research paper topic for linguistics

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211 Research Topics in Linguistics To Get Top Grades

Many people find it hard to decide on their linguistics research topics because of the assumed complexities involved. They struggle to choose easy research paper topics for English language too because they think it could be too simple for a university or college level certificate.

All that you need to learn about Linguistics and English is sprawled across syntax, phonetics, morphology, phonology, semantics, grammar, vocabulary, and a few others. To easily create a top-notch essay or conduct a research study, you can consider this list of research topics in English language below for your university or college use. Note that you can fine-tune these to suit your interests.

Linguistics Research Paper Topics

If you want to study how language is applied and its importance in the world, you can consider these Linguistics topics for your research paper. They are:

An analysis of romantic ideas and their expression amongst French people
An overview of the hate language in the course against religion
Identify the determinants of hate language and the means of propagation
Evaluate a literature and examine how Linguistics is applied to the understanding of minor languages
Consider the impact of social media in the development of slangs
An overview of political slang and its use amongst New York teenagers
Examine the relevance of Linguistics in a digitalized world
Analyze foul language and how it’s used to oppress minors
Identify the role of language in the national identity of a socially dynamic society
Attempt an explanation to how the language barrier could affect the social life of an individual in a new society
Discuss the means through which language can enrich cultural identities
Examine the concept of bilingualism and how it applies in the real world
Analyze the possible strategies for teaching a foreign language
Discuss the priority of teachers in the teaching of grammar to non-native speakers
Choose a school of your choice and observe the slang used by its students: analyze how it affects their social lives
Attempt a critical overview of racist languages
What does endangered language means and how does it apply in the real world?
A critical overview of your second language and why it is a second language
What are the motivators of speech and why are they relevant?
Analyze the difference between the different types of communications and their significance to specially-abled persons
Give a critical overview of five literature on sign language
Evaluate the distinction between the means of language comprehension between an adult and a teenager
Consider a native American group and evaluate how cultural diversity has influenced their language
Analyze the complexities involved in code-switching and code-mixing
Give a critical overview of the importance of language to a teenager
Attempt a forensic overview of language accessibility and what it means
What do you believe are the means of communications and what are their uniqueness?
Attempt a study of Islamic poetry and its role in language development
Attempt a study on the role of Literature in language development
Evaluate the Influence of metaphors and other literary devices in the depth of each sentence
Identify the role of literary devices in the development of proverbs in any African country
Cognitive Linguistics: analyze two pieces of Literature that offers a critical view of perception
Identify and analyze the complexities in unspoken words
Expression is another kind of language: discuss
Identify the significance of symbols in the evolution of language
Discuss how learning more than a single language promote cross-cultural developments
Analyze how the loss of a mother tongue affect the language Efficiency of a community
Critically examine how sign language works
Using literature from the medieval era, attempt a study of the evolution of language
Identify how wars have led to the reduction in the popularity of a language of your choice across any country of the world
Critically examine five Literature on why accent changes based on environment
What are the forces that compel the comprehension of language in a child
Identify and explain the difference between the listening and speaking skills and their significance in the understanding of language
Give a critical overview of how natural language is processed
Examine the influence of language on culture and vice versa
It is possible to understand a language even without living in that society: discuss
Identify the arguments regarding speech defects
Discuss how the familiarity of language informs the creation of slangs
Explain the significance of religious phrases and sacred languages
Explore the roots and evolution of incantations in Africa

Sociolinguistic Research Topics

You may as well need interesting Linguistics topics based on sociolinguistic purposes for your research. Sociolinguistics is the study and recording of natural speech. It’s primarily the casual status of most informal conversations. You can consider the following Sociolinguistic research topics for your research:

What makes language exceptional to a particular person?
How does language form a unique means of expression to writers?
Examine the kind of speech used in health and emergencies
Analyze the language theory explored by family members during dinner
Evaluate the possible variation of language based on class
Evaluate the language of racism, social tension, and sexism
Discuss how Language promotes social and cultural familiarities
Give an overview of identity and language
Examine why some language speakers enjoy listening to foreigners who speak their native language
Give a forensic analysis of his the language of entertainment is different to the language in professional settings
Give an understanding of how Language changes
Examine the Sociolinguistics of the Caribbeans
Consider an overview of metaphor in France
Explain why the direct translation of written words is incomprehensible in Linguistics
Discuss the use of language in marginalizing a community
Analyze the history of Arabic and the culture that enhanced it
Discuss the growth of French and the influences of other languages
Examine how the English language developed and its interdependence on other languages
Give an overview of cultural diversity and Linguistics in teaching
Challenge the attachment of speech defect with disability of language listening and speaking abilities
Explore the uniqueness of language between siblings
Explore the means of making requests between a teenager and his parents
Observe and comment on how students relate with their teachers through language
Observe and comment on the communication of strategy of parents and teachers
Examine the connection of understanding first language with academic excellence

Language Research Topics

Numerous languages exist in different societies. This is why you may seek to understand the motivations behind language through these Linguistics project ideas. You can consider the following interesting Linguistics topics and their application to language:

What does language shift mean?
Discuss the stages of English language development?
Examine the position of ambiguity in a romantic Language of your choice
Why are some languages called romantic languages?
Observe the strategies of persuasion through Language
Discuss the connection between symbols and words
Identify the language of political speeches
Discuss the effectiveness of language in an indigenous cultural revolution
Trace the motivators for spoken language
What does language acquisition mean to you?
Examine three pieces of literature on language translation and its role in multilingual accessibility
Identify the science involved in language reception
Interrogate with the context of language disorders
Examine how psychotherapy applies to victims of language disorders
Study the growth of Hindi despite colonialism
Critically appraise the term, language erasure
Examine how colonialism and war is responsible for the loss of language
Give an overview of the difference between sounds and letters and how they apply to the German language
Explain why the placement of verb and preposition is different in German and English languages
Choose two languages of your choice and examine their historical relationship
Discuss the strategies employed by people while learning new languages
Discuss the role of all the figures of speech in the advancement of language
Analyze the complexities of autism and its victims
Offer a linguist approach to language uniqueness between a Down Syndrome child and an autist
Express dance as a language
Express music as a language
Express language as a form of language
Evaluate the role of cultural diversity in the decline of languages in South Africa
Discuss the development of the Greek language
Critically review two literary texts, one from the medieval era and another published a decade ago, and examine the language shifts

Linguistics Essay Topics

You may also need Linguistics research topics for your Linguistics essays. As a linguist in the making, these can help you consider controversies in Linguistics as a discipline and address them through your study. You can consider:

The connection of sociolinguistics in comprehending interests in multilingualism
Write on your belief of how language encourages sexism
What do you understand about the differences between British and American English?
Discuss how slangs grew and how they started
Consider how age leads to loss of language
Review how language is used in formal and informal conversation
Discuss what you understand by polite language
Discuss what you know by hate language
Evaluate how language has remained flexible throughout history
Mimicking a teacher is a form of exercising hate Language: discuss
Body Language and verbal speech are different things: discuss
Language can be exploitative: discuss
Do you think language is responsible for inciting aggression against the state?
Can you justify the structural representation of any symbol of your choice?
Religious symbols are not ordinary Language: what are your perspective on day-to-day languages and sacred ones?
Consider the usage of language by an English man and someone of another culture
Discuss the essence of code-mixing and code-switching
Attempt a psychological assessment on the role of language in academic development
How does language pose a challenge to studying?
Choose a multicultural society of your choice and explain the problem they face
What forms does Language use in expression?
Identify the reasons behind unspoken words and actions
Why do universal languages exist as a means of easy communication?
Examine the role of the English language in the world
Examine the role of Arabic in the world
Examine the role of romantic languages in the world
Evaluate the significance of each teaching Resources in a language classroom
Consider an assessment of language analysis
Why do people comprehend beyond what is written or expressed?
What is the impact of hate speech on a woman?
Do you believe that grammatical errors are how everyone’s comprehension of language is determined?
Observe the Influence of technology in language learning and development
Which parts of the body are responsible for understanding new languages
How has language informed development?
Would you say language has improved human relations or worsened it considering it as a tool for violence?
Would you say language in a black populous state is different from its social culture in white populous states?
Give an overview of the English language in Nigeria
Give an overview of the English language in Uganda
Give an overview of the English language in India
Give an overview of Russian in Europe
Give a conceptual analysis on stress and how it works
Consider the means of vocabulary development and its role in cultural relationships
Examine the effects of Linguistics in language
Present your understanding of sign language
What do you understand about descriptive language and prescriptive Language?

List of Research Topics in English Language

You may need English research topics for your next research. These are topics that are socially crafted for you as a student of language in any institution. You can consider the following for in-depth analysis:

Examine the travail of women in any feminist text of your choice
Examine the movement of feminist literature in the Industrial period
Give an overview of five Gothic literature and what you understand from them
Examine rock music and how it emerged as a genre
Evaluate the cultural association with Nina Simone’s music
What is the relevance of Shakespeare in English literature?
How has literature promoted the English language?
Identify the effect of spelling errors in the academic performance of students in an institution of your choice
Critically survey a university and give rationalize the literary texts offered as Significant
Examine the use of feminist literature in advancing the course against patriarchy
Give an overview of the themes in William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”
Express the significance of Ernest Hemingway’s diction in contemporary literature
Examine the predominant devices in the works of William Shakespeare
Explain the predominant devices in the works of Christopher Marlowe
Charles Dickens and his works: express the dominating themes in his Literature
Why is Literature described as the mirror of society?
Examine the issues of feminism in Sefi Atta’s “Everything Good Will Come” and Bernadine Evaristos’s “Girl, Woman, Other”
Give an overview of the stylistics employed in the writing of “Girl, Woman, Other” by Bernadine Evaristo
Describe the language of advertisement in social media and newspapers
Describe what poetic Language means
Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing on Mexican Americans
Examine the use of code-switching and code-mixing in Indian Americans
Discuss the influence of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” on satirical literature
Examine the Linguistics features of “Native Son” by Richard Wright
What is the role of indigenous literature in promoting cultural identities
How has literature informed cultural consciousness?
Analyze five literature on semantics and their Influence on the study
Assess the role of grammar in day to day communications
Observe the role of multidisciplinary approaches in understanding the English language
What does stylistics mean while analyzing medieval literary texts?
Analyze the views of philosophers on language, society, and culture

English Research Paper Topics for College Students

For your college work, you may need to undergo a study of any phenomenon in the world. Note that they could be Linguistics essay topics or mainly a research study of an idea of your choice. Thus, you can choose your research ideas from any of the following:

The concept of fairness in a democratic Government
The capacity of a leader isn’t in his or her academic degrees
The concept of discrimination in education
The theory of discrimination in Islamic states
The idea of school policing
A study on grade inflation and its consequences
A study of taxation and Its importance to the economy from a citizen’s perspectives
A study on how eloquence lead to discrimination amongst high school students
A study of the influence of the music industry in teens
An Evaluation of pornography and its impacts on College students
A descriptive study of how the FBI works according to Hollywood
A critical consideration of the cons and pros of vaccination
The health effect of sleep disorders
An overview of three literary texts across three genres of Literature and how they connect to you
A critical overview of “King Oedipus”: the role of the supernatural in day to day life
Examine the novel “12 Years a Slave” as a reflection of servitude and brutality exerted by white slave owners
Rationalize the emergence of racist Literature with concrete examples
A study of the limits of literature in accessing rural readers
Analyze the perspectives of modern authors on the Influence of medieval Literature on their craft
What do you understand by the mortality of a literary text?
A study of controversial Literature and its role in shaping the discussion
A critical overview of three literary texts that dealt with domestic abuse and their role in changing the narratives about domestic violence
Choose three contemporary poets and analyze the themes of their works
Do you believe that contemporary American literature is the repetition of unnecessary themes already treated in the past?
A study of the evolution of Literature and its styles
The use of sexual innuendos in literature
The use of sexist languages in literature and its effect on the public
The disaster associated with media reports of fake news
Conduct a study on how language is used as a tool for manipulation
Attempt a criticism of a controversial Literary text and why it shouldn’t be studied or sold in the first place

Finding Linguistics Hard To Write About?

With these topics, you can commence your research with ease. However, if you need professional writing help for any part of the research, you can scout here online for the best research paper writing service.

There are several expert writers on ENL hosted on our website that you can consider for a fast response on your research study at a cheap price.

As students, you may be unable to cover every part of your research on your own. This inability is the reason you should consider expert writers for custom research topics in Linguistics approved by your professor for high grades.

