Bibliometric analysis of research paradigms in linguistics

Potyakailo Sergei Aleksandrovich Master's Degree, Department of Linguistics and Translation Studies, State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education of the City of Moscow "Moscow City Pedagogical University" 115184, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Bol'shaya Tatarskaya, 11 seregawolfhhh@gmail.com

1.                 introduction

The dynamic development of modern science is largely determined by the fact that scientists rely on innovative research methods, among which bibliometric analysis occupies a special place. Bibliometric analysis is a modern means of analyzing publication activity and allows us to draw conclusions about the relevance and prospects of a particular scientific direction or scientific paradigm. The basis of this scientific direction is the quantitative study of documentary streams. Bibliometric analysis of current linguistic paradigms allows – regardless of subjective ideas about current trends in linguistics, namely in scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages, and 10.02.19 –The theory of language, to obtain objective data on the number of scientific publications on a specific topic, on the current conjuncture in the field of dissertation research written within the framework of the previously mentioned specialties, as well as to structure the selected material and make its further content analysis in order to identify trends in linguistics and compile a professional opinion on the most relevant and relevant topics. For example, O. A. Suleymanova, exploring the ways of development of the theory of translation, notes that, firstly, the bibliometric analysis conducted on a large array of experimental material allows us to establish when and in what period the focus of science changes, reflecting the emerging paradigms, and secondly, to determine possible ways of its development [Suleymanova 2015].

Linguists are interested in studying the trends that have developed in linguistic paradigms, since with the growth of scientific publications in various fields, there is a need to identify trends and prospects of certain scientific directions.

2. METHODOLOGY

The object of the research is the actual linguistic paradigms considered in the framework of scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages and 10.02.19 –Theory of language.

The subject of the study is the regularities, trends and prospects for the development of current linguistic paradigms.

The research material was dissertations on linguistics for 2000-2020. scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages and 10.02.19 –Theory of language, presented in the electronic catalog of the Russian State Library.

The purpose of the work is to conduct a content analysis of dissertation research selected using bibliometric methods of scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages, 10.02.19 – Language theory, as well as to identify promising areas for the development of the science of linguistics. The designated goal involves the formulation and solution of the following tasks:

1.                 By means of bibliometric analysis to select dissertation research on linguistics of scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages and 10.02.19 –Language theory, by keywords.

2. Structure the material according to diagrams and conduct content analysis.

3.                 To identify trends in the selection of dissertation topics in certain years on certain topics;

4.                 To identify prospects and ways of development in certain areas of linguistics.

At the first stage, the keywords for which the search was performed were identified. These include designations of prevailing and dynamically developing paradigms in linguistics, on the one hand, and designations of research objects, on the other: discourse – discursive analysis, cognitive – concept, attribute – word–phrase, semantics – semantic, noun – adjective – verb. Consideration of linguistic paradigms within the framework of this work is necessary, because it allows us to reveal the concept of a revolutionary transition from one scientific knowledge to another, which, in turn, carries great research value.

The phenomenon of a continuous change in the focus of science in different periods of its study, in connection with which the paradigms under study change, can be traced throughout the history of methodology and science. For example, in the XX century, an urgent problem of analyzing the nature and structure of those fundamental, qualitative changes in scientific knowledge, which are commonly called revolutions in science, was put forward. The first scientist to show interest in this problem was Thomas Kuhn, who wrote the monograph "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which describes and justifies the change in the foundations of the generally accepted scientific paradigm.

According to T. Kuhn, the scientific paradigm begins to develop on the basis of knowledge, theories and concepts of one or more scientific schools. This stage is called pre-paradigm. During the transition to the stage of normal science, the previously established principles of research change, and the main vector of study for scientists becomes the discovery and explanation of facts confirming the established paradigm. However, such conditions cannot exist without contradictions. So-called anomalies appear – facts that contradict the paradigm. In this regard, the credibility of the paradigm on the part of the scientific community has been undermined to a certain extent, but it still retains its significance. To explain the anomalies, a new theory arises as a reaction to the crisis in science. In some cases, the new theory may be rejected, and some of the anomalies will be explained by the old paradigm. One way or another, the number of accumulated contradictions (anomalies) within the current paradigm cannot be resolved without a qualitative paradigm change. A new theory acquires the status of a paradigm when a scientific revolution occurs – the change of the dominant paradigm to a new one. Schematically, the concept proposed by T. Kuhn is presented in the form of a diagram below.

For the fundamental analysis of linguistic paradigms, it is necessary to resort to bibliometric methods – the fundamental practice in the analysis of publication activity. Through the use of structural bibliometry, it is possible to systematize the accumulated data and to conduct an objective study on the subject of patterns, trends and prospects for the development of current linguistic paradigms.

