Abstract
Over the five decades since its beginnings, Chinese Interpreting Studies (CIS) has evolved into a dynamic field of academic enquiry with more than 3,500 scholars and 4,200 publications. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis, this scientometric study delves deep into CIS citation data to examine some of the noteworthy trends and patterns of behavior in the field: how can the field’s progress be quantified by means of citation analysis? Do its authors tend repeatedly to cite ‘classic’ papers or are they more drawn to their colleagues’ latest research? What different effects does the choice of empirical vs. theoretical research have on the use of citations in the various research brackets? The findings show that the field is steadily moving forward with new papers continuously being cited, although a number of influential papers stand out, having received a stream of citations in all the years examined. CIS scholars also have a tendency to cite much older English than Chinese publications across all document types, and empirical research has the greatest influence on the citation behavior of doctoral scholars, while theoretical studies have the largest impact on that of article authors. The goal of this study is to demonstrate the merits of blending quantitative and qualitative analyses to uncover hidden trends.
Highlights
There are various channels through which scholars communicate with one another, easing the flow of knowledge and furthering the advance of science
The 95% confidence interval for all the N/A citations was [42%; 45.1%], a finding which appears to suggest that almost half of the works listed in the bibliographies of Chinese Interpreting Studies (CIS) authors did not appear in the body of the text
(1) Articles > theses interpreting studies (IS) NOT significant, p = 0.532 (2) Doctoral > theses IS significant, p < 0.001 It was observed that Research Methods and Findings were cited more in doctoral dissertations than in theses, the null hypothesis that the reverse would apply could be rejected; but there was little evidence to support the same claim for theses as compared to journal articles, that null hypothesis could not be rejected
Summary
There are various channels through which scholars communicate with one another, easing the flow of knowledge and furthering the advance of science. The three bodies of literature are generally produced by three distinct groups of authors: established researchers for journal articles and conference proceedings; graduate students for MA theses; and PhD students for doctoral dissertations (Xu, 2014; Xu, 2015a; Xu, 2015b). Examining these three strands individually is necessary if we are to fully understand how each contributes to advancing the field as a whole. Building on earlier studies by the present authors (Xu, 2014; Xu, 2015a; Xu, 2015b; Xu & Pekelis, 2015), which provided an overview of the field from different perspectives, this study uses some of the most sophisticated data-mining techniques currently available to answer the aforementioned complex questions, none of which can be adequately addressed by simple descriptive statistics
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