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130+ Original Linguistics Research Topics: Ideas To Focus On

Linguistics is an exciting course to learn. Unfortunately, writing a research paper or essay or write my thesis in linguistics is not as easy. Many students struggle to find a good research topic to write about. Finding a good research topic is crucial because it is the foundation of your paper. It will guide your research and dictate what you write.

Creative Language Research Topics

Argumentative research titles about language, english language research topics for stem students, social media research topics about language, the best quantitative research topics about language, more creative sociolinguistics research topics, research topics in english language education for students, top thesis topics in language, creative language and gender research topics, language education research topics on social issues, research title about language acquisition.

Most students turn to the internet to find research paper topics. Sadly, most sources provide unoriginal and basic topics. For this reason, this article provides some creative sample research topics for English majors.

Linguistics is a fascinating subject with so many research topic options. Check out the following creative research topics in language

How you can use linguistic patterns to locate migration paths
Computers and their effect on language creation
The internet and its impacts on modern language
Has text messages helped create a new linguistic culture?
Language and change; how social changes influence language development
How language changes over time
How effective is non-verbal communication in communicating emotions?
Verbal communication and emotional displays: what is the link?
The negative power of language in internet interactions
How words change as society develops
Is the evolution of languages a scientific concept?
Role of technology in linguistics

Argumentative essay topics should state your view on a subject so you can create content to defend the view and convince others that it is logical and well-researched. Here are some excellent language research titles examples

Society alters words and their meanings over time
Children have a better grasp of new language and speech than adults
Childhood is the perfect time to develop speech
Individuals can communicate without a shared language
Learning more than one language as a child can benefit individuals in adulthood
Elementary schools should teach students a second language
Language acquisition changes at different growth stages
The impact of technology on linguistics
Language has significant power to capitalize on emotions
The proper use of language can have positive impacts on society

Research topics for STEM students do not differ much from those for college and high school students. However, they are slightly more targeted. Find an excellent research title about language for your paper below:

How does language promote gender differences?
Music and language evolution: the correlation
Slang: development and evolution in different cultures
Can language create bonds among cross-cultural societies?
Formal vs informal language: what are the differences?
Age and pronunciation: what is the correlation?
How languages vary across STEM subjects
Are STEM students less proficient in languages?
The use of language in the legal sector
The importance of non-verbal communication and body language
How politeness is perceived through language choices and use
The evolution of English through history

Did you know you can find excellent social media research topics if you do it right? Check out the following social media language research titles:

The role of the internet in promoting language acquisition
A look at changes in languages since social media gained traction
How social media brings new language
How effective are language apps in teaching foreign languages?
The popularity of language applications among learners
A study of the impact of the internet on the spreading of slang
Social media as a tool for promoting hate language
Free speech vs hate speech: what is the difference?
How social media platforms can combat hate language propagation
How can social media users express emotions through written language?
Political censorship and its impact on the linguistics applied in the media
The differences between social media and real-life languages

A language research title can be the foundation of your quantitative research. Find some of the best examples of research topics for English majors here:

Language barriers in the healthcare sector
What percentage of kids below five struggle with languages?
Understanding the increase in multilingual people
Language barriers and their impact on effective communication
Social media and language: are language barriers existent in social media?
Bilingualism affects people’s personalities and temperaments
Can non-native teachers effectively teach local students the English language?
Bilingualism and its impact on social perceptions
The new generative grammar concept: an in-depth analysis
Racist language: its history and impacts
A look into examples of endangered languages
Attitudes toward a language and how it can impact language acquisition

You can choose a research topic about language based on social issues, science concerns like biochemistry topics , and much more. Sociolinguistics is the study of the correlation between language and society and the application of language in various social situations. Here are some excellent research topics in sociolinguistics:

An analysis of how sociolinguistics can help people understand multi-lingual language choices
An analysis of sociolinguistics through America’s color and race background
The role of sociolinguistics in children development
Comparing sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics
Sociolinguistics and gender empowerment: an analysis of their correlation
How media houses use sociolinguistics to create bias and gain a competitive advantage
The value of sociolinguistics education in the teaching of discipline
The role played by sociolinguistics in creating social change throughout history
Research methods used in sociolinguistics
Different sociolinguistics and their role in English evolution
Sociolinguistics: an in-depth analysis
What is sociolinguistics, and what is its role in language evolution?

A good research topic in English will serve as the guiding point for your research paper. Find a suitable research topic for English majors below:

Types of indigenous languages
Language s an essential element of human life
Language as the primary communication medium
The value of language in society
The negative side of coded language
School curriculums and how they influence languages
Linguistics: a forensic language
Elements that influence people’s ability to learn a new language
The development of the English language
How the English language borrows from other languages
Multilingualism: an insight
The correlation between metaphors and similes

Many students struggle to find good thesis topics in language and linguistics. As you read more on the thesis statement about social media , make sure you also understand every thesis title about language from the following examples:

The classification of human languages
The application of different tools in language identification
The role of linguists in language identification
The contributions of Greek philosophers to language development
The origin of language: early speculations
The history of language through the scope of mythology
Theories that explain the origin and development of language
Is language the most effective form of communication
The impact of brain injuries on language
Language impacts on sports
Linguistics intervention that won’t work in this century
Language as a system of symbols

Just like economic research paper topics , gender and language topics do not have to stick to the norms or the standards by which all students write. You can exercise some creativity when creating your topic. Discover a topic about language and gender from this list:

Language and gender: what is the correlation?
How different genders perceive language
Does a kid’s gender influence their grasp of languages?
Men vs Women: a statistical overview of their multilingual prowess.
The perception of language from the female standpoint
The difference between female and male language use
The use of language as a tool for connection between females and males
Does gender have an impact on efficient communication
Does gender impact word choices in conversations?
Females have an easier time learning two or more languages
What makes female and male language choices differ?
Are females better at communicating using spoken language?

There are many social issues related to language education that you can cover in your research paper. Check out the following topics about language related to social issues research topics for your research:

Language translation: what makes it possible
How does the mother tongue influence pronunciation?
Issues that encourage people to learn different languages
Sign language: origin and more
Role of language in solving conflicts
Language and mental health: a vivid analysis
The similarities between English and French languages
Language disorders: an overview
Common barriers to language acquisition
The impact of mother tongue on effective communication
Reasons you should learn two or more languages
The benefits of multilingualism in the corporate world
Language and identity: what is the correlation?

Language acquisition is the process by which people gain the ability to understand and produce language. Like anatomy research paper topics , language acquisition is a great area to focus your linguistics research. Here are some research questions that bring the focus of the study of linguistic and language acquisition:

Language acquisition: an overview
What attitudes do people have about language acquisition
How attitude can impact language acquisition
The evolution of language acquisition over time
Language and ethnicity: their correlation
Do native English speakers have an easier time acquiring new languages?
A case study on political language
Why is language acquisition a key factor in leadership
Language acquisition and mother tongue pronunciation: the link
Ambiguity as a barrier to language acquisition
How words acquire their meanings

While a good topic can help capture the reader and create a good impression, it is insufficient to earn you excellent grades. You also need quality content for your paper to get perfect grades. However, creating a high-quality research paper takes time, effort, and skill, which most students do not have.

For these reasons, we offer quality research paper writing services for all students. We guarantee quality papers, timely deliveries, and originality. Reach out to our writers for top linguistics research papers today!

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Is boredom a source of noise and/or a confound in behavioral science research?

Behavioral researchers tend to study behavior in highly controlled laboratory settings to minimize the effects of potential confounders. Yet, while doing so, the artificial setup itself might unintentionally introduce noise or confounders, such as boredom. In this perspective, we draw upon theoretical and empirical evidence to make the case that (a) some experimental setups are likely to induce boredom in participants, (b) the degree of boredom induced might differ between individuals as a function of differences in trait boredom, (c) boredom can impair participants’ attention, can make study participation more effortful, and can increase the urge to do something else (i.e., to disengage from the study). Most importantly, we argue that some participants might adjust their behavior because they are bored. Considering boredom’s potential for adding noise to data, or for being an unwanted confound, we discuss a set of recommendations on how to control for and deal with the occurrence and effects of boredom in behavioral science research.

Maria Meier
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Exploration of the social and philosophical underpinning of ‘the patient’—what this means for people with a long-term condition

Should healthcare professionals use the term ‘patient’? A patient is a social construct, in a biomedical model, in which each actor has their role to play. This model has been criticised as belonging to an era of medical hegemony and (mis)represents an individual seeking healthcare as one who is simply a passive participant and recipient of care. The ‘Language Matters’ campaign, for people living with diabetes, has sought to address the role of language in interactions between healthcare providers. A key point raised in the campaign is whether someone who feels well, but has ongoing healthcare input, should be referred to as a patient? In this article, we address the concept of a patient and how its use can belie a particular mindset (or ‘discourse’) in which power is established in a relationship and can lead to individuals being defined by their condition. However, for some linguistic communities (such as nurses and doctors), a patient may be considered less as one over whom they have dominion, but rather someone for whom they have specific responsibilities and duty of care. Drawing upon the philosophical theories of language—that the meaning and inference of a word is dependent on its use—we argue that the context in which use of the term patient occurs is crucial. Without more fundamental cultural disruption of the biomedical model, word substitution, in itself, will not change perception.

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Top 50+ linguistics research topics for your paper.

Are you a student or a graduate of linguistics? If yes, there is no doubting the fact that research topics in linguistics are your bread and butter. You can escape them in school. Write within the confines of the topics in linguistics and get your grade without stress. However, linguistics is a wide field and it can be hard to pick one of the many linguistic topics for your research. Sometimes, the problem is not in picking a topic. The problem is that despite the wide scope of linguistics, you don’t know how to form linguistics research topics.

We noticed these problems with students and decided to help. Our solution is to compile a list of 50 linguistic research topics for linguistics students. These topics could form the basis of your linguistics research paper topics. You don’t have to worry anymore about topics for master thesis in linguistics. We have you covered for all English linguistics research topics. Let’s dive in!

Check Our 50 Linguistics Research Topics

There are linguistics research topics in abundance. If you search online, you would find more than a few examples. However, you need to know the aspect of linguistics you want to use for your linguistics paper topics. It would make no sense to have a list of thesis topics in applied linguistics and want to write on topics in cognitive linguistics. While they are all under the broad body of linguistics, they are quite different from each other.

So, the first step in finding the perfect linguistics essay topics is to choose the aspect of linguistics you want. After you have made a choice you can now look into linguistics topics in that aspect. We have made finding interesting linguistics topics in any aspect you chose easier by grouping our 50 linguistics research topics. All you have to do is search under the aspect of your choice.

Interesting Linguistics Research Topics

If you don’t only want to write a research paper but you want to find every minute of it intriguing, these interesting topics in linguistics are the ones for you.

What makes written communication more precise compared to spoken communication?
How to spot language disorders and deal with them
What contributes to the prevalent language shift and death in our society today?
The language of feminism: How formalized is it and how does it affect society?
Why is it impossible to claim to know a language entirely?
What salient factors cause ambiguity in language translation?
An in-depth analysis of feminism in Africa
Language vs Society: Which one influences the other? How does it affect the members?
How effective are subject teaching and language support?
What factors affect language choice in multilingual societies? (Study of selected communities)
The real functions of language

Linguistics Topics on Translation

If you want the latest research topics in applied linguistics, the topics under the following subheadings would help you. You just have to look for the aspect that you have an interest in and look at linguistics in that light.

How has technology affected translation at this age and time?
Is translation the cause of misunderstandings between speakers of different languages?
How effective is an audiovisual translation in revolutionizing the translation industry?
Does literal translation do more harm than good?
How has the translator training and pedagogy faired in the production of efficient translators?
How does translation relate to popular culture?

Translation is essential in this century with people of different languages communicating and coming together in a global economy. These topics look into the issues that translation encounter at this time.

Linguistics Topics on Politics

Politics is an ever-present phenomenon in any society. These dissertation topics in linguistics examine the issues surrounding language in the field of politics. We have explained samples of Ph.D. thesis topics in linguistics in this field.

The reality of hate speech in selected communities
The use of persuasive language strategies and tools in political speech
How colonial rule affected African politics and language
Why do politicians use indigenous languages to address communities?
A critical analysis of the changing political communication landscape
Effective political communication: A case study of selected politicians
How tag lines and buzz words are used to enhance political speeches

Sociolinguistics Research Topics

This aspect of linguistics examines how issues surrounding how language works in society. These research topics for English linguistics focus on how people in society use language and its effects on society.

