Identifying the Core and Allied Disciplines Involved in the Growth of Virology: A Linguistic Analysis

Abstract

The scientific field of virology mainly focuses on the study of biological viruses. Practically the field is very much associated with virus-caused diseases of living organisms. During the journey of progress, starting from the use of the phrase “contagium vivum fluidum” in the last decade of the 19th century to the modern-day well-recognized discipline of “virology”, it has grown rapidly with a large number of applied researches and interdisciplinary activities. This paper attempts to identify the disciplines with which it is interlinked. Objects’ captions of thirty top-cited research articles were analyzed linguistically to achieve the purpose. Finally, the study identifies 10 core disciplines, 12 allied disciplines, and 27 alien disciplines with which it is interlinked.