The works were searched by keywords in the electronic catalog of dissertations of the Russian State Library by entering the year of publication of dissertations, scientific specialty 10.02.04 or 10.02.19 and the keyword in the search bar (see below), for example, discourse* / cognitive* / semant* and so on. The asterisk sign is placed after the base of the keyword, because it allows you to search regardless of gender, number and case;

It seems relevant to use statistical data obtained on the basis of the electronic catalog of RSL dissertations for further bibliometric analysis [V. M. Buznik, I. V. Zibareva; I. V. Marshakova-Shaikevich; O. A. Suleymanova].

The key step in the study is the post-editing of the selected material. This procedure is mandatory, since the selection of dissertations may come across abstracts of the same authors, which will affect statistics. It is assumed that a dissertation and an abstract for the same dissertation cannot be entered into a table with statistics on the grounds that its results will be biased, they will contain, in addition to the dissertations themselves, also abstracts. To avoid this, it is necessary to sort the selected material in alphabetical order and remove the repeated names of authors who have written abstracts for their dissertations. The example below highlights the abstracts of scientists that should be removed from the catalog.

Design of the structural catalog of selected dissertations in scientific specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages and 10.02.19 –The theory of language and plotting in Excel (see below) is the next step of the study. The graphs are based on the table made earlier. The columns and rows of the table were formed depending on the number of published dissertations on each of the paradigms that were identified by keywords, as well as in the period from 2000 to 2020. In addition, the total number of published works for the entire period was calculated.

The final stage is to conduct content analysis and further identify trends and prospects of linguistic research both over the past 19 years and in future years.

3. RESULTS

By means of the conducted bibliometric analysis, it is possible to systematize the accumulated dissertations of linguists in the specialties 10.02.04 – Germanic languages and 10.02.19 – Language Theory, as well as comprehensively consider and compare them for the study of relevant paradigms by linguists and conclude whether the data obtained correspond to T. Kuhn's concept, according to which, after a long detection of increasingly increasing contradictions in science, anomalies are formed, unresolved issues within the framework of the paradigm under study, to which an objective reaction should follow when quantitative turns into qualitative and a scientific revolution occurs, which entails the emergence of a new paradigm, within which a new field of research appears that can resolve the accumulated contradictions and answer the anomaly questions.

The results, reflecting the total number of published dissertations on the specialties of language theory and Germanic languages for 19 years on current problems of linguistics, are presented in a single table below.

It should be noted again that the number of defended dissertations on Germanic languages and language theory is also different – 7679 and 7945 papers have been published on the RSL website, respectively. The difference in the defended dissertations between the specialties reaches 226 studies, which indicates approximately equal interest among scientists in the study of the theoretical and functional aspects of the languages of the Germanic group, as well as modern ideas about the main components, units and rules of natural language, as well as methods of their study.

In the context of this work, indicators of actual linguistic paradigms are of great value. Let's turn to the results of the conducted bibliometric analysis for each of the studied specialties. Within the framework of the specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages, a total of 2307 studies were identified, while there were 1984 works on the theory of language. It is natural that the more dissertations are published on a particular scientific specialty, the more works on current paradigms corresponding to a particular specialty will be published. This principle, accordingly, works in a smaller way.

As indicated in the table above, the number of studies, relatively speaking, corresponds to each other. The specialty Germanic languages is only ahead of the theory of language in some indicators. Such indicators include the topics noun, adjective, verb and attribute. The study of these issues relates to the designation of research objects. It should be emphasized that the number of defended dissertations on this topic cannot depend on the total number of published works, this is not a pattern. This fact can be considered indisputable, since it is necessary to talk about the relevance of the above topics only within the framework of a particular specialty. It is absolutely obvious that the number of protected works on nouns – 70 on Germanic languages and 17 on language theory – indicates their relevance in the context of the scientific specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages. The same pattern applies to the study of adjectives, verbs and attributes, the number of which is 47, 200 and 16 versus 18, 78 and 2, respectively. Thus, the number of problems studied within the framework of discursive, cognitive, conceptual, semantic paradigms, as well as the paradigm of the word can be attributed to statistical error. These topics are relevant both in language theory and in Germanic languages, while the keywords defining the object of research are more relevant only for one specialty.

When comparing the graphs of the two specialties under consideration, which determine the main trends of current linguistic paradigms, there are obvious discrepancies in the period of the so-called normal science. For example, this is clearly evident in the discursive paradigm (see graph).

