Mapping Evaluation, Appraisal and Stance in Discourse (2000–2015): A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Abstract The present study employs a bibliometric analysis to examine the research trends in the field of evaluation, appraisal and stance. The bibliometric information of publications between 2000 and 2015 was retrieved from the Web of Science SSCI Core Collection database. The indicators analyzed include the number of publications by year, most frequently explored topics, most cited works, major individual contributors, publication venues, distribution among countries/regions and institutions. Our findings showed that the annual publications increased dramatically, revealing an upward trend in this research field. The results concerning the most frequently addressed topics suggested that EAP has been a fruitful domain in terms of the evaluative dimension of discourse. Besides, future research will feature more discipline-specific and language-specific empirical studies and comparative cross-linguistic studies. Pedagogical applications of evaluation research also need to be explored. Citation results indicated that the groundbreaking monographs in this field generate the highest citation counts, and that the most cited works cover a variety of sub-fields of linguistics, which may further prove the heterogeneous nature of the evaluative dimension of language.