What are the social factors that necessitate language varieties?
How does language affect identity?
An in-depth analysis of language attrition common to most English speakers
A critical evaluation of the difference in attitudes towards language in different societies
The differences in language functions in selected communities
How ethnicity affect language and vice versa

Argumentative Linguistics Research Topics

These topics in linguistics for research papers argue on issues surrounding language. You can use these topics if you want to show different sides of an argument in your research.

Is language the best way to communicate?
Can we say that language is merely a system of symbols
Do language disorders cause difficulties in the study of language?
Does brain injury lead to issues in language capacities?
Do mother tongue inflection and accent impact efficient communication?
Is it advisable to learn more than one language?

Linguistics Research Topics on History

Language was not a concept that started a few years ago. People have been communicating for centuries and centuries. These topics look at the history of language, sometimes about this age.

How Greek philosophy contributes to language
What are the early speculations scientists had about the origin of language?
Analysis of the history of language as explained in mythology
How do the 3,000 preserved cuneiform writings affect language?
A critical evaluation of different theories on the origin and development of language
Why has the question of language origin remained unanswerable?

Linguistics Research Topics on Semantics

Language is nothing without meaning. These interesting linguistic topics show how meaning and language mix and relate. You can research any one of these topics to understand how this field.

How does meaning affect language analysis and interpretation?
What is the major cause of language ambiguity?
How do sentences relate to one another?
How do speakers of different languages acquire a sense of meaning in conversation?
How can the meaning of words relate?
An in-depth analysis into how language is used and acquired in different communities

Tough Linguistics Research Topics

Do all the topics above seem too easy for you? Do you want something more challenging? We have a few topics for you. These topics would give you that challenge you want. Ensure that you do enough research on topics before you embark on them.

Why do people speak different languages?
What makes language translation possible?
What makes some languages harder to learn than others?
Why are English and French words similar?
Why does the mother tongue always affect pronunciation?
Does sign language only involve the hands?

How to Choose A Perfect Linguistics Topic for You

There are different aspects of linguistics. If you check online, you would find linguistic anthropology research topics, computational linguistics research topics, and much more. However, not all these aspects of linguistics would be perfect for your dissertation or thesis.

In selecting or creating the perfect linguistic topic for you, here are some of the tips from our experts in paper writing you should take into consideration.

Pick an aspect that interest you . Linguistics apply to different walks of life. Therefore, there are varied topics for your linguistics research. It can make choosing a topic quite stressful. What you do is find what interests you and find topics in that aspect. Start by looking for a broad aspect then narrow it down to a part of the field. For instance, you can start with applied linguistics and move on to linguistics in politics.
Brainstorm with friends . After you have chosen the aspect you like, you can pick a list of topics in linguistics for research papers and bounce off ideas from the topics with your friends. You can even write out your ideas from your brainstorming and ask your friends what they think about them. The topic that you notice that you and your friends keep going back to is possibly the best one for you. If you find a lot of things to talk about it, you would possibly find a lot of things to write about it.
Research the topics . Talk is cheap though. If you want to write on a topic, ensure that there are enough materials to support your claims. After you and your friends decide on a topic, research the topic before you start writing. Once you find that there are enough materials, you can start.

Linguistics has different aspects. If you check online and on our list, you would find different topics in these aspects, including topics related to linguistic diversity. Follow our guide and list to find the best linguistic topic for you!

100+ Linguistic Topics for Excellent Research Papers

13 December, 2021

12 minutes read

Author: Donna Moores

Linguistics is an English language category that deals with logical dialectal analysis and interpretation. It seeks to reveal the form, meaning, and context of language. While most college students may perceive linguistics as a simple subject, it is pretty complex. English tutors might issue topics in linguistics in various disciplines like phonology or semantics, which leaves many learners grappling to tackle the research papers.

When analyzing language, you should write a paper that clarifies the nature, classification, and proper identification tools. Therefore, your linguistics topics must be relevant and within the research purpose. It is essential to pick an appropriate topic to allow the audience to understand the fundamental research.

With numerous dialects across the globe, identifying a worthy topic should be a simple task. We have compiled lists of engaging topic ideas to help you craft an outstanding research paper and inspire your academic projects.

Linguistics Research Paper: Definition, Explanation, Examples

Any linguistics paper should comprise an in-depth analysis of language development and acquisition. The subject explores various aspects of different dialects and their meanings. It also covers style and form to develop comprehensive arguments under various contexts.

That is why English professors test students with various academic projects to measure their comprehension levels. Thus, learners should ensure they select good linguistics research paper topics. Here is an overview example of the paper structure.

Introduction

Background information.
Hypothesis.
Literature review.

Methodology

Data sources.
Data organization.
Analysis/Findings.
Paraphrase hypothesis.
Significance of the study.
Recommendations.

Therefore, ensure your paper meets the specified academic standards. You must read the requirements keenly to craft an outstanding paper that meets the tutor’s expectations. If you encounter challenges, you can research further online or seek clarification from your professor to know how you will approach the research question.

Choosing A Good Linguistic Topic Isn’t Hard – Here’s How To Do It

Struggling to pick a relevant topic for your research paper? Fret not. We will help you understand the steps to identify an appropriate topic. Most students often underestimate the significance of the pre-writing stages, which entails topic selection. It is a vital phase where you need to choose relevant linguistics topics for your research paper. Hence, ensure you read the research question carefully to understand its requirements.

Carry out an extensive brainstorming session to identify relatable themes within the subject area. Avoid selecting a broad theme, but if you do, break it into minor sub-topics. This will help you during the research phase to get adequate information. Use different websites to get verifiable academic sources and published papers from reputable scholars.

Don’t forget to make your linguistics research paper topics catchy and exciting to capture your readers’ attention. No one wants to read a dull paper.

Finally, follow all the academic requirements for research paper writing – proper grammar, style, correct citation, etc. College tutors often award well-written, original papers.

However, if you still find it challenging to move beyond topic selection, you can reach out to one of our subject-oriented experts for assistance.

We are here to offer the following:

Quality-approved papers.
100% authentic papers.
One-on-one personalized learning.
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Therefore, do not endure the academic pressure alone. Talk to us we will help you select unique linguistic research topics.

15 Interesting Sociolinguistics Topic Ideas

Need help with your sociolinguistics research paper? Here are interesting topics in linguistics to jumpstart your writing.

An in-depth theoretical analysis of language development.
Explore dialect as a communication tool.
How brain injuries influence language and speech.
Language is a symbolic system: Discuss.
Examine the different linguistic disorders and challenges.
The impact of mother tongue on effective communication.
The importance of learning more than one dialect.
Evaluate mother tongue pronunciation and language fluency.
Compare and contrast the English and French languages.
Why do people communicate in different languages?
The role of Greek philosophers in language formation.
Language origination as an unfathomable issue.
Discuss language as a national identity in a multicultural nation.
Is there a difference between adult and child language acquisition?
Discuss the challenges in language development.

15 Good Applied Linguistics Topics

Applied linguistics is an essential discipline that allows learners to comprehend effective communication. Below are interesting linguistics topics to help you during writing.

What is applied linguistics?
Evaluate applied linguistics in a technological environment.
Discuss the intricacies of spoken and written language.
Explore bilingualism and multilingualism.
An analysis of communication barriers in delivering health services.
The influence of identity in a multicultural society.
Discuss dialect barriers in social media networks.
An in-depth analysis of hate speech.
The importance of applied linguistics development.
The adverse effects of social media on effective communication.
The impact of culture on multilingualism.
An in-depth evaluation of applied linguistics.
The influence of politics on linguistic media.
An analysis of practical research methods on linguistics.
How bilingualism enhances human personality.

15 Computational Linguistics Research Paper Topics

Computational linguistics involves technology in translation and other language-enhancing tools. Below are compelling linguistics thesis topics for your research compositions.

What is computational linguistics?
The impact of technology in speech recognition.
The evolution of the translation industry in enhancing communication.
Does translation cause communication barriers?
An analysis of audiovisual translation.
Discuss the effectiveness of supervised learning.
An analysis of effective programs for phonetic comparison of dialects.
Speech recognition: description of dialect performance.
An analysis of linguistic dimensions using technology.
Effective methods of text extraction.
Discuss the reasons for learning computational linguistics.
The influence of modern communication on computational linguistics.
Discuss the different approaches to effective learning.
An analysis of speech synthesis.
Discuss the benefits of machine translation.

15 Engaging Comparative Linguistics Research Paper Topics

Looking for winning research topics in linguistics? Search no more. Here are impressive comparative topic ideas for your research compositions:

Compare and contrast English and Latin.
A comparative study of speech physiology and anatomy.
An evaluation of the Ape language.
What is folk speech?
An analysis of historical linguistics.
An in-depth study of ethnographic semantics.
The connection between culture and linguistics.
A comparative analysis of phonetics in linguistics.
The influence of computers on dialect development.
Analyze communication in a paralinguistic dialect.
English popularity: A comparative study of the world.
Does accent fluency boost effective communication?
Neologism: An analysis of UK English.
Discuss the idioms of Australian English compared to American.
A comparative study of the Anglo-Saxon dialects.

15 Interesting Historical Linguistics Topic Ideas

Let us explore historical linguistics essay topics that will translate into remarkable papers with impressive literary arguments.

Discuss the significance of the Greek philosophers in language development.
An analysis of the preserved cuneiform writings.
Evaluate the origin of language theories.
Discuss the history of language in mythology.
An analysis of language translation.
A critical analysis of language development.
How speech impacts human interaction.
An analysis of modern communication evolution.
Discuss the history of written communication.
Analyze the different linguistics theories.
Why some dialects are challenging to learn.
What is structuralism in linguistics?
The effectiveness of mother tongue in linguistics.
The ancient relationship between French and English.
Is English considered indigenous?

15 Compelling Stylistics Linguistics Research Paper Topics

The following are interesting linguistics topics to help in crafting unique research papers. Peruse and pick one that suits your paper’s requirements.

Analyze the stylistic features of a business letter.
A comparative study of newspaper advertisement style.
An analysis of public speeches style
The forms and function of legal documents.
Discuss the functions of different newspaper genres.
The influence of ethnicity on linguistics.
Explore the effectiveness of spoken vs. written communication.
How effective is language translation?
Persuasive linguistics: An analysis of different strategies in politics.
The pros and cons of colonialism and the effects on African languages.
Discuss practical strategies for language acquisition.
Evaluate the social factors impacting language variation.
Discuss the various attitudes in society to language.
The impact of language on cultural identity.
The role of linguistics in different communities.

Having Problems with Your Paper? Our Experts Are Available 24/7

Research paper writing requires dedication in terms of time and effort. Most learners get stuck because of a lack of time and complex topics to handle. But with the correct strategy, you can simplify the entire composition. Let us look at some of the tips and tricks to help you compose an exceptional paper.

Read the essay prompt carefully

Take adequate time to acquaint yourself with the research prompt. What does your tutor expect from you? Read the assignment carefully before moving ahead with the research writing.

Choose a topic

Identify an appropriate topic through an extensive brainstorming exercise. It is pretty simple once you have the required themes in place.

Conduct comprehensive research

Carry out intense research on the topic you have selecting taking careful consideration about the relevant information. Use multiple trusted sources to extract adequate research content regarding the theme.

Develop a thesis

Organize your research and develop a powerful thesis statement. It gives your target audience an idea of the paper’s direction.

Design an outline

As per your paper requirements, design an appropriate outline that captures your entire research logically. Include an introduction, main body, and conclusion.

Writing process

Finally, start writing and make sure your arguments flow logically and clearly without any vague explanation in each paragraph.

Thorough editing and proofreading

Edit your work thoroughly and proofread for errors. Make sure it follows all the academic standard rules before turning in the paper to your tutor.

Need help with your research paper? Relax and let our qualified experts assist you in getting top-notch results. There is no need to struggle alone when our writers are available 24/7, ready to provide professional writing help. We have a team of skilled experts who are highly knowledgeable in diverse disciplines. Moreover, you will enjoy a personalized learning experience with our pro essay writers .

Whether you need help choosing linguistics anthropology research topics or composing the entire research paper, we have you covered in all aspects. No matter how complex the topic is, our experts will pull all-nighters to ensure you get your paper on time.

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Therefore, contact us with detailed information about the writing service you need. Talk to us and improve your academic performance within no time.

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130+ Excellent Linguistics Research Topics and Ideas

Table of Contents

Linguistic courses are not easy to learn. It is one of the challenging subjects that focus on the systematic study of the structure and evolution of language and the ways humans use it. Moreover, the field of linguistics also covers wide areas such as syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology, and morphology. Since this field is vast, then obviously choosing the best Linguistics Research Topics would also be difficult.