The blue color shows the trend within the scientific specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages, orange – 10.02.19 – Language Theory (also applicable for subsequent graphs). As mentioned earlier, there is a general upward trend in the early 2000s, which turns into stagnation. Within the framework of language theory, the trend has not gained a sharp rise, on the contrary, there is a slow growth of publications on the topic of discourse until 2006, after which volatility begins. The two graphs presented are characterized by a general pattern – growth and subsequent decline. The same pattern can be traced in the cognitive paradigm of both specialties. Since the number of publications on this topic is on average comparable with each other with a single jump in 2011, we can conclude that the trend coincides with the discursive paradigm – there is a rise with a characteristic stagnation in the mid-2000s and a subsequent decline.

A similar trend is also characteristic of the concept paradigm. The graph shows a gradual growth in the framework of language theory and a sharp jump in Germanic languages. It is noteworthy that the number of published works varies within 50 depending on the specialty, which does not negate the fact that this topic was relevant among linguists before the recession that began after 2010.

The situation is different with the paradigm of the word. In the paragraph about the analysis of the publication activity of the specialty 10.02.04 – Germanic languages, it was indicated that scientists have repeatedly encountered anomalies during the research on the topic of the word, which is characteristically reflected on the graph – for every rise there is a fall. With respect to publications, there is a strong volatility in the theory of language, which eventually leads to regression.

Let's study the extreme graph illustrating the semantic paradigm. The trend in the publication of dissertation research within both specialties remains the same, and also has a characteristic curve showing an upswing with fixed peaks in certain years and a decline starting in 2010. It is noteworthy that this paradigm can compete with the discursive one in terms of relevance – 565 and 476 publications on Germanic languages and language theory, respectively, have been registered within its framework. Among other things, it is noted that in studies written within the framework of language theory, there are jumps in 2006 and 2009. This fact is caused by the accumulated unresolved issues on this topic. When there is a sharp increase in activity, it means that scientists have found ways to solve anomalies within the framework of the studied paradigm.

4. CONCLUSIONS

The linguistic paradigms studied above should be considered from a fundamental point of view. The following features are characteristic of each previously considered graph:

1. The initial development of the paradigm, which consists in the growth of publication activity in the early 2000s. As it was shown earlier in the graphs, some topics of dissertation research are characterized by a sharp jump and the achievement of a maximum of publications per year, for others a gradual increase in the number of papers.

2.                 Periodization can be divided into 2 stages – studies published from 2000 to 2010, and from 2010 to 2020. The first stage is characterized by an increase in general publication activity, as well as the achievement of maximum points in the number of works on current linguistic paradigms. The second stage is characterized by a decrease in the relevance of these paradigms within both studied specialties, as well as a regressing number of protected works every year

3.                 The emergence of a crisis situation during the second stage, characterized by anomalies in a particular paradigm that scientists cannot solve. For example, the paradigm of the word in the specialty Germanic languages exactly corresponds to this theory – unresolved issues can be traced in the form of periodic declines of 3 years and sharp rises, which again entail a decline. This trend continues for two stages.

4.                 At the second stage, there is a tendency in all charts, without exception, to strive for fewer publications per year on relevant linguistic paradigms. In addition, this pattern is supported by the cumulative number of publications, it also decreases every year, which indicates the accumulated problems within the two specialties (see the table).

Thus, the most interesting research results should include the most relevant topics – discourse, cognitive, concept, verb, word, semantics – as well as less popular ones – noun, adjective, attribute.

In addition, the study was able to substantiate the structure of the transition from one linguistic paradigm to another. Due to the permanently decreasing relevance and the need to study the above-mentioned topics, as well as the constant regression in publication activity, a crisis is brewing in science, according to which scientists partially or fully cannot substantiate the existing problems, the so-called anomalies, within the framework of the paradigm under study.

The linguistic paradigm that has developed in research on the theory of language indicates that structural changes are taking place in it. This fact is conditioned by the content analysis of the selected dissertations. Since the sharp decline in the defense of dissertation research on current linguistic paradigms is a marker of future transformations in the fields of language theory and Germanic languages, it should be emphasized that this trend leads to stagnation and crisis in this area of linguistics. This indicates that linguists face new problems every year, which they either cannot solve and postpone, or do not consider them relevant for research. When it seems impossible to solve issues, tasks and certain topics with the help of current linguistic paradigms, linguistics begins to undergo changes in the form of a crisis, which will inevitably lead to a scientific revolution. At this stage of the development of linguistics, it seems possible to conclude that the period of normal science fell on 2004-2010 (see graph).

Due to the growing contradictions and anomalies, the number of publications has sharply declined. Scientists cannot justify the accumulated problems within the framework of the current paradigm, as a result of which it is necessary to conclude about the crisis that has come. An undoubted marker of the future bifurcation point, the moment when quantitative will turn into qualitative, is the level of research publications that dropped below the level of 2000 in 2020. The stages of T. Kuhn's theory can be traced throughout the 19s, and the data obtained by bibliometric analysis indicate a crisis in linguistic research.