborators or collaborations in calculating the number of HCPs for two reasons. First, although some researchers are regular collaborators such as Li CC and Dewaele JM, their individual contribution can never be undermined. Second, the study also provides additional information about the number of the FA/CA HCPs from each listed author, which may aid readers in locating their interested research.

We acknowledge that our study has some limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, our study focuses on the HCPs extracted from WoS SSCI and A&HCI journals, the alleged most celebrated papers in this field. Future studies may consider including data from other databases such as Scopus to verify the findings of the present study. Second, our Abstract corpus-based method for topic extraction involved human judgement. Although the final list was the result of several rounds of discussions among the authors, it is difficult or even impossible to avoid subjectivity and some worthy topics may be unconsciously missed. Therefore, future research may consider employing automatic algorithms to extract topics. For example, a dependency-based machine learning approach can be used to identify research topics ( Zhu and Lei, 2021 ).

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

SY: conceptualization and methodology. SY and LZ: writing-review and editing and writing-original draft. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Fund of China MOE under the grant 20YJC740076 and 18YJC740141.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1052586/full#supplementary-material

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Dissertations from 2023 2023

Long(er) Object Movement in Turkish , Duygu Göksu, Linguistics

'You' Will Always Have 'Me': A Compositional Theory of Person , Kaden T. Holladay, Linguistics

Associative Plurals , Sherry Hucklebridge, Linguistics

Counterdirectionality in the Grammar: Reversals and Restitutions , Jyoti Iyer, Linguistics

The Online Processing of Even's Likelihood Presupposition , Erika Mayer, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2022 2022

On the Semantics of Verbal and Nominal Tense in Mvskoke (Creek) , Kimberly C. Johnson, Linguistics

Restrictive Tier Induction , Seoyoung Kim, Linguistics

DIRECTIONAL HARMONIC SERIALISM , Andrew Lamont, Linguistics

TENSE IN CONDITIONALS: INS AND OUTS , Zahra Mirrazi, Linguistics

Phonotactic Learning with Distributional Representations , Max A. Nelson, Linguistics

The Linearization of V(P)-doubling Constructions , Rong Yin, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2021 2021

Shifting the Perspectival Landscape: Methods for Encoding, Identifying, and Selecting Perspectives , Carolyn Jane Anderson, Linguistics

There and Gone Again: Syntactic Structure In Memory , Caroline Andrews, Linguistics

The Event Structure of Attitudes , Deniz Özyıldız, Linguistics

LEARNING PHONOLOGY WITH SEQUENCE-TO-SEQUENCE NEURAL NETWORKS , Brandon Prickett, Linguistics

The Syntactic and Semantic Atoms of the Spray/load Alternation , Michael A. Wilson, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2020 2020

Representing Context: Presupposition Triggers and Focus-sensitivity , Alexander Goebel, Linguistics

Person-based Prominence in Ojibwe , Christopher Hammerly, Linguistics

Emergent Typological Effects of Agent-Based Learning Models in Maximum Entropy Grammar , Coral Hughto, Linguistics

TALKING ABOUT HER(SELF): AMBIGUITY AVOIDANCE AND PRINCIPLE B. A Theoretical and Psycholinguistic Investigation of Romanian Pronouns , Rudmila-Rodica Ivan, Linguistics

THE EMPTINESS OF THE PRESENT: FRONTING CONSTRUCTIONS AS A WINDOW TO THE SEMANTICS OF TENSE , Petr Kusliy, Linguistics

Optimal Linearization: Prosodic displacement in Khoekhoegowab and Beyond , Leland Kusmer, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2019 2019

Computing Agreement in a Mixed System , Sakshi Bhatia, Linguistics

Binding and Coreference in Vietnamese , Thuy Bui, Linguistics

Divorce Licensing: Separate Criteria for Predicate and Clausal Ellipsis , Tracy Conner, Linguistics

Effects of Phonological Contrast on Within-Category Phonetic Variation , Ivy Hauser, Linguistics

Phrasal and Clausal Exceptive-Additive Constructions Crosslinguistically , Ekaterina Vostrikova, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2018 2018