If you want to complete research on any concepts from the field of linguistics, then as a researcher you will have to determine the interplay between sound and meaning. Most importantly, in linguistics, you need to analyze the language form, language in context, and language meaning. The typical linguistics research paper should cover

The language’s nature
Classification of human languages
Tools used in language identification

Linguistics is an interesting course to study, but when it comes to writing a research paper or essay on the concepts related to this subject, it is tedious to complete because it requires a lot of practical approaches for evaluating a linguistic issue or a topic. More than analysis and execution, choosing the right linguistics research or dissertation topic is one of the crucial parts of writing a linguistics research paper.

List of Linguistics Research Topics and Ideas

We know that finding a linguistics research paper topic is difficult. So, in order to make your search process easier, here we have shared the list of top linguistic research topics for you to consider.

History of Language Research Topics

The Greek philosophers’ contribution to language
Early speculations about the origin of various languages
Why is the origin of language an unanswerable problem?
The importance of the over 30,000 preserved cuneiform writings to language
A critical analysis of theories that explain the origin and development of language
The long history of language in mythology
What are the aspects of the origin of the language?
The history of writing
Interpretations of communication
Linguistic theories
The ancient connection between English and French words
How does the mother tongue influence one’s pronunciation?
Why do people speak different languages?
Discovery of language translation
Is sign language only related to making signs with the hands?
The Effect of Language Origin on Humans
Moving from structuralism to post-structuralism
The evolution of modern linguistics
Indigenous or English?
Are we predisposed to learn a language from ancient times?
Contribution of the early Egyptian society in language.
How is the language of a community or society?
How does language differ from gender to gender?
Childhood is when a person’s speech is formed or broken.
Linguistic research is used to cultivate politicians’ buzzwords.
How are linguistic patterns used to track migration routes?
How Computers hurt modern language
Text messaging a contribution to the emergence of a modern linguistic subculture

Argumentative Linguistics Research Topics

Does a brain injury have an impact on language?
Should we learn two or more languages?
Should we refer to language as a mere system of symbols?
Does the mother tongue have an impact on efficient communication?
Do language disorders make it a difficult subject to study?
Does language depict literacy?
Is it necessary to learn English in order to fit in the newly developing societies?
How does the mother tongue affect an individual’s understanding of other languages?
Can verbal language be considered as the only way of communicating?
How important is nonverbal communication in the context of teaching and learning?
How is language translation made possible?
Why is learning Chinese difficult when compared to learning the English language?
Why is English considered an important language to know especially in post-colonized nations?
The impact of language on how men, as well as women, view politeness
Sociolinguistics is a tool for studying social change over time.
An examination of English evolution through the lens of various sociolinguistics
What is called Phonology and Phonetics?
How do Phonology and Phonetics differ from each other?

Read more: Argumentative Essay Topics That You Must Consider

Linguistics Research Topics on Politics

Why do politicians use culturally used languages when addressing indigenous communities?
A case study of effective political communication
Persuasive language strategies and techniques in political speeches
The use of buzzwords and tag lines in political speeches
Understanding the changing landscape of political communication
Why do Hindu politicians use Arabic Kalema’s and other words of significance in Islam when rallying in Islamic societies or communities?
How has colonial rule affected Indian and African politics?

Read more: Political Science Research Topics To Write About

Linguistics Research Topics on Language Disorders

Mental formation of language disorders during a child’s development
Why is autism spectrum disorder common among most children?
Causes of receptive language disorders among children
What is the effectiveness of psychotherapy in dealing with language disorders?
Why do children between 1 and 2 years of age have trouble with p, b, m, h, and w sounds?

Sociolinguistics Research Paper Topics

Attitudes to language among different societies
A critical evaluation of language and ethnicity
Social factors that necessitate language variation and varieties
Analyzing language attrition among the most English speakers
The relationship between language and identity
Describe how sociolinguistics aids people in comprehending multilingual language options.
How does sociolinguistics affect women’s empowerment?
How the media employs sociolinguistics to achieve a competitive advantage as well as prejudice

Linguistics Research Topics on Translation

Is the translator training and pedagogy producing efficient translators?
The role of the latest technologies in the translation industry
Is literary translation causing more harm than good in communication?
Are translations the cause of misunderstandings between different languages?
What is the relationship between translation and popular culture?
How far has audio-visual translation been effective?

Linguistics Research Topics on Semantics

What causes ambiguity to arise in language?
How can the meanings of words relate to each other?
A critical analysis of language use and language acquisition
How do different speakers acquire a sense of meaning?
How does meaning work in language analysis and interpretation?
In which ways do sentences relate to one another?
Describe the relationship between translation and popular culture
Is literary translation causes more harm than good in communication?
Critical analysis of the use and acquisition of foreign language
How culture and linguistic background of a person impact the way he/she acquires a sense of meaning?
Compare and contrast the interpretation of language and scrutinization

Latest Linguistics Research Topics

Is multilingualism a viable option after bilingualism?
The role of music in the evolution of languages
How does a language contribute to national identity in a multicultural society?
Review of applied linguistics research methods
The importance of proper linguistic communication in social media
The effects of Social media language on the Current Generation
Explain the impact of slang in the development of languages
The Role of Language in the Formation of cross-cultural Bonds
What role does applied linguistics play in the workplace?
Does learning English make it easier to integrate into rapidly changing societies?
How does a person’s mother tongue impact their ability to grasp other languages?
Can solely verbal communication be regarded as a form of communication?
Analyze the factors responsible for different spoken languages.
Understanding race and color in relation to sociolinguistics in America.
A thorough investigation into UK vowel pronunciation.
The contribution of music to the development of language.
Describe the development and evolution of slang.
An examination of the connection between language and thought
How well does healthcare delivery work in language barriers?
What role does language play in social media?

Excellent Linguistics Research Ideas

How does being multilingual improve one’s personality?
Dipronounces your expectations and language cognition evolves as you learn.
Discuss the methods of learning when it comes to learning a foreign language.
Give examples of how a non-native English speaker might teach English to local students.
The part language plays in fostering cross-cultural relationships.
Study of language in both academic and informal contexts.
What effect does one’s age have on how one pronounces English?
An examination of English-French load words using phonetic analysis
What impact does sociolinguistics have on women’s emancipation?
The lengthy history of the English-French term relationship
Why do individuals speak various languages?
How does pronunciation differ depending on one’s mother tongue?
How was language translation found?
Is sign language exclusively concerned with making hand motions?

Compelling Linguistics Research Topics

What are the factors affecting the capability of learning a language?
Explain the impact of bilingualism on an individual’s personality.
Discuss the importance of applied linguistics in today’s digital world.
Analyze the challenges in the study of semantic and pragmatic theory.
Explain digitally-mediated collaborative writing for ESL students.
Discuss the laws of language development.
Write about word sense disambiguation.
Explain a semantic typology of gradable predicates.
Perform an analysis of the Schizophrenia text dataset.
Explain the Impact of blogging on learning languages.

Out of the various linguistics research paper topics suggested in this blog post, choose any topic matching your interest and craft a detailed thesis with proper supporting evidence. In case, you are not satisfied with the list of ideas recommended here, then without any hesitation contact us.

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100+ Compelling Linguistics Research Topics for University Students

Confused while selecting the interesting linguistics research topics to pen down your thoughts on a piece of paper? So, bounce back to this article and pick the best linguistics research paper topics and boost your grades.

Un-layering the essence of teaching-learning methodology demonstrates the development of linguistic theories. Linguistics is a science of language in which fact-finding is done through some rational and systematic study. While digging into the information about the history of linguistics, two perspectives on languages are unveiled: prescriptive and descriptive views.

The linguistic analysis uncovers the following areas: phonetics, phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics, and pragmatics. Furthermore, the scrutinization of linguistics helps you to know about every aspect of languages as well as methods for studying them.

Table of Contents

How To Choose the Right Linguistics Research Topics?

Stress work is the indication of degraded academic performance and lower grades even if we talk about a linguistics research paper. Make your every endeavor effective and energetic by applying the right strategy. Therefore, make the right selection for your academic writing that starts from the interesting topic selection in linguistics.

Moreover, take advantage of research paper help and discuss your concerns with professional writers. As a suggestion, you can choose the right linguistics research topics by keeping the following points in your mind:

Find your interest: Linguistics uncover various aspects of language learning and allow you to expand your mind capabilities. So, try to explore the depth of the subject and find your area of interest. It will make your academic writing more interesting and enthralling.

Brainstorm the ideas: Picking the interesting linguistics topics demands your knowledge and expertise. Therefore, you need to take the advantage of brainstorming and collect various ideas to explore the concept of linguistics.

Perform pensive research : When you are keen to score high marks, you need to have sufficient knowledge. Conduct insightful research and uncover the pensive ideas for your research paper topics in linguistics.

Interesting Topics in Linguistics

Linguistics is the foundation of language knowledge. Linguistics theories indeed are interrelated to learning the English language. When you have to boost your grades, your selection for linguistics research paper topics makes a huge difference. Some of the interesting linguistics research topics are:

Explain the significance of music in the evolution of language.
Does age really impact English pronunciation?
What is the role of sociolinguistics education in creating discipline?
What is the significance of language in creating teaching methodology?
Analysis of verbal and written communication based on language usage.
Is it important to have expertise in several languages?
Explain the issues related to receptive language disorder and its impact on brain development.
How do you correlate sentence-making and word flow in linguistics?
Discuss the comparability between English and French languages.
Factors responsible for different spoken languages.
The impact of slang in the development of languages.
Is text messaging creating a revolutionary subculture in the new linguistic scenario?
How are linguistic patterns helpful in locating migration roadways?
What are factors affecting the capability of learning a language?
Explain the role of language in building a national identity for developing a multicultural society.
Digital Revolution: impact of computers in modern language
A systematic review on vowel pronunciation in the American Schools.
Significance of language in creating cross-cultural communities: A comprehensive review
Elucidate the impact of language on one’s perception.
Textual and Linguistic analysis for housing studies.

Stimulating Research Paper Topics In Sociolinguistics

While seeking linguistics research topics for your assignments or research paper, you may find sociolinguistics interesting to explore. Sociolinguistics demonstrates the impact of language on our society. When you are keen to explore the effect of language in different aspects of society (including cultural values and expectations), you need to do an in-depth analysis of sociolinguistics.

For building a good foundation on sociolinguistics, you can select the following linguistics paper topics:

How would you define linguistic practices in specific communities?
An elaborative approach for code-switching and code-mixing
Explain the impact of dialect on gender.
A correlational study to share the relationship between language, social class, and cognition.
In-depth study of interactional sociolinguistics in the 21st Century.
A comprehensive analysis on accountability and aptness of dialect.
Evaluate the education of language in the U.S.
The role of languages in controlling emotions.
Effectiveness of verbal communication in expressing one’s feelings: A competitive analysis.
A literature review on communication with a precise comparison of verbal and non-verbal communication
Difference between advanced placement (AP) English literature and language.
What is the relationship between language and one’s personality?
A critical analysis on the relation of language and ethnicity.
Describe the attitudes to various languages among societies.
A comprehensive approach on dialect variations in American English-speaking people.
Scrutinize linguistic variation on language loyalty.
Develop a good understanding of sociological variations to languages.
Impact of the generation gap on language usage.
Examine the impact of various factors (social tension, media, racism, and entertainment) on the utilization of languages.
Is there a difference between linguistic practices among men and women?

Also, Read: 150+ Business Research Topics

Interesting Research Topics in Applied Linguistics

Are you looking for linguistics research topics to advance your learning abilities? In such a case, you have to learn about “Applied Linguistics.” It is the branch of linguistics in which one can understand the practical applications of language studies such as speech therapy, language teaching, and more.

