Abstract
This article aims to perform an in-depth analysis of Systemic Functional Linguistics research through a dataset spanning 20 years from the Web of Science database. A bibliometric tool was utilized for analyzing the articles published between 2003 and 2023 to present the position of the Systemic Functional Linguistics study in the past 20 years. Using the keyword “Systemic Functional Linguistics ” and filtering data by choosing files in Systemic Functional Linguistics, 1638 papers were obtained. Through content, citation analysis, and production, with the assistance of bibliometric software, this study finds that Systemic Functional Linguistics has maintained its prominence as a research area in the linguistic field for the past 20 years, and its burgeoning production involved many authors, sources, and countries. Key findings reveal a recent surge in research, indicating a growing trend in Systemic Functional Linguistics studies. The study identifies the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, China, and Spain as the five most influential research hubs. Notably, themes such as “language,” “discourse,” “transitivity,” “English,”and “knowledge” have been prevalent over the past two decades. Current research themes include “appraisal,” linguistics,” and “multimodality,” while emerging topics such as “construction,” “corpus,” and “stance” are anticipated to gain prominence in the future. Additionally, the study highlights the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in fostering the growth of SFL research.