Typology of bizarre ellipsis varieties , David Erschler, Linguistics

The Head-Quarters of Mandarin Arguments , Hsin-Lun Huang, Linguistics

ATTITUDES DE SE AND LOGOPHORICITY , Yangsook Park, Linguistics

Responding to questions and assertions: embedded Polar Response Particles, ellipsis, and contrast , Jeremy Pasquereau, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2017 2017

The Form and Acquisition of Free Relatives , Michael Clauss, Linguistics

Amount Relatives Redux , Jon Ander Mendia, Linguistics

Movement and the Semantic Type of Traces , Ethan Poole, Linguistics

Preferential early attribution in segmental parsing , Amanda Rysling, Linguistics

When errors aren't: How comprehenders selectively violate Binding Theory , Shayne Sloggett, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2016 2016

Building Meaning in Navajo , Elizabeth A. Bogal-Allbritten, Linguistics

Probes and their Horizons , Stefan Keine, Linguistics

Anaphora, Inversion, and Focus , Nicholas J. LaCara, Linguistics

The Representation of Probabilistic Phonological Patterns: Neurological, Behavioral, and Computational Evidence from the English Stress System , Claire Moore-Cantwell, Linguistics

Extending Hidden Structure Learning: Features, Opacity, and Exceptions , Aleksei I. Nazarov, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2015 2015

Experiencing in Japanese: The Experiencer Restriction across Clausal Types , Masashi Hashimoto, Linguistics

Rightward Movement: A Study in Locality , Jason Overfelt, Linguistics

Investigating Properties of Phonotactic Knowledge Through Web-Based Experimentation , Presley Pizzo, Linguistics

Phonologically Conditioned Allomorphy and UR Constraints , Brian W. Smith, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2014 2014

Contrastive Topic: Meanings and Realizations , Noah Constant, Linguistics

The Grammar of Individuation and Counting , Suzi Lima, Linguistics

Comprehending Each Other: Weak Reciprocity and Processing , Helen Majewski, Linguistics

Computational Modeling of Learning Biases in Stress Typology , Robert D. Staubs, Linguistics

Fragments and Clausal Ellipsis , Andrew Weir, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2013 2013

Gapping in Farsi: A Crosslinguistic Investigation , Annahita Farudi, Linguistics

The Parsing and Interpretation of Comparatives: More than Meets the Eye , Margaret Ann Grant, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2012 2012

Syntax-Prosody Interactions in Irish , Emily Elfner, Linguistics

Processing Perspectives , Jesse Aron Harris, Linguistics

Exhaustivity In Questions & Clefts; And The Quantifier Connection: A Study In German And English , Tanja Heizmann, Linguistics

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Stress in Harmonic Serialism , Kathryn Ringler Pruitt, Linguistics

Roots of Modality , Aynat Rubinstein, Linguistics

Goals, Big and Small , Martin Walkow, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2011 2011

Quantification, misc. , Jan Anderssen, Linguistics

Anchoring Pragmatics In Syntax And Semantics , Maria Biezma, Linguistics

Constraining Interpretation: Sentence Final Particles in Japanese , Christopher M. Davis, Linguistics

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Cumulative Constraint Interaction In Phonological Acquisition And Typology , Karen Christine Jesney, Linguistics

Competing Triggers: Transparency And Opacity In Vowel Harmony , Wendell A Kimper, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2010 2010

Topics In The Nez Perce Verb , Amy Rose Deal, Linguistics

Concealed Questions. In Search Of Answers , Ilaria Frana, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2009 2009

Phonological Trends In The Lexicon: The Role Of Constraints , Michael Becker, Linguistics

Natural Selection and the Syntax of Clausal Complementation , Keir Moulton, Linguistics

Two Types of Definites in Natural Language , Florian Schwarz, Linguistics

The Role Of Lexical Contrast In The Perception Of Intonational Prominence In Japanese , Takahito Shinya, Linguistics

The Emergence of DP in the Partitive Structure , Helen Stickney, Linguistics

Optionality and Variability: Syntactic Licensing Meets Morphological Spell-Out , Cherlon Ussery, Linguistics