In other words, applied linguistics offers solutions to deal with language-related real-life problems. Imperative academic areas where you can find the applications of applied linguistics are psychology, education, sociology, communication research, and anthropology. Some applied linguistics research paper topics:

Discuss the expansion of learning a second language through reading.
Share your learning on the critical period hypothesis for the acquisition of the second language.
Impact of bilingualism on an individual’s personality.
Linguistics evaluation on the difference between written and spoken language.
Describe language cognition and perceptions in a learning process.
Impact of language barriers on healthcare delivery.
Detailed analysis on various methodologies to learn applied linguistics.
Discuss the relationship between empathy and language proficiency in learners of adult language.
Detailed analysis on multilingualism and multiculturalism.
Impact of extended instructions on the use of passive voices, modals, and relative clauses: A critical analysis.
Explain digitally-mediated collaborative writing for ESL students.
How do we evaluate self-efficacy in students who speak low-level English language?
Elucidate the significance of phrasal verbs in creating technical documents.
Expectations of American Students while taking Japanese language classes.
A detailed study on American deaf students in English as a Non-Native Language (ENNL) classes.
How do you understand by modeling music with Grammars?
The cognitive development of expertise as an ESL teacher: An insightful analysis.
Sound Effects: Gender, Age, and Sound symbolism in American English.
Importance of applied linguistics in today’s digital world.

Also, Read: Modern Literature

Interesting Research Topics in Semantics

The study of reference, meaning, and the truth is covered under semantics or semiotics, or semasiology. A comprehensive analysis of semantics reflects the essence of compositional semantics and lexical semantics. The combination of words and their interaction to form larger experiences like sentences comes under compositional semantics. Whereas, the notion of words is shared under lexical semantics.

Some academic disciplines in linguistic semantics are conceptual semantics, cognitive semantics, formal semantics, computational semantics, and more. Linguistic research paper topics on Semantics are as follows:

Examine meaning work in language interpretation and scrutinization
A critical evaluation of language acquisition and language use.
Challenges in the study of semantic and pragmatic theory.
Discuss semantics lessons and paragraph structure in written language.
How do you explain the semantic richness effects in the recognition of visual words?
How richness of semantics affects the processing of a language.
Semantic generation to action-related stimuli: A neuroanatomical evaluation of embodied cognition.
Examine the understanding of blind children for reading phonological and tactual coding in Braille.
Explain a semantic typology of gradable predicates.
A comparison of between blind and sighted children’s memory performance: the reverse-generation effect.
Clinical research for designing medical decision support systems.
Discuss word recognition processes in blind and sighted children.
A corpus-based study on argumentative indicators.
The typology of modality in modern West Iranian languages.
A critical analysis on changes in naming and semantic abilities in different age groups.
Explain the multidimensional semantics of evaluative adverbs.
A comprehensive analysis on procedural meaning: problems and perspectives.
Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspectives on figurative language.
Elucidate semantic and pragmatic problems in discourse and dialogue.

Topics For Linguistics Essays

A curiosity of exploring the various concepts in linguistics leads you to work on essays. Projecting your thoughts in writing linguistics essays makes you understand the structure and changes in human languages. In a case, if you are searching for the best topics in linguistics, go through the following list of linguistics essays:

Difference between human language and artificial language.
Classification of writing systems based on various stages of development.
The laws of language development
Culture and language: impact on reflections.
Methodology of reading and writing for children by Albert James.
Significance of phoneme and phonological matters
The complexity of human language: the specific cases of the apes
Explain the development of languages and derivational morphology.
Detailed analysis on language extinction.
Investigate the peculiarities of English-Chinese and Chinese-English translations.
A comprehensive overview on the acquisition of English as a second language by Mid-Eastern students.
Discuss semiology in language analysis.
Impact of blogging on learning languages.
Linguistics: grammar and language teaching.
English Language: Explain its standard and non-standard types.
Discuss speech community as linguistic anthropology.
A systematic review on linguistic diversity in modern culture.
Similarities and differences between language and logic.
What is the impact of language on digital communication?
Listening comprehension: a comparative analysis of the articles.

Computational Linguistics Research Topics

Analysis and synthesis of language and speech using the techniques of computer science share the significance of computational linguistics. This branch of linguistics reflects the study of computational modeling of natural language. It also describes the computational approaches to answering the linguistic questions.

Under computational linguistics, you can explore different concepts such as artificial intelligence, mathematics, computer science, cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology. More interesting computational linguistics research topics are:

Explain the factors measuring the performance of speech recognition.
Discuss word sense disambiguation.
Detailed analysis on dependency parsing based on graphs and transitions.
A multidimensional analysis on linguistic dimensions
Analyze Medieval German poetry through supervised learning.
Extraction of Danish verbs.
Analysis of Schizophrenia text dataset.
An intra-lingual contrastive corpus analysis based on computational linguistics.
Discuss various methods to introduce, create, and conclude a text.

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100 best linguistic research topics.

November 26, 2020

Some learners struggle to choose linguistic research topics to research and write about. That’s because linguistics is interesting to learn about yet challenging to write papers and essays about. Some students stay up at night learning about phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Unfortunately, they still struggle to write quality papers and essays on linguistic topics in these areas. If looking for ideas to form the basis of your paper or essay, here is a list of research topics in linguistics to consider.

Linguistic Research Topics in Discourse Studies

Discourse studies provide fascinating details about individuals, culture, technology, movements, and changes that take place over time. If looking for linguistics topics that relate to discourse studies, here are some of the best ideas to consider. You can also check out our communication research topics .

Childhood is the time when speech is made or broken
Cultivation of politicians’ buzzword through linguistic analysis
How linguistic patterns are sued to locate migration paths
How computers affect modern language negatively
How text messaging has created a new linguistic subculture
How the brain works when it comes to learning a new language
How words change over time
How effective is non-verbal communication when it comes to displaying emotions?
How effective is verbal communication when it comes to displaying feelings?
How society alters words and their meanings
How the negative power of a word be reduced by neuro-linguistic programming for trauma victims
Is verbal communication more effective than non-verbal communication?
How individuals communicate without a shared language
How beneficial is learning more than one language during childhood?
Why should Elementary School teach students a second language?
Explain the acquisition of a language at different growth stages
How global leaders use language ethics to change the emotional views of the masses
Explain the power of a language in capitalizing on emotions
How technology alters the communication
How proper use of a language makes a person better in society

A learner should pick a linguistics topic in this category if it piques their interest. That’s because writing a great paper or essay requires a student to explore an idea that they are interested in. Essentially, a learner should research and write about something that they find enjoyable.

Interesting Linguistic Topics for Research

Some topics in linguistics are very interesting to research. These are ideas that most people in society will find enjoyable to read about. Here is a list of the most interesting linguistics topics that students can choose for their papers and essays.

Explain how sociolinguistics help people understand multi-lingual language choices
A study of differences and similarities of Post-Tudor English
How language encourages gender differences
Understanding socio-linguistics via color and race background in America
Vowel pronunciation in the UK- A systematic review
The role of music in language evolution
Explain the development and evolution of slangs
A study of the connection between perception and language
How language creates bonds among cross-cultural communities
Language review in informal and formal settings
How age affects English pronunciation
A phonological treatment based review for English-French load words
How sociolinguistics influence gender empowerment
How words can be used to master legal settings
How the media use sociolinguistics to gain a competitive edge and create bias
Exploratory analysis of the impact and importance of body language
Importance of sociolinguistics education in discipline development
How genders perceive politeness via language use
A study of social change through history via sociolinguistics
An evaluation of English evolution via a focus on different sociolinguistics

The vast majority of topics in this category touches on language and society. That’s why papers and essays about these linguistic research topics will most likely impress many readers.

Applied Linguistics Research Paper Topics

Applied linguistics focus on finding meaningful language solutions to real-world issues. Some of the best linguistic paper topics to consider in this category include the following.

The beauty idea and its expression verbally
A detailed evaluation of hate language
What are the key determinants of hate language propagation?
A literature-based review that explores eye-tracking technology and its implication for applied linguistics advancement
A detailed evaluation of research methods for applied linguistics
How relevant is the development of applied linguistics?
Discuss the impacts of the language used in social media on the current generation
An essay on the impact of using proper linguistic communication in social media
Are applied linguistics relevant in the current digitalized world?
How political oppression affect the linguistic used in the media
How important is applied linguistics vocationally?
The major differences between spoken and written language via linguistics evaluation
Is multilingualism a possibility that follows bilingualism?
What is the contribution of a language to national identity within a multicultural society?
How effective is healthcare delivery when there are language barriers?
Is the language barrier relevant in social media?
How bilingualism enriches the personality of an individual
Discuss language cognition and perceptions during the learning process
Discuss the learning mechanisms when it comes to a foreign language
Explain how a non-native teacher can teach local students the English language

These can also be great dissertation topics in linguistics. That’s because they require extensive research and analysis of facts to write brilliant papers. So, if struggling to find an idea for your dissertation, consider one of these thesis topics in applied linguistics.

Great Linguistics Essay Topics

Perhaps, you’re looking for a list of English linguistics research topics from which you can get ideal for your essay. In that case, consider these amazing research proposal topics in linguistics.

Discuss the new generative grammar concept
Analysis of pragmatics and semantics in two texts
Identity analysis in racist language
Do humans have a predisposition to learn a language?
English assessment as a second language
Endangered languages and language death causes
Attitudes towards a language and childhood language acquisition
Mixing modern language and code-switching
Linguistic turn and cognitive turn
What is computational linguistics?
Linguistic and cultural diversity as an educational issue
Differences between adults and childhood language learning
Factors that affect the ability to learn a language
A forensic assessment of linguistics
Lexical and grammatical changes
How important is a language?
What are the effects of language on human behavior?
English or indigenous languages?
Is language an essential element of human life?
Is language the primary communication medium?

These can be great topics for short essays. However, they can also be PhD thesis topics in linguistics where learners will have to conduct extensive and detailed research. The most important thing is to gather relevant and new information that will interest the readers.

Research Topics in Cognitive Linguistics

Students that want to explore questions in cognitive linguistics should consider topics in this category. Here are some of the most interesting topics in linguistics for research papers that also touch on cognition. If these ideas seem a bit complicated, use our writing services .

How grammatical phrasing affects compliance with prescriptions, prohibitions, or suggestions
Latest research findings into cognitive literacy in Indian English poetry
Conceptual metaphor: Does the activation of a single-source domain activates the multiple target concepts?
Multilingualism: Does L2 modulate L1/L2 organization in the brain?
Can task-based language teaching perception be measured?
Are there prominent cognitive-linguistic books for students?
What role does cognitive linguistics play in the acquisition of a second language?
Is word meaning a concept that is advocated for by some scholars?
Which linguistic experiments can be used to understand how the right and left hemispheres work?
Discuss the relationship between metaphors and similes

Computational Linguistics Research Topics

Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that deals with rule-based or statistical modeling of the natural language from the computational perspectives. Here are some of the best topics for research in this field.

Using supervised learning to analyze Medieval German poetry
Which computer-assisted program is best for phonetic comparison of different dialects and why?
How and where can Danish verbs be extracted?
Can computational linguistic suggest an intra-lingual contrastive corpus analysis?
Where can the Schizophrenia text dataset be found?
Discuss the techniques used for meaning or semantic representation in the natural language processing
Describe performance measures for speech recognition
How to extract the introduction, development, and conclusion of a text
Discuss the addition of matrices in a dictionary in python
Explain the definition and characterization of linguistic dimensions in a multidimensional analysis

Students that are struggling to choose what to write about can pick any topic in this list that they find interesting, research, and write about it. Taking the time to research extensively and write quality papers or essays is what will earn learners their desired grades.

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144+ Research Topics in Linguistics For Successful Paper

There is a wide variety of research topics in linguistics. You can use these topics in your thesis, essay, dissertation, project, proposal, or assignment. The English language is diverse and needs enough research to get the evolution and the diversity of all its elements. English has been translated to different languages and vice versa due to its widespread reach. When searching for a topic you should consult your professor to get the best guidance. It is not easy to write a research paper for a high grade. So, a re you in need of linguistic essay writing? We are here to help. Our expert writers are proficient in most languages and will help you achieve high grades at school. Not only does it apply to assignments but also all types of essays. We have cheap pricing even with the high-quality work that we offer. Your work will be delivered fast to ensure we meet your deadline. We will choose an interesting topic, do the research and provide professional work for you. We will make the whole process easier for you.

Sociolinguistic Research Topics

Are you looking for a sociolinguistic research topic that will allow you to remain at the top? Sociolinguistic research topics deal with how language affects people socially. These are some of the best:

How do social tension, racism, media, and popular entertainment affect the use of language by people?
Why do certain listeners think of one language as better than the other?
How does language change happen and for what reasons?
The effect of the generation gap on language.
Does social class affect language?
The influence of social media, media, power, and identity on language.
Compare linguistic practices between women and men.
Examine the various attitudes to language.
Analyze the sociological variations to languages.
Examine Bilingual Education and Language Maintenance in the world.
Examine dialect variations in people using British English in the world.
Determine sources of micro temporal clustering in sociolinguistic sequences.
How are the immigrant dialects and language maintenance in Australia?
Examine linguistic variation on language loyalty
Explain the effect of mixing two languages to make a new one.

