Back to Normality? A Bibliometric Analysis of L2 Vocabulary Research 1989–93

Abstract

This paper is the latest in a series of studies published in LingBaW that contribute towards a historical review of research into L2 vocabulary acquisition. This instalment uses an author co-citation analysis (Small 1973) to examine the research on L2 vocabulary acquisition published in 1993. Two analyses are presented. The first analysis provides a context for the 1993 data. It looks at work that was being cited in a five-year window covering 1989–93. The second analysis is a more detailed account of the 1993 research on its own terms. These analyses suggest that a surge in psycholinguistic research identified in 1992 may be a transient feature of the field. 1993 exhibits a return the patterns noted in our earlier studies, where the most significant influences come from an applied linguistics perspective.