Word, Phrase, And Clitic Prosody In Bosnian, Serbian, And Croatian , Adam Werle, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2008 2008

Optimal interleaving: Serial phonology -morphology interaction in a constraint-based model , Matthew Adam Wolf

Dissertations from 2007 2007

The sources of phonological markedness , Kathryn Gilbert Flack

The emergence of phonetic naturalness , Shigeto Kawahara

Biases and stages in phonological acquisition , Anne-Michelle Tessier

Acquisition of scalar implicatures , Anna VerBuk

Dissertations from 2006 2006

Disjunction in alternative semantics , Luis Alonso-Ovalle

Acquisition of a natural versus an unnatural stress system , Angela C Carpenter

Asymmetries in the acquisition of consonant clusters , Della Chambless

Telicity and the syntax-semantics of the *object and *subject , Miren J Hodgson

Variables in Natural Language , Meredith Landman, Linguistics

Dissertations from 2005 2005

On the Accessiblity of Possible Worlds: The Role of Tense and Aspect , Ana Cristina Arregui

Perception of foreignness , Ben Gelbart

Prosody and LF interpretation: Processing Japanese wh -questions , Masako Hirotani

The grammar of choice , Paula Menendez-Benito

Mediated *modification: Functional structure and the interpretation of modifier position , Marcin Morzycki

Dissertations from 2004 2004

What it means to be a loser: Non -optimal candidates in optimality theory , Andries W Coetzee

Scope: The View from Indefinites , Ji-Yung Kim

Event-structure and the internally headed relative clause construction in Korean and Japanese , Min-Joo Kim

Spain or bust? Assessment and student perceptions of out-of-class contact and oral proficiency in a study abroad context , Vija Glazer Mendelson

On the articulation of aspectual meaning in African -American English , Jules Michael Eugene Terry

Dissertations from 2003 2003

Deriving Economy: Syncope in Optimality Theory , Maria Gouskova

Gestures and segments: Vowel intrusion as overlap , Nancy Elizabeth Hall

The development of phonological categories in children's perception of final voicing in dialects of English , Caroline Jones

Argument structure and the lexicon /syntax interface , Eva Juarros

Contrast preservation in phonological mappings , Anna Lubowicz

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STEPHENS, DEBORAH ANNE. "LINGUISTIC ASPECTS OF CODESWITCHING AMONG SPANISH/ENGLISH BILINGUAL CHILDREN (SOCIOLINGUISTICS, PSYCHOLINGUISTICS, APPLIED LINGUISTICS)." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1986. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/188166.

Bilz, Kelly Ann. "Changing the Mos Maiorum: Applied Linguistics and Latin Pedagogy." Ohio University Honors Tutorial College / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ouhonors152483189473871.

Fox, Jeremy. "Learning languages with computers : a history of computer assisted language learning from 1960 to 1990 in relation to education, linguistics and applied linguistics." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.280930.

Pinheiro, Raquel Martins Melo. "O frame aula: uma análise sociocognitiva do discurso docente." Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (UFJF), 2009. https://repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/handle/ufjf/2758.

Liviero, Sara. "Teachers' reported beliefs about the role of grammar, and their observed pedagogical practices of foreign languages teaching in England." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/16005.

Hutter, Jo-Anne. "A Corpus Based Analysis of Noun Modification in Empirical Research Articles in Applied Linguistics." PDXScholar, 2015. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/2211.

Folkeryd, Jenny W. "Writing with an Attitude : Appraisal and student texts in the school subject of Swedish." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för lingvistik och filologi, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-7410.

McGarry, Theresa. "Identifying and Encouraging Active Learning Through Speech Events." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2005. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/6168.

Edling, Agnes. "Abstraction and authority in textbooks : The textual paths towards specialized language." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala University, Department of Linguistics and Philology, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-6989.

During a few hours of a school day, a student might read textbook texts which are highly diversified in terms of abstraction. Abstraction is a central feature of specialized language and the transition from everyday language to specialized language is one of the most important things formal education can offer students. That transition is the focus of this thesis.