Interesting Linguistics Topics

These linguistic topics can help you to do research that will provide top grades for you in the university. These are interesting topics that will make you think deeper about various issues related to language. If you are looking to get challenged, these are the best topics to start with.

Examine written versus spoken language.
How does ambiguity occur during language translation?
What are the factors that contribute to language shift and variation?
The effect of language support and teaching.
The best persuasive language techniques and terminologies.
How do sentences relate to each other in language?
Importance of trending technologies on translation.
Influence of language apps on the spread of different language dialects.
The importance of audio-visual translation.
What are the causes of receptive language disorder in different age groups?
Problems related to sentence and word flow.
How does brain development have an impact on language?
The importance of learning more than two languages
How does one’s mother tongue interfere with punctuation
Why are some languages difficult than others?

Linguistics Research Paper Topics

Do you need a linguistic topic that is not controversial? These are some of the best that will provide the best grades in linguistics. They are simple and you can get your research answers fast on the internet and get high grades.

How have text messages created a linguistic subculture?
The influence of computers on modern language.
The effectiveness of non-verbal and verbal communication to displaying emotions.
Is verbal communication more effective than verbal communication?
Communication of individuals without a shared language.
Do you think elementary schools should teach students more than one language?
The acquisition of language in different growth stages.
The influence of technology on communication.
The impact of music in language evolution.
The influence of language on gender differences.
Social change evolution through sociolinguistics.
Analysis of the impact of body language.
How words are used to master legal settings in the world.
Language review in an informal and formal setting.
Detailed evaluation of research methods on linguistics.

Language Research Topics

Searching online for language research topics can be a bit hectic. However, we made that easier for you. These topics are easy to research and workaround.

How does language influence cultural identity?
The impact of language on gender and power.
Does media affect the diversity of language?
How is technology making a positive or negative impact on language?
The influence of offensive language and free speech.
How to differentiate between standard and non-standard English.
The influence of diversity of language in the community.
How does language influence the behavior of people in workplaces?
How can you determine whether someone is talking the truth or lies through language?
How does the use of certain language influence advertising?
What is the relationship between minor and major languages?
The influence of printed communication media on purchasing levels of customers.
The best communication media for different age groups.
The influence of language on interpersonal relations and social interaction.
How do social media and politics affect language?

Linguistics Essay Topics

Finding an ideal topic can be hectic. However, with the right idea in mind, you can never go wrong in linguistics. They are broad and easy to articulate.

What makes it easy for people to differentiate languages and translate?
How does language influence gender differences?
The influence of language on creating bonds between different communities
How does language influence perception and the connection?
The influence of bilingualism on different societies.
The use of English in different professional settings.
Relation between multilingualism and bilingualism.
The factors that affect language learning abilities in society.
Which are the linguistic communication barriers and stereotypes.
The history of linguistic and its internationalization.
Modern linguistic and influence on the evolution of human language.
The pioneers of linguistic and their impact.
The challenge of linguistic and cultural diversity in Education
The relation between class, language, and ideology during the revolution
The methods used in the preservation of linguistic diversity in the world

English Research Topics

English is diverse and getting the right research topics can be a bit hectic. English language is globally spoken and has a great impact on the general society. Hence, here are some English research topics you can start with:

Psychological factors that influence customer purchasing power through language.
How can the genetic link to optimism shape attitudes?
Evaluate how students from wealthier backgrounds score higher on standardized tests.
What impact do mandatory physical education classes have on student’s health?
The strategies for improving low academic performance in the English language.
The impact of the mother tongue on students’ performance in English.
The impact of mother tongue on grammar and sentence structure.
The study of English literature and its impact on language growth.
English common spelling errors.
The importance of supervision in primary education development.
The correlation between the English language and literature.
The effect of truancy on academic performance in students.
Factors affecting language choice in a multilingual society
How can poetry be used as an expression of anger?
Language attitudes among teenagers.

Linguistics Project Ideas

Are you in the university and wondering where you can get the best linguistic project ideas? Finding a topic should not be a hard task. These topics are straightforward and will help you get top grades.

The analysis of the use of sentence stress on college students.
A sociolinguistic analysis of code-switching and code-mixing in educational institutions.
The importance of motivation in the acquisition of phonetic sounds.
The social Language variation about gender.
The influence of language in racism expression.
The cultural influence on the language.
An analysis of language on newspaper advertisement.
The ecology of acquisition of language in adults.
The major principles of metamorphosis on language.
Communication diversity in the health care system.
Communication in a multicultural workplace.
The linguistic features of legal language.
The study of advertisement language.
The inhibitions of English language proficiency.
Class stratification, poverty, and social injustice influence language.

List of Research Topics in English Language

English as a language has evolved. Hence, the need to understand its evolution. The English language is just like any other diverse language like Chinese, Russian or French. Here are some top-notch topics that you can use for your research.

The origin of the English language and its assimilation with other languages.
The difference between North America and South America Literature.
The various Irish writers in English literature.
The contribution of Indian writers on evolving of the English language.
The major contribution of Shakespeare to the English language.
The impact of female writers on English literature.
The major challenges of learning English as a second language.
Is there any gender controversy in the modern English language?
The influence of the industrial evolution of modern English.
The effect of professional qualification of English teachers in school-going students.
The problems experienced while teaching the English language in school.
The implementation and policy of success and failure in English.
The influence of extensive reading in promoting communication in school.
Investigation of special language needs in workplaces.
The strategies used for improving low academic performance in the English language.

Easy Research Paper Topics for English

Are you wondering where to get the best English research paper topics for college students? People prefer doing easy research projects to hard ones that may take them a huge amount of time. These are some topics that you can start with:

The cross-cultural influences of the English language.
Analyze the gender controversy in modern English and its evolution.
The representation of women in literature and the impact.
The imagist movement in the English Language.
A linguistic style analysis of gender variations in television news reporting.
The influence of children’s literature on cultural integration in the world.
The language behavior and its effect on a multilingual setting.
A sociolinguistic study of non-standard English word use formally.
The influence of love poetry in embracing love in the world.
A linguistic analysis of the language of humor.
An investigation of the auxiliary verb acquisition problem.
The impact of self-directed learning strategies on written English.
A comparative analysis of word-formation processes in English.
The process of inferencing in Language.
The major barriers to second language acquisition of English.

Linguistics Research Topics

These linguistics research topics deal with investigating the influence of language on diversity, evolution, and society. Linguistics started long before and society has a different perception of it. In these topics, you will argue out the influence of Linguistic in various dynamics.

How does society alter some word meanings?
How do genders perceive politeness via language use?
English assessment as a second language.
What makes some languages to be endangered and what causes that?
A forensic assessment of linguistic diversity.
Is language an essential element of human life?
Can the task-based language teaching perception be measured?
Analyze the performance measures for speech recognition.
The characterization of linguistic dimensions in multidimensional analysis.
Is applied linguistic important in the digitalized world?

Are You Having Problems With Your Linguistics Paper?

Are you tired of having to research a topic and write on your own? Are you in need of professional writing? Don’t be afraid to get research paper help from our professional writers. We will make the process easy for you. We offer the best research paper writing service that you could ever think of. No more worries about where to get the best writing help. Contact us with a “ do my research paper for me ” request for quality assistance. We have ENL writers that are good at English to ensure everything works out as it should. They will provide custom essays, proposals, projects, thesis, and dissertations just for you.

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Trends and hot topics in linguistics studies from 2011 to 2021: A bibliometric analysis of highly cited papers

Associated data.

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found in the article/ supplementary material .

High citations most often characterize quality research that reflects the foci of the discipline. This study aims to spotlight the most recent hot topics and the trends looming from the highly cited papers (HCPs) in Web of Science category of linguistics and language & linguistics with bibliometric analysis. The bibliometric information of the 143 HCPs based on Essential Citation Indicators was retrieved and used to identify and analyze influential contributors at the levels of journals, authors, and countries. The most frequently explored topics were identified by corpus analysis and manual checking. The retrieved topics can be grouped into five general categories: multilingual-related , language teaching , and learning related , psycho/pathological/cognitive linguistics-related , methods and tools-related , and others . Topics such as bi/multilingual(ism) , translanguaging , language/writing development , models , emotions , foreign language enjoyment (FLE) , cognition , anxiety are among the most frequently explored. Multilingual and positive trends are discerned from the investigated HCPs. The findings inform linguistic researchers of the publication characteristics of the HCPs in the linguistics field and help them pinpoint the research trends and directions to exert their efforts in future studies.

1. Introduction

Citations, as a rule, exhibit a skewed distributional pattern over the academic publications: a few papers accumulate an overwhelming large citations while the majority are rarely, if ever, cited. Correspondingly, the highly cited papers (HCPs) receive the greatest amount of attention in the academia as citations are commonly regarded as a strong indicator of research excellence. For academic professionals, following HCPs is an efficient way to stay current with the developments in a field and to make better informed decisions regarding potential research topics and directions to exert their efforts. For academic institutions, government and private agencies, and generally the science policy makers, they keep a close eye on and take advantage of this visible indicator, citations, to make more informed decisions on research funding allocation and science policy formulation. Under the backdrop of ever-growing academic outputs, there is noticeable attention shift from publication quantity to publication quality. Many countries are developing research policies to identify “excellent” universities, research groups, and researchers ( Danell, 2011 ). In a word, HCPs showcase high-quality research, encompass significant themes, and constitute a critical reference point in a research field as they are “gold bullion of science” ( Smith, 2007 ).

2. Literature review

Bibliometrics, a term coined by Pritchard (1969) , refers to the application of mathematical methods to the analysis of academic publications. Essentially this is a quantitative method to depict publication patterns within a given field based on a body of literature. There are many bibliometric studies on natural and social sciences in general ( Hsu and Ho, 2014 ; Zhu and Lei, 2022 ) and on various specific disciplines such as management sciences ( Liao et al., 2018 ), biomass research ( Chen and Ho, 2015 ), computer sciences ( Xie and Willett, 2013 ), and sport sciences ( Mancebo et al., 2013 ; Ríos et al., 2013 ), etc. In these studies, researchers tracked developments, weighed research impacts, and highlighted emerging scientific fronts with bibliometric methods. In the field of linguistics, bibliometric studies all occurred in the past few years ( van Doorslaer and Gambier, 2015 ; Lei and Liao, 2017 ; Gong et al., 2018 ; Lei and Liu, 2018 , 2019 ). These bibliometric studies mostly examined a sub-area of linguistics, such as corpus linguistics ( Liao and Lei, 2017 ), translation studies ( van Doorslaer and Gambier, 2015 ), the teaching of Chinese as a second/foreign language ( Gong et al., 2018 ), academic journals like System ( Lei and Liu, 2018 ) or Porta Linguarum ( Sabiote and Rodríguez, 2015 ), etc. Although Lei and Liu (2019) took the entire discipline of linguistics under investigation, their research is exclusively focused on applied linguistics and restricted in a limited number of journals (42 journals in total), leaving publications in other linguistics disciplines and qualified journals unexamined.

Over the recent years, a number of studies have been concerned with “excellent” papers or HCPs. For example, Small (2004) surveyed the HCPs authors’ opinions on why their papers are highly cited. The strong interest, the novelty, the utility, and the high importance of the work were among the most frequently mentioned. Most authors also considered that their selected HCPs are indeed based on their most important work in their academic career. Aksnes (2003) investigated the characteristics of HCPs and found that they were generally authored by a large number of scientists, often involving international collaboration. Some researchers even attempted to predict the HCPs by building mathematical models, implying “the first mover advantage in scientific publication” ( Newman, 2008 , 2014 ). In other words, papers published earlier in a field generally are more likely to accumulate more citations than those published later. Although many papers addressed HCPs from different perspectives, they held a common belief that HCPs are very different from less or zero cited papers and thus deserve utmost attention in academic research ( Aksnes, 2003 ; Blessinger and Hrycaj, 2010 ; Yan et al., 2022 ).

Although an increased focus on research quality can be observed in different fields, opinions diverge on the range and the inclusion criterion of excellent papers. Are they ‘highly cited’, ‘top cited’, or ‘most frequently cited’ papers? Aksnes (2003) noted two different approaches to define a highly cited article, involving absolute or relative thresholds, respectively. An absolute threshold stipulates a minimum number of citations for identifying excellent papers while a relative threshold employs the percentile rank classes, for example, the top 10% most highly cited papers in a discipline or in a publication year or in a publication set. It is important to note that citations differ significantly in different fields and disciplines. A HCP in natural sciences generally accumulates more citations than its counterpart in social sciences. Thus, it is necessary to investigate HCPs from different fields separately or adopt different inclusion criterion to ensure a valid comparison.

