This map shows the co-citation patterns between authors who are cited in the 1985 research listed in the VARGA database.
data source: VARGA 1985: data analysis: January 2017 data: 92 papers, 88 nodes, 1032 co-citations, 5 clusters of influence threshold for inclusion: Authors must be cited in at least three different papers.
Nodes are sized according to their betweenness centrality.
88 authors are cited in at least three of the papers in the 1985 data. This number is close to the conventional figure of 100 authors usually used for co-citation analysis. This inclusion threshold is the same as the threshold we used for the 1983 data, but stricter than the threshold used in the 1984 analysis.
The main point to note in this map is that the number of papers published in 1985 is very much larger than the number of papers identified in the 1984 data. This is partly due to the publication of a themed issue of the French language journal Les langues modernes, and a series of papers that appeared in the Dutch language journal Toegepaste Taalwetenschap in Artikelen.
The map identifies five main clusters in the 1985 data. This map is very different from the maps from earlier years. In particular, the pyscholinguistics cluster which dominated the earlier maps plays a much reduced role in the 1985 data. This cluster persists into 1985, but it is smaller than in previous years, and for the first time influences from within the Applied Linguistics tradition seem to be more important and more coherent. The many small clusters which identified these influences in earlier maps have coalesced into two larger clusters, and now make up the
dominant overall feature of the map. These two clusters show a high level of within cluster co-citation, which was entirely absent from the earlier maps.
Davoust and Bouscaren, the two members of Cluster I, detached at the top of the map,
produced a number of books covering English vocabulary for L1_French speakers at the end of
the 1970s. This work is cited by a number of contributions in the special issue of Les langues
modernes.
The other small cluster, Cluster II, in the Southeast corner of the map comprises two
sources concerned with semantics and vocabulary acquisition (Ostyn, Harvey) and two sources
who deal with dictionaries (Quirk and McArthur). This cluster seems to be the succcessor to a cluster in the 1984 map that dealt with componential analysis and prototype theory. Cluster III, in the Northeast corner of the map, will be familiar from our earlier analyses.
It is made up largely of social and developmental psychologists, and seems to capture some of
the theoretical background work that the other two large clusters call on. In previous analyses,
we have noted the importance of the Montreal group (here represented by Macnamara and
Lambert), and a neurolinguistics strand (Albert, Obler and Paradis). We also find a child language development strand in this group (Eve Clark, Herbert Clark, Brown and Lenneberg) and a dyslexia group (Coltheart and Baron). The remaining members of this cluster are predominantly influential and frequently cited linguists. This cluster is clearly the successor to the psycholinguistic cluster that figured so strongly in the 1984 map, but it is much reduced in size, and is much less self-referential than was the case in the earlier analysis. At the same time, this cluster has many links to cluster IV and cluster V described below, and seems to be fairly well integrated into the L2 vocabulary research effort.
The two remaining clusters are a new phenomenon - a coherent and substantial set of
sources which are all concerned specifically with L2 vocabulary acquisition. What seems to
differentiate these two clusters is that cluster IV, in the Northwest of the map, is principally concerned with English as a second language, while cluster V at the Southern edge of the map is concerned with other languages, notably French as a second language. Cluster IV consists mainly of Dutch and Scandinavian sources, though the two central
figures in this cluster are based in Israel: Andrew Cohen and Eddy Levenston, as also is Batia Laufer. As in 1984, it is worth noting once again the influence of The Interlanguage Studies Bulletin: Utrecht in this cluster. Levenston, Melka-Teichroew, Bialystok and Ringbom had all published influential vocabulary research in this journal (Ringbom 1978; Levenston 1979; Melka Teichroew 1982; Bialystok 1980) in the preceding couple of years. However, this work is not narrowly concerned with English Language Teaching: much of the work cited is interested in broader theoretical issues in vocabulary teaching, for example Melka Teichroew's work on Receptive and Productive vocabulary, Cohen's work on association and mnemonic methods of learning vocabulary, and particularly Corder and Selinker's theoretical work on Interlanguage. Cluster V is also directly concerned with teaching foreign languages, but at first glance, this cluster seems to be mainly concerned with the teaching of languages other than English,
particularly French. On reflection, however, I think that the main concern of this cluster is in
fact the role of frequency counts in vocabulary teaching, rather than the teaching of French in
particular. The 1985 special issue of Les langues modernes contained several articles addressing this question, and there was clearly some strongly expressed dissension about the importance (or not) of frequency counts among French linguists and language teachers at the time.
Inevitably, most of these papers refer to the earlier seminal work of Gougenheim, Michéa,
Rivenc and Sauvageot who authored a particularly important set of studies on basic French
vocabulary Le français fondamental (Gougenheim et al., 1964). This work was heavily criticised
by Galisson, while Savard and Richards (1970) also published a critical account of this work and
its usefulness for language learners. Richards, who had also worked independently in the
vocbulary area (Richards, 1974; 1976), actually emerges as the dominant influence in this
cluster, but I think this is at least partly the result of an edited volume of readings dealing
specifically with vocabulary teaching (Richards, 1980), and a particularly influential paper
dealing with what it means to know a word (Richards, 1976; 1985).
As in earlier maps, the majority of the influences in the 1985 map are new sources who did not appear in the research outputs of previous years. The co-citation analysis identifies five clusters of influences in this data, and these are shown in the figure below. This analysis broadly mirrors the structure that we saw in the full 1985 data. The main difference is that a small group of Dutch researchers has emerged.
For a more detailed discussion of this map see: Meara, PM
A new beginning? A bibliometric analysis of L2 vocabulary research in 1985.
Linguistics Beyond and Within 3(2017), 136-154.