This study introduces a new three-graded classification of abstraction including the levels of specificity, generalization and abstraction, based on a discussion of the concept of abstraction. The investigations performed, based on this classification, show that texts from different subject areas display distinct patterns of abstraction. The Swedish literary texts had the lowest degree of abstraction, the social science texts had an intermediate degree and the natural science texts were the most generalized and abstract. The results also show that the degree of abstraction in the textbook texts increases in later grade levels.

The thesis presents a new way of analyzing shifts between levels of abstraction and their functions. Interestingly, the texts with a medium degree of abstraction, the social science texts, are the ones with the greatest variety in shifts. The functions of the shifts differ with respect to cultural domains. The shifts in the Swedish literary texts in general belong to the everyday domain while the shifts in the natural science texts belong to a specialized domain. The shifts in the social science texts had features of both domains.

A secondary aim of the thesis is to develop the understanding of the relationship between author and reader in the texts. The results from my investigation of modality in the Swedish textbook texts confirm the earlier findings from English and Spanish textbooks. In comparison to other text types, textbook texts present knowledge in a more authoritative and less modalized way.

From time to time, abstraction is described as a feature that hinders students accessing texts. Some researchers even suggest a removal of features of specialized language in textbook texts, in order to increase students’ understanding. However, in a society where specialized knowledge is necessary, the access to specialized texts is important. A democratic view of education and school mandates that children and adolescents have the opportunity to encounter and learn to encounter specialized language in school. In analyzing the texts special attention is paid to the relationship between the texts, the contexts of use and the student readers.

Aguiar, Maristela Torres de. "Interface dos discursos de crianças / familiares em tratamento de câncer e pediatras oncologistas: uma análise crítica." Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, 2008. http://www.unicap.br/tede//tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=396.

Villani, Fábio Luiz. "A longevidade no aprendizado de línguas: acrescentando vida aos anos e não anos a vida." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2007. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/13890.

Moseley, Anne. "An inquiry into the development of intercultural learning in primary schools using applied scriptural reasoning principles." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2018. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/112822/.

Hayashi, Yuko. "On the nature of morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge in school-age English-Japanese bilingual and monolingual children." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2012. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:8bab5ec6-6f9a-4c7d-858c-97bdba53ef03.

Almuhayya, Ali Hussain. "THE USE OF EDUCATIONAL CODE-SWITCHING IN SAUDI UNIVERSITY EFL CLASSROOMS: A CASE STUDY." OpenSIUC, 2015. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/1607.

Czaplinski, Iwona. "Affordances of ICTs: an environmental study of a French language unit offered at university level." Thesis, The University of Queensland, 2012. http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:289156.

Pretini, Junior Airton. "Enunciados narrativos e performáticos no ensino-aprendizagem com base em atividades sociais: a relação teoria-prática na formação de professores." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2011. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/13538.

Kerfoot, Caroline. "Changing conceptions of literacies, language and development : Implications for the provision of adult basic education in South Africa." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Centre for Research on Bilingualism, Stockholm University, 2009. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-26581.

Shak, Juliana. "Nudging young ESL writers : engaging linguistic assistance and peer interaction in L2 narrative writing at the upper primary school level in Brunei Darussalam." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:7723ad72-5ccb-4933-b239-a21b33b053aa.

Campbell, Rebecca Ann. "Reification, Resistance, and Transformation? The Impact of Migration and Demographics on Linguistic, Racial, and Ethnic Identity and Equity in Educational Systems: An Applied Approach." Scholar Commons, 2016. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/6474.

McCollum, Robb Mark. "Writing from Sources and Learners of English for Academic Purposes: Insights from the Perspectives of the Applied Linguistics Researcher, the Program Coordinator, and the Classroom Teacher." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2011. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/2829.

Rocha, Eva Pereira da. "A construção de sentidos-e-significados no HTPC: uma discussão sobre a questão da formação docente." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2012. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/13567.

Zhou, Minglang. "Script effects and reading strategies : ideographic language readers vs. alphabetic language readers in ESL." PDXScholar, 1988. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3950.

Griffiths, Elizabeth Joyce. "English as a medium of instruction in higher education institutions in Norway : a critical exploratory study of lecturers' perspectives and practices." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/14538.