The present study has been motivated by two considerations. First, the sizable number of publications of varied qualities in a scientific field makes it difficult or even impossible to conduct any reliable and effective literature research. Focusing on the quality publications, the HCPs in particular, might lend more credibility to the findings on trends. Second, HCPs can serve as a great platform to discover potentially important information for the development of a discipline and understand the past, present, and future of the scientific structure. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the hot topics and publication trends in the Web of Science category of linguistics or language & linguistics (shortened as linguistics in later references) with bibliometric methods. The study aims to answer the following three questions:

Who are the most productive and impactful contributors of the HCPs in WoS category of linguistics or language & linguistics in terms of publication venues, authors, and countries?
What are the most frequently explored topics in HCPs?
What are the general research trends revealed from the HCPs?

3. Materials and methods

Different from previous studies which used an arbitrary inclusion threshold (e.g., Blessinger and Hrycaj, 2010 ; Hsu and Ho, 2014 ), we rely on Essential Science Indicator (ESI) to identify the HCPs. Developed by Clarivate, a leading company in the areas of bibliometrics and scientometrics, ESI reveals emerging science trends as well as influential individuals, institutions, papers, journals, and countries in any scientific fields of inquiry by drawing on the complete WoS databases. ESI has been chosen for the following three reasons. First, ESI adopts a stricter inclusion criterion for HCPs identification. That is, a paper is selected as a HCP only when its citations exceed the top 1% citation threshold in each of the 22 ESI subject categories. Second, ESI is widely used and recognized for its reliability and authority in identifying the top-charting work, generating “excellent” metrics including hot and highly cited papers. Third, ESI automatically updates its database to generate the most recent HCPs, especially suitable for trend studies for a specified timeframe.

3.1. Data source

The data retrieval was completed at the portal of our university library on June 20, 2022. The methods to retrieve the data are described in Table 1 . The bibliometric indicators regarding the important contributors at journal/author/country levels were obtained. Specifically, after the research was completed, we clicked the “Analyze Results” bar on the result page for the detailed descriptive analysis of the retrieved bibliometric data.

Retrieval strategies.

(from Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection)

Index: Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI)

Web of Science categories = linguistics or language & linguistics

Refined by: Highly Cited Papers

Several points should be noted about the search strategies. First, we searched the bibliometric data from two sub-databases of WoS core collection: Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). There is no need to include the sub-database of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) because publications in the linguistics field are almost exclusively indexed in SSCI and A&HCI journals. WoS core collection was chosen as the data source because it boasts one of the most comprehensive and authoritative databases of bibliometric information in the world. Many previous studies utilized WoS to retrieve bibliometric data. van Oorschot et al. (2018) and Ruggeri et al. (2019) even indicated that WoS meets the highest standards in terms of impact factor and citation counts and hence guarantees the validity of any bibliometric analysis. Second, we do not restrict the document types as HCPs selection informed by ESI only considers articles and reviews. Third, we do not set the date range as the dataset of ESI-HCPs is automatically updated regularly to include the most recent 10 years of publications.

The aforementioned query obtained a total of 143 HCPs published in 48 journals contributed by 352 authors of 226 institutions. We then downloaded the raw bibliometric parameters of the 143 HCPs for follow-up analysis including publication years, authors, publication titles, countries, affiliations, abstracts, citation reports, etc. A complete list of the 143 HCPs can be found in the Supplementary Material . We collected the most recent impact factor (IF) of each journal from the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

3.2. Data analysis

3.2.1. citation analysis.

A citation threshold is the minimum number of citations obtained by ranking papers in a research field in descending order by citation counts and then selecting the top fraction or percentage of papers. In ESI, the highly cited threshold reveals the minimum number of citations received by the top 1% of papers from each of the 10 database years. In other words, a paper has to meet the minimum citation threshold that varies by research fields and by years to enter the HCP list. Of the 22 research fields in ESI, Social Science, General is a broad field covering a number of WoS categories including linguistics and language & linguistics . We checked the ESI official website to obtain the yearly highly cited thresholds in the research field of Social Science , General as shown in Figure 1 ( https://esi.clarivate.com/ThresholdsAction.action ). As we can see, the longer a paper has been published, the more citations it has to receive to meet the threshold. We then divided the raw citation numbers of HCPs with the Highly Cited Thresholds in the corresponding year to obtain the normalized citations for each HCP.

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Highly cited thresholds in the research field of Social Sciences, General.

3.2.2. Corpus analysis and manual checking

To determine the most frequently explored topics in these HCPs, we used both corpus-based analysis of word frequency and manual checking. Specifically, the more frequently a word or phrase occurs in a specifically designed corpus, the more likely it constitutes a research topic. In this study, we built an Abstract corpus with all the abstracts of the 143 HCPs, totaling 24,800 tokens. The procedures to retrieve the research topics in the Abstract corpus were as follows. First, the 143 pieces of abstracts were saved as separate .txt files in one folder. Second, AntConc ( Anthony, 2022 ), a corpus analysis tool for concordancing and text analysis, was employed to extract lists of n-grams (2–4) in decreasing order of frequency. We also generated a list of individual nouns because sometimes individual nouns can also constitute research topics. Considering our small corpus data, we adopted both frequency (3) and range criteria (3) for topic candidacy. That is, a candidate n-gram must occur at least 3 times and in at least 3 different abstract files. The frequency threshold guarantees the importance of the candidate topics while the range threshold guarantees that the topics are not overly crowded in a few number of publications. In this process, we actually tested the frequency and range thresholds several rounds for the inclusion of all the potential topics. In total, we obtained 531 nouns, 1,330 2-grams, 331 3-grams, and 81 4-grams. Third, because most of the retrieved n-grams cannot function as meaningful research topics, we manually checked all the candidate items and discussed extensively to decide their roles as potential research topics until full agreements were reached. Finally, we read all the abstracts of the 143 HCPs to further validate their roles as research topics. In the end, we got 118 topic items in total.

4.1. Main publication venues of HCPs

Of the 48 journals which published the 143 HCPs, 17 journals have contributed at least 3 HCPs ( Table 2 ), around 71.33% of the total examined HCPs (102/143), indicating that HCPs tend to be highly concentrated in a limited number of journals. The three largest publication outlets of HCPs are Bilingualism Language and Cognition (16), International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (11), and Modern Language Journal (10). Because each journal varies greatly in the number of papers published per year and the number of HCPs is associated with journal circulations, we divided the total number of papers (TP) in the examined years (2011–2021) with the number of the HCPs to acquire the HCP percentage for each journal (HCPs/TP). The three journals with the highest HCPs/TP percentage are Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2.26), Modern Language Journal (2.08), and Bilingualism Language and Cognition (1.74), indicating that papers published in these journals have a higher probability to enter the HCPs list.

Top 17 publication venues of HCPs.

N	N%	TP	N/TP % (R)	TC	TC/HCP (R)	IF
16	11.19	918	1.74(3)	1,699	106.19(14)	4.763
11	7.70	829	1.33(6)	349	31.7(17)	3.165
10	7.00	480	2.08(2)	1,353	135.3(12)	7.5
7	4.90	730	0.96(10)	5,865	837.86(1)	4.521
7	4.90	1,472	0.48(15)	533	76.14(15)	4.518
6	4.20	1,040	0.58(13)	1,161	193.50(9)	4.018
6	4.20	627	0.96(10)	1,186	197.67(8)	4.155
6	4.20	509	1.18(7)	975	162.50(11)	5.24
4	2.80	281	1.42(5)	538	134.50(13)	3.063
4	2.80	354	1.13(8)	2,135	533.75(2)	7.778
4	2.80	2,122	0.19(17)	1,215	303.75(3)	1.86
4	2.80	371	1.08(9)	859	214.75(6)	4.769
4	2.80	681	0.59(12)	213	53.25(16)	3.401
4	2.80	244	1.64(4)	1,137	284.25(4)	4.158
3	2.10	133	2.26(1)	755	251.67(5)	3.87
3	2.10	588	0.51(14)	644	214.67(7)	5.964
3	2.10	813	0.37(16)	549	183.00(10)	2.842

N: the number of HCPs in each journal; N%: the percentage of HCPs in each journal in the total of 143 HCPs; TP: the total number of papers in the examined timespan (2011–2021); N/TP %: the percentage of HCPs in the total journal publications in the examined time span; TC/HCP: average citations of each HCP; R: journal ranking for the designated indicator; IF: Impact Factor in the year of 2022.

In terms of the general impact of the HCPs from each journal, we divided the number of HCPs with their total citations (TC) to obtain the average citations for each HCP (TC/HCP). The three journals with the highest TC/HCP are Journal of Memory and Language (837.86), Computational Linguistics (533.75), and Journal of Pragmatics (303.75). It indicates that even in the same WoS category, HCPs in different journals have strikingly different capability to accumulate citations. For example, the TC/HCP in System is as low as 31.73, which is even less than 4% of the highest TC/HCP in Journal of Memory and Language .

In regards to the latest journal impact factor (IF) in 2022, the top four journals with the highest IF are Computational Linguistics (7.778) , Modern Language Journal (7.5), Computer Assisted Language Learning (5.964), and Language Learning (5.24). According to the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) quantile rankings in WoS category of linguistics , all the journals on the list belong to the Q 1 (the top 25%), indicating that contributors are more likely to be attracted to contribute and cite papers in these prestigious high impact journals.

4.2. Authors of HCPs

A total of 352 authors had their names listed in the 143 HCPs, of whom 33 authors appeared in at least 2 HCPs as shown in Table 3 . We also provided in Table 3 other indicators to evaluate the authors’ productivity and impact including the total number of citations (TC), the number of citations per HCP, and the number of First author or Corresponding author HCPs (FA/CA). The reason we include the FA/CA indicator is that first authors and corresponding authors are usually considered to contribute the most and should receive greater proportion of credit in academic publications ( Marui et al., 2004 ; Dance, 2012 ).

Authors with at least 2 HCPs.

Affiliations	N	FA/CA	TC	C/HCP
Birkbeck Univ London	7	2	492	70.3
Huazhong Univ Sci & Technol	5	5	215	43
UCL	5	2	576	115.2
CUNY	3	1	543	181
Cape Breton Univ	3	2	292	97.33
Univ Basel	3	3	392	130.7
Univ British Columbia	3	1	915	305
CUNY	3	2	543	181
No Arizona Univ	3	1	676	225.3
Univ Michigan	2	1	375	187.5
Univ Auckland	2	0	98	49
UCL	2	2	956	478
York Univ	2	2	241	120.5
Karl Franzens Univ Graz	2	0	204	102
Georgetown Univ	2	1	395	197.5
Univ Potsdam	2	0	694	347
Univ Tubingen	2	1	280	140
Univ Ghent	2	1	162	81
Penn State Univ	2	2	537	268.5
Golestan Univ	2	1	77	38.5
Univ Nottingham	2	1	281	140.5
Univ New South Wales	2	1	86	43
Ningbo Univ	2	2	61	30.5
Amer Univ Sharjah	2	0	204	102
Xiamen Univ	2	2	127	63.5
Univ Potsdam	2	0	694	347
Hong Kong Polytech Univ	2	2	148	74
Univ Technol Sydney	2	2	206	103
Macquarie University	2	2	226	113
Univ Maryland	2	1	292	146
CUNY	2	2	475	237.5
UiT Arctic Univ Norway;	2	1	146	73
Univ Nottingham	2	0	124	62

N: number of HCPs from each author; FA/CA: first author or corresponding author HCPs; TC: total citations of the HCPs from each author; C/HCP: average citations per HCP for each author.

In terms of the number of HCPs, Dewaele JM from Birkbeck Univ London tops the list with 7 HCPs with total citations of 492 (TC = 492), followed by Li C from Huazhong Univ Sci & Technol (#HCPs = 5; TC = 215) and Saito K from UCL (#HCPs = 5; TC = 576). It is to be noted that both Li C and Saito K have close academic collaborations with Dewaele JM . For example, 3 of the 5 HCPs by Li C are co-authored with Dewaele JM . The topics in their co-authored HCPs are mostly about foreign language learning emotions such as boredom , anxiety , enjoyment , the measurement , and positive psychology .

