The past, present and future of Chinese MA theses in Interpreting Studies: A scientometric survey

Abstract

This paper takes a scientometric approach to examining one of Chinese Interpreting Studies' (CIS) most productive sources of research, MA theses, with the aim of answering the following questions: How has the discipline changed over time? What fields and theories influence it? And what are its most common research themes? The study's comprehensive corpus of nearly 1,300 Chinese-language theses addresses a data-based limitation faced by earlier scholars. A range of state-of-the-art statistical techniques have made it possible to detect patterns in CIS that are difficult to tease out by human hand and eye alone. The field has grown rapidly in recent years and is now producing a steady and consistent stream of research: the majority of students in China draw inspiration from theories within Translation Studies, but no particular theories or topics have grown more popular over time. Despite this consistency, CIS remains a complex and dynamic field of academic enquiry.

Chinese Interpreting Studies: A data-driven analysis of a dynamic field of enquiry

“…) affect the use of citations in the works themselves? The three bodies of literature are generally produced by three distinct groups of authors: established researchers for journal articles and conference proceedings; graduate students for MA theses; and PhD students for doctoral dissertations (Xu 2014(Xu & 2015. Examining these three strands individually is necessary if we are to fully understand how each contributes to advancing the field as a whole.…”

Chinese Interpreting Studies: A data-driven analysis of a dynamic field of enquiry

“…) affect the use of citations in the works themselves? The three bodies of literature are generally produced by three distinct groups of authors: established researchers for journal articles and conference proceedings; graduate students for MA theses; and PhD students for doctoral dissertations (Xu 2014(Xu & 2015. Examining these three strands individually is necessary if we are to fully understand how each contributes to advancing the field as a whole.…”

Chinese Interpreting Studies: a data-driven analysis of a dynamic field of enquiry

“…affect the use of citations in the works themselves? The three bodies of literature are generally produced by three distinct groups of authors: established researchers for journal articles and conference proceedings; graduate students for MA theses; and PhD students for doctoral dissertations ( Xu, 2014 ; Xu, 2015a ; Xu, 2015b ). Examining these three strands individually is necessary if we are to fully understand how each contributes to advancing the field as a whole.…”

“…Examining these three strands individually is necessary if we are to fully understand how each contributes to advancing the field as a whole. Building on earlier studies by the present authors ( Xu, 2014 ; Xu, 2015a ; Xu, 2015b ; Xu & Pekelis, 2015 ), which provided an overview of the field from different perspectives, this study uses some of the most sophisticated data-mining techniques currently available to answer the aforementioned complex questions, none of which can be adequately addressed by simple descriptive statistics.…”