Santos, Fátima Aparecida Cezarim dos. "Embates de forças na falação em sala de aula: a ponta do iceberg." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2009. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14067.

Alsagoafi, Ahmad Abdulrahman. "An investigation into the construct validity of an academic writing test in English with special reference to the Academic Writing Module of the IELTS Test." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/10121.

Collins, Brett. "SANDHI-VARIATION AND THE COMPREHENSION OF SPOKEN ENGLISH FOR JAPANESE LEARNERS." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2018. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/500157.

Lehmann, Bianca Alves. "As aulas de oratória : um espaço de formação e de construção identitária." Universidade Federal de Pelotas, 2015. http://repositorio.ufpel.edu.br/handle/ri/2843.

Compton, Michelle L. "THE EFFECTS OF A NEW METHOD OF INSTRUCTION ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF APPALACHIAN ENGLISH." UKnowledge, 2015. http://uknowledge.uky.edu/ltt_etds/6.

Brown, Charles A. "Perceptions of the value and uses of English among university English majors in Taiwan." The Ohio State University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1419959736.

Raschke, Suzanne. "Patterns of rhetoric/patterns of culture : a look at the English writing of Japanese students." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4197.

Castro, Rosa Cristina Bronzon de. "Uma cadeia criativa na formação de educadores a partir da proposta curricular do Estado de São Paulo para a disciplina de educação física." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2009. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14114.

Souza, Rômulo Francisco de. "Implicações do uso de Material Didático Virtual Livre em contexto formal de ensino-aprendizagem de italiano como LE/L2: a perspectiva dos problemas de ensino." Universidade de São Paulo, 2014. http://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/8/8148/tde-22012015-161313/.

Williams, Alan. "Resolving the culture conundrum : a conceptual framework for the management of culture in TESOL /." Access full text, 2005. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/thesis/public/adt-LTU20060714.142623/index.html.

Khabbazbashi, Nahal. "An investigation into the effects of topic and background knowledge of topic on second language speaking performance assessment in language proficiency interviews." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:359c8956-4561-43a8-a7ae-eba1e0dab51c.

Knight, Tracey Louise. "Beyond the classroom walls : a study of out-of-class English use by adult community college ESL students." PDXScholar, 2007. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4049.

Yamamoto, Noriko. "Effects of setting on Japanese ESL students' interaction patterns." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4272.

Murta, Ailly Cristina. "Estudo da influência do gênero esquema na produção do resumo acadêmico." Universidade Federal de Viçosa, 2014. http://locus.ufv.br/handle/123456789/4889.

Busse, Vera. "Foreign language learning motivation in higher education : a longitudinal study on motivational changes and their causes." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:4863fa65-02e7-47e5-9258-6132e4ef8817.

Rice'-Daniels, Patricia. "MULTICOMPETENCE, MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AND FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION STUDENTS." CSUSB ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.lib.csusb.edu/etd/786.

Williams, Alan Brunton, and Alan Williams@latrobe edu au. "Resolving the culture conundrum: A conceptual framework for the management of culture in TESOL." La Trobe University. School of Educational Studies, 2005. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au./thesis/public/adt-LTU20060714.142623.

Lindenmeyer, Susan. "Study of referential and display questions and their responses in adult ESL reading classes." PDXScholar, 1990. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4070.

Woodman, Karen. "A study of linguistic, perceptual and pedagogical change in a short-term intensive language program." Thesis, University of Victoria, 1998. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/102184/1/__qut.edu.au_Documents_StaffHome_StaffGroupW%24_woodmank_Desktop_PhDthesis.pdf.

Pereira, Elizabeth Thomaz. "A terceira idade na universidade aberta: navegando, buscando, aprendendo em um mar sem fim." Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2009. https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/14092.

Velasques, Matheus Trindade. "Why is the book on the table?: um estudo sobre a constituição identitária de professoras de língua Inglesa em formação." Universidade Federal de Pelotas, 2013. http://repositorio.ufpel.edu.br/handle/ri/2167.