In regards to TC, Li, W . from UCL stands out as the most influential scholar among all the listed authors with total citations of 956 from 2 HCPs, followed by Norton B from Univ British Columbia (TC = 915) and Vasishth S from Univ Potsdam (TC = 694). The average citations per HCP from them are also the highest among the listed authors (478, 305, 347, respectively). It is important to note that Li, W.’ s 2 HCPs are his groundbreaking works on translanguaging which almost become must-reads for anyone who engages in translanguaging research ( Li, 2011 , 2018 ). Besides, Li, W. single authors his 2 HCPs, which is extremely rare as HCPs are often the results from multiple researchers. Norton B ’s HCPs are exploring some core issues in applied linguistics such as identity and investment , language learning , and social change that are considered the foundational work in its field ( Norton and Toohey, 2011 ; Darvin and Norton, 2015 ).

From the perspective of FA/CA papers, Li C from Huazhong Univ Sci and Technol is prominent because she is the first author of all her 5 HCPs. Her research on language learning emotions in the Chinese context is gaining widespread recognition ( Li et al., 2018 , 2019 , 2021 ; Li, 2019 , 2021 ). However, as a newly emerging researcher, most of her HCPs are published in the very recent years and hence accumulate relatively fewer citations (TC = 215). Mondada L from Univ Basel follows closely and single authors her 3 HCPs. Her work is mostly devoted to conversation analysis , multimodality , and social interaction ( Mondada, 2016 , 2018 , 2019 ).

We need to mention the following points regarding the productive authors of HCPs. First, when we calculated the number of HCPs from each author, only the papers published in the journals indexed in the investigated WoS categories were taken in account ( linguistics; language & linguistics ), which came as a compromise to protect the linguistics oriented nature of the HCPs. For example, Brysbaert M from Ghent University claimed a total of 8 HCPs at the time of the data retrieval, of which 6 HCPs were published in WoS category of psychology and more psychologically oriented, hence not included in our study. Besides, all the authors on the author list were treated equally when we calculated the number of HCPs, disregarding the author ordering. That implies that some influential authors may not be able to enter the list as their publications are comparatively fewer. Second, as some authors reported different affiliations at their different career stages, we only provide their most recent affiliation for convenience. Third, it is highly competitive to have one’s work selected as HCPs. The fact that a majority of the HCPs authors do not appear in our productive author list does not diminish their great contributions to this field. The rankings in Table 3 does not necessarily reflect the recognition authors have earned in academia at large.

4.3. Productive countries of HCPs

In total, the 143 HCPs originated from 33 countries. The most productive countries that contributed at least three HCPs are listed in Table 4 . The USA took an overwhelming lead with 59 HCPs, followed distantly by England with 31 HCPs. They also boasted the highest total citations (TC = 15,770; TC = 9,840), manifesting their high productivity and strong influence as traditional powerhouses in linguistics research. In regards to the average citations per HCP, Germany , England and the USA were the top three countries (TC/HCP = 281.67, 281.14, and 267.29, respectively). Although China held the third position with 19 HCPs published, its TC/HCP is the third from the bottom (TC/HCP = 66.84). One of the important reasons is that 13 out of the 19 HCPs contributed by scholars in China are published in the year of 2020 or 2021. The newly published HCPs may need more time to accumulate citations. Besides, 18 out of the 19 HCPs in China are first author and/or corresponding authors, indicating that scholars in China are becoming more independent and gaining more voice in English linguistics research.

Top 18 countries with at least 3 HCPs.

HCPs	HCPs %	TC	C/HCP	FA/CA
59	41.26	15,770	267.29	53
35	24.48	9,840	281.14	26
19	13.29	1,270	66.84	18
15	10.49	3,981	265.40	13
12	8.39	1,061	88.42	10
9	6.29	2,535	281.67	5
6	4.20	469	78.17	5
5	3.50	216	43.20	5
4	2.80	668	167.00	1
4	2.80	540	135.00	0
4	2.80	549	137.25	2
4	2.80	539	134.75	3
3	2.10	274	91.33	3
3	2.10	521	173.67	3
3	2.10	523	174.33	0
3	2.10	115	38.33	1
3	2.10	393	131.00	3
3	2.10	232	77.33	1

Two points should be noted here as to the productive countries. First, we calculated the HCP contributions from the country level instead of the region level. In other words, HCP contributions from different regions of the same country will be combined in the calculation. For example, HCPs from Scotland were added to the HCPs from England . HCPs from Hong Kong , Macau , and Taiwan are put together with the HCPs from Mainland China . In this way, a clear picture of the HCPs on the country level can be painted. Second, we manually checked the address information of the first author and corresponding author for each HCP. There are some cases where the first author or the corresponding author may report affiliations from more than one country. In this case, every country in their address list will be treated equally in the FA/CA calculation. In other word, a HCP may be classified into more than one country because of the different country backgrounds of the first and/or the corresponding author.

4.4. Top 20 HCPs

The top 20 HCPs with the highest normed citations are listed in decreasing order in Table 5 . The top cited publications can guide us to better understand the development and research topics in recent years.

Top 20 HCPs.

#	RC	NC	Authors	Title (Publication Year)	Journals
1	4,677	38.88	Barr, D.J., et al.	Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: keep it maximal (2013)	Journal of Memory and Language
2	519	20.24	Lee, JB & Azios, JH	Facilitator Behaviors Leading to Engagement and Disengagement in Aphasia Conversation Groups (2020)	American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
3	583	8.57	Matuschek, H, et al.	Balancing type I error and power in linear mixed models (2017)	Journal of Memory and Language
4	1,313	8.42	Taboada, M, et al.	Lexicon-Based methods for sentiment analysis (2011)	Computational Linguistics
5	374	7.06	Li, W	Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of language (2018)	Applied Linguistics
6	136	5.44	Alva Manchego, F, et al.	Data-Driven sentence simplification: survey and benchmark (2020)	Computational Linguistics
7	693	5.22	Heritage, J	The epistemic engine: sequence organization and territories of language (2012)	Research on Language and Social Interaction
8	46	5.11	Zhang, Q; Yang, T	Reflections on the medium of instruction for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang: the case of bilingual schools in Urumqi (2021)	International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
9	560	5.08	Plonsky, L; Oswald, FL	How big is big? interpreting effect sizes in L2 research (2014)	Language Learning
10	371	4.65	Kuperberg, GR; Jaeger, TF	What do we mean by prediction in language comprehension? (2016)	Language Cognition and Neuroscience
11	41	4.56	Greenier, V, et al.	Emotion regulation and psychological well-being in teacher work engagement: a case of British and Iranian English…(2021)	System
12	240	4.49	Macaro, E, et al.	A systematic review of English medium instruction in higher education (2018)	Language Teaching
13	406	4.26	Otheguy, R, et al.	Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages:a perspective from linguistics (2015)	Applied Linguistics Review
14	107	4.24	Schad, DJ, et al.	How to capitalize on contrasts in linear(mixed) models: a tutorial (2020)	Journal of Memory and Language
15	38	4.22	Shirvan, ME; Taherian, T	Longitudinal examination of university students’ foreign language enjoyment and foreign language classroom anxiety…(2021)	International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
16	101	4.04	MacIntyre, PD, et al.	Language teachers’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 conversion to online…(2020)	System
17	320	4.03	Atkinson, D, et al.	A transdisciplinary framework for SLA in a multilingual world (2016)	Modern Language Journal
18	36	4.00	Jin, YX; Zhang, LJ	The dimensions of foreign language classroom enjoyment and their effect on foreign language achievement (2021)	International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
19	35	3.89	Derakhshan, A, et al.	Boredom in online classes in the Iranian EFL contexts: sources and solutions (2021)	System
20	575	3.83	Wei, L	Moment analysis and translanguaging space: discursive construction of identities…(2011)	Journal of Pragmatics

To save space, not full information about the HCPs is given. Some article titles have been abbreviated if they are too lengthy; for the authors, we report the first two authors and use “et al” if there are three authors or more; RC: raw citations; NC: normalized citations

By reading the titles and the abstracts of these top HCPs, we categorized the topics of the 20 HCPs into the following five groups: (i) statistical and analytical methods in (psycho)linguistics such as sentimental analysis, sentence simplification techniques, effect sizes, linear mixed models (#1, 3, 4, 6, 9, 14), (ii) language learning/teaching emotions such enjoyment, anxiety, boredom, stress (#11, 15, 16, 18, 19), (iii) translanguaging or multilinguilism (#5, 13, 20, 17), (iv) language perception (#2, 7, 10), (v) medium of instruction (#8, 12). It is no surprise that 6 out of the top 20 HCPs are about statistical methods in linguistics because language researchers aspire to employ statistics to make their research more scientific. Besides, we noticed that the papers on language teaching/learning emotions on the list are all published in the year of 2020 and 2021, indicating that these emerging topics may deserve more attention in future research. We also noticed two Covid-19 related articles (#16, 19) explored the emotions teachers and students experience during the pandemic, a timely response to the urgent need of the language learning and teaching community.

It is of special interest to note that papers from the journals indexed in multiple JCR categories seem to accumulate more citations. For example, Journal of Memory and Language , American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology , and Computational Linguistics are indexed both in SSCI and SCIE and contribute the top 4 HCPs, manifesting the advantage of these hybrid journals in amassing citations compared to the conventional language journals. Besides, different to findings from Yan et al. (2022) that most of the top HCPs in the field of radiology are reviews in document types, 19 out of the top 20 HCPs are research articles instead of reviews except Macaro et al. (2018) .

4.5. Most frequently explored topics of HCPs

After obtaining the corpus based topic items, we read all the titles and abstracts of the 143 HCPs to further validate their roles as research topics. Table 6 presents the top research topics with the observed frequency of 5 or above. We grouped these topics into five broad categories: bilingual-related, language learning/teaching-related, psycho/pathological/cognitive linguistics-related, methods and tools-related, and others . The observed frequency count for each topic in the abstract corpus were included in the brackets. We found that about 34 of the 143 HCPs are exploring bilingual related issues, the largest share among all the categorized topics, testifying its academic popularity in the examined timespan. Besides, 30 of the 143 HCPs are investigating language learning/teaching-related issues, with topics ranging from learners (e.g., EFL learners, individual difference) to multiple learning variables (e.g., learning strategy, motivation, agency). The findings here will be validated by the analysis of the keywords.

Categorization of the most explored research topics.

Categories	N	hot topic items
Multilingual-related	34	Multilingualism(127), translanguaging(42), heritage language/speakers/learners(31), language/education policy(6)
Language learning/teaching-related	30	Language/writing development(35), academic writing/vocabulary/publishing(22), learning strategy(20), motivation(17), individual differences(13), CLIL(11), agency(11), flipped classroom(9), self-efficacy(9), EFL learner(7), ELF (7), early language(7)
Psycho/pathological/cognitive linguistics-related	25	Emotion(47), FLE(42), cognition(39), anxiety(35), FLCA(30), stuttering(21), anxiety/language/fluency disorder(16), boredom(14), language impairment(14), brain(11), working memory(9), speech language pathology/therapy/pathologists(7), positive psychology(6), language ideology(5)
Methods and tools-related	16	Model(67), review (35), qualitative data(14), quantitative data(8), corpus-based studies/teaching(6), longitudinal study/analysis(5), sentiment analysis(5), meta-analysis(5), eye tracking(4), mixed method(4)
Others	38	Lexical(25), identity(21), social interaction/difficulties(17), sematic models/mapping(15), Covid-19(9)

N: the number of the HCPs in each topic category; ELF: English as a lingua franca; CLIL: content and language integrated learning; FLE: foreign language enjoyment; FLCA: foreign language classroom anxiety

Several points should be mentioned regarding the topic candidacy. First, for similar topic expressions, we used a cover term and added the frequency counts. For example, multilingualism is a cover term for bilinguals, bilingualism, plurilingualism, and multilingualism . Second, for nouns of singular and plural forms (e.g., emotion and emotions ) or for items with different spellings (e.g., meta analysis and meta analyses ), we combined the frequency counts. Third, we found that some longer items (3 grams and 4 grams) could be subsumed to short ones (2 grams or monogram) without loss of essential meaning (e.g., working memory from working memory capacity ). In this case, the shorter ones were kept for their higher frequency. Fourth, some highly frequent terms were discarded because they were too general to be valuable topics in language research, for example, applied linguistics , language use , second language .

5. Discussion and implications

Based on 143 highly cited papers collected from the WoS categories of linguistics , the present study attempts to present a bird’s eye view of the publication landscape and the most updated