A STUDY OF THE CITATION PATTERNS OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS IN LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGES

Abstract

This paper tries to describe, in bibliometric terms, the characteristics of the literature of linguistics and languages. Specifically, the paper was designed to present the citation patterns of open access publications in linguistics and languages. To achieve this, some bibliometric indicators were used in accordance with the six specific objectives that guided this research paper. The database used to extract data for the citation analysis was Scopus. This database is highly regarded and well known as the world largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze, and visualize research. Data extracted from this database were further analyzed using percentages and ranks. The most used channel or outlet for scholarly communication in linguistic research was found to be journals. This shows that journals have become prominent in linguistics scholarship. It was also found that the highly cited open access journal in linguistics and languages research was Computational Linguistics. This shows that researchers in this area are aligning linguistics with the natural sciences. The list of 10 most cited open access journals in linguistics and languages is the major contribution of this paper to the bibliometrics studies in linguistics research as well as academic librarianship.