Clancy, Charlotte M. "Reading recovery : investigating differential effects on the literacy development of young children for whom English is an additional language in comparison with their native speaking peers." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cad85100-4bfc-4348-91d0-9a0fa7d3a216.

Iwasaki, Noriko. "Analysis of English articles used by Japanese students." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4173.

Hoffner, Elizabeth Ann. "A study of the perceptual learning style preferences of Japanese students." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4269.

Keim, Deborah Georgette. "An investigation of English spelling problems of Arabic-speaking students." PDXScholar, 1991. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/4172.

Stegu, Martin, Dennis R. Preston, Antje Wilton, and Claudia Finkbeiner. "Panel discussion: language awareness vs. folk linguistics vs. applied linguistics." Taylor & Francis, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2018.1434921.

Silvestre, Viviane Pires Viana. "Práticas problematizadoras e de(s)coloniais na formação de professores/as de línguas: teorizações construídas em uma experiência com o Pibid." Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2016. http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/8834.

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100 best linguistic research topics.

November 26, 2020

Some learners struggle to choose linguistic research topics to research and write about. That’s because linguistics is interesting to learn about yet challenging to write papers and essays about. Some students stay up at night learning about phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Unfortunately, they still struggle to write quality papers and essays on linguistic topics in these areas. If looking for ideas to form the basis of your paper or essay, here is a list of research topics in linguistics to consider.

Linguistic Research Topics in Discourse Studies

Discourse studies provide fascinating details about individuals, culture, technology, movements, and changes that take place over time. If looking for linguistics topics that relate to discourse studies, here are some of the best ideas to consider. You can also check out our communication research topics .

• Childhood is the time when speech is made or broken
• Cultivation of politicians’ buzzword through linguistic analysis
• How linguistic patterns are sued to locate migration paths
• How computers affect modern language negatively
• How text messaging has created a new linguistic subculture
• How the brain works when it comes to learning a new language
• How words change over time
• How effective is non-verbal communication when it comes to displaying emotions?
• How effective is verbal communication when it comes to displaying feelings?
• How society alters words and their meanings
• How the negative power of a word be reduced by neuro-linguistic programming for trauma victims
• Is verbal communication more effective than non-verbal communication?
• How individuals communicate without a shared language
• How beneficial is learning more than one language during childhood?
• Why should Elementary School teach students a second language?
• Explain the acquisition of a language at different growth stages
• How global leaders use language ethics to change the emotional views of the masses
• Explain the power of a language in capitalizing on emotions
• How technology alters the communication
• How proper use of a language makes a person better in society

A learner should pick a linguistics topic in this category if it piques their interest. That’s because writing a great paper or essay requires a student to explore an idea that they are interested in. Essentially, a learner should research and write about something that they find enjoyable.

Interesting Linguistic Topics for Research

Some topics in linguistics are very interesting to research. These are ideas that most people in society will find enjoyable to read about. Here is a list of the most interesting linguistics topics that students can choose for their papers and essays.

• Explain how sociolinguistics help people understand multi-lingual language choices
• A study of differences and similarities of Post-Tudor English
• How language encourages gender differences
• Understanding socio-linguistics via color and race background in America
• Vowel pronunciation in the UK- A systematic review
• The role of music in language evolution
• Explain the development and evolution of slangs
• A study of the connection between perception and language
• How language creates bonds among cross-cultural communities
• Language review in informal and formal settings
• How age affects English pronunciation
• A phonological treatment based review for English-French load words
• How sociolinguistics influence gender empowerment
• How words can be used to master legal settings
• How the media use sociolinguistics to gain a competitive edge and create bias
• Exploratory analysis of the impact and importance of body language
• Importance of sociolinguistics education in discipline development
• How genders perceive politeness via language use
• A study of social change through history via sociolinguistics
• An evaluation of English evolution via a focus on different sociolinguistics

The vast majority of topics in this category touches on language and society. That’s why papers and essays about these linguistic research topics will most likely impress many readers.

Applied Linguistics Research Paper Topics

Applied linguistics focus on finding meaningful language solutions to real-world issues. Some of the best linguistic paper topics to consider in this category include the following.

