A bibliometric analysis of linguistics in web of science

Abstract

The present study investigated the bibliometric characteristics of linguistics as represented in Web of Science (WoS), focusing on the number of linguistics publications between 1900 and 2013 in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and between 1975 and 2013 in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (A& HCI). Results showed that between 1975 and 2013, SSCI covered a total of 54,263 (0.86% of all SSCI) publications in the language linguistics category, 99,502 (1.61% of all SSCI) publications in the linguistics category, and 109,469 (1.81% of all SSCI) publications in the linguistics research area. Additionally, A& HCI covered a total of 187,239 (4.37% of all A& HCI) in the language linguistics category, 64,356 (1.48% of all A& HCI) in the linguistics category, 193,619 (4.52% of all A& HCI) publications in the linguistics research area. As SSCI and A& HCI have expanded over the years, the number of linguistics publications has increased as well. On average, SSCI ranked the language linguistics category no. 62.51, linguistics category no. 35.3, and the linguistics research area no. 21.69; whereas, A& HCI ranked the language linguistics category no. 9.33, linguistics category no. 22.15, and the linguistics research area no. 7.92. Based on these results, we can conclude that linguistics is an important field in both the social sciences and arts and humanities as covered in WoS.