Research impact and productivity of Southeast Asian countries in language and linguistics

Abstract

It has been observed that Southeast Asian countries and universities have ranked poorly in global research productivity and impact. The same is true for the field of language and linguistics. Some studies revealed that productivity and citation patterns in this field are lower compared to other fields of study. Thus, this study sought to examine the research performance of SEA countries and universities in the field of language and linguistics for efficient policy-making. The research performance of each SEA country and university was assessed through Scopus database using the following bibliometric indicators: total number of publications (P), total number of citations excluding self-citations (C), citations per publication (CPP), percent of non-cited articles (%PNC), and h-index. Findings revealed that SEA countries have only produced almost 2 % of all published articles in language and linguistics and around 1 % share in overall worldwide field citations. Interestingly, both the SEA countries and universities exhibit a trend toward increasing their yearly research productivity and citations. However, research productivity and citations in the field of language and linguistics are dominated by selected universities in each country particularly in Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. This study has implications for research policy-making and future studies.