Political Discourse and Translation Studies. A Bibliometric Analysis in International Core Journals

Abstract

This study provides a bibliometric analysis of political discourse in translation studies based on the Web of Science (WoS) database from 1990 to 2020. It adopts a guiding procedure integrating the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines into the bibliometric standard workflow and using VOSviewer as the visualization tool. With the help of the built-in WoS analysis tools, the annual publication trends and the most influential productive countries are examined. VOSviewer is used to explore the influential sources in the field, research themes, cited references and their intersections with other references, cited sources and their links to other sources, and most frequently cited authors. The co-occurrence analysis of keywords distinguishes eight research themes, namely, linguistic analysis, ideology and manipulation, power embodied in political communication, interpreting and critical discourse analysis (CDA), the recontextualization of political discourse in media discourse, diplomatic translation, the representation of political speeches in news translation, and conflict and politics. The co-citation analysis of the cited references focuses on discourse analysis models, research approaches, and theoretical frameworks. The co-citation of sources suggests that interdisciplinary features characterize political discourse translation studies, interacting with other disciplines through fields such as pragmatics, discourse analysis, and communication research.