• The beauty idea and its expression verbally
• A detailed evaluation of hate language
• What are the key determinants of hate language propagation?
• A literature-based review that explores eye-tracking technology and its implication for applied linguistics advancement
• A detailed evaluation of research methods for applied linguistics
• How relevant is the development of applied linguistics?
• Discuss the impacts of the language used in social media on the current generation
• An essay on the impact of using proper linguistic communication in social media
• Are applied linguistics relevant in the current digitalized world?
• How political oppression affect the linguistic used in the media
• How important is applied linguistics vocationally?
• The major differences between spoken and written language via linguistics evaluation
• Is multilingualism a possibility that follows bilingualism?
• What is the contribution of a language to national identity within a multicultural society?
• How effective is healthcare delivery when there are language barriers?
• Is the language barrier relevant in social media?
• How bilingualism enriches the personality of an individual
• Discuss language cognition and perceptions during the learning process
• Discuss the learning mechanisms when it comes to a foreign language
• Explain how a non-native teacher can teach local students the English language

These can also be great dissertation topics in linguistics. That’s because they require extensive research and analysis of facts to write brilliant papers. So, if struggling to find an idea for your dissertation, consider one of these thesis topics in applied linguistics.

Great Linguistics Essay Topics

Perhaps, you’re looking for a list of English linguistics research topics from which you can get ideal for your essay. In that case, consider these amazing research proposal topics in linguistics.

• Discuss the new generative grammar concept
• Analysis of pragmatics and semantics in two texts
• Identity analysis in racist language
• Do humans have a predisposition to learn a language?
• English assessment as a second language
• Endangered languages and language death causes
• Attitudes towards a language and childhood language acquisition
• Mixing modern language and code-switching
• Linguistic turn and cognitive turn
• What is computational linguistics?
• Linguistic and cultural diversity as an educational issue
• Differences between adults and childhood language learning
• Factors that affect the ability to learn a language
• A forensic assessment of linguistics
• Lexical and grammatical changes
• How important is a language?
• What are the effects of language on human behavior?
• English or indigenous languages?
• Is language an essential element of human life?
• Is language the primary communication medium?

These can be great topics for short essays. However, they can also be PhD thesis topics in linguistics where learners will have to conduct extensive and detailed research. The most important thing is to gather relevant and new information that will interest the readers.

Research Topics in Cognitive Linguistics

Students that want to explore questions in cognitive linguistics should consider topics in this category. Here are some of the most interesting topics in linguistics for research papers that also touch on cognition. If these ideas seem a bit complicated, use our writing services .

• How grammatical phrasing affects compliance with prescriptions, prohibitions, or suggestions
• Latest research findings into cognitive literacy in Indian English poetry
• Conceptual metaphor: Does the activation of a single-source domain activates the multiple target concepts?
• Multilingualism: Does L2 modulate L1/L2 organization in the brain?
• Can task-based language teaching perception be measured?
• Are there prominent cognitive-linguistic books for students?
• What role does cognitive linguistics play in the acquisition of a second language?
• Is word meaning a concept that is advocated for by some scholars?
• Which linguistic experiments can be used to understand how the right and left hemispheres work?
• Discuss the relationship between metaphors and similes

Computational Linguistics Research Topics

Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that deals with rule-based or statistical modeling of the natural language from the computational perspectives. Here are some of the best topics for research in this field.

• Using supervised learning to analyze Medieval German poetry
• Which computer-assisted program is best for phonetic comparison of different dialects and why?
• How and where can Danish verbs be extracted?
• Can computational linguistic suggest an intra-lingual contrastive corpus analysis?
• Where can the Schizophrenia text dataset be found?
• Discuss the techniques used for meaning or semantic representation in the natural language processing
• Describe performance measures for speech recognition
• How to extract the introduction, development, and conclusion of a text
• Discuss the addition of matrices in a dictionary in python
• Explain the definition and characterization of linguistic dimensions in a multidimensional analysis

Students that are struggling to choose what to write about can pick any topic in this list that they find interesting, research, and write about it. Taking the time to research extensively and write quality papers or essays is what will earn learners their desired grades.

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