Vocabulary Research Trends in Applied Linguistics through Factorial Analysis and Thematic Analysis
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Abstract
The study examines vocabulary research trends in applied linguistics from 2004 to 2023, providing a fine-grained understanding of the emerging contours of vocabulary research in the field. This study utilised a mixed methods design, which combined bibliometric analysis, thematic analysis and factorial analysis to capture the evolution of vocabulary research. A dataset of 136 journal articles was composed from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science journal database. It was found that, while the “learners” cluster showed a central influence, the clusters of “acquisition,” “children,” “model,” and “adjustment” showed varying degree of centrality and interconnectedness, through inductive thematic analysis of the articles, by categorising them into research themes. The triangulation of these qualitatively-developed themes and the statistically-configured themes offered a more comprehensive account of vocabulary research. Thus, the resulting timeline showed the transitions in the themes from 2004 to 2023, and the trends indicated by these transitions: from “acquisition” to “knowledge”, “children” to “frequency” and from “learners” to “size”. The authors concluded that the study makes a substantive contribution to the field in that it presents a multidimensional view of recent trends in vocabulary research. Although this review may not have included all pertinent literature in the subject as it is restricted to the papers indexed in the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science journal database, it offers a multifaceted perspective on current trends in vocabulary research, which significantly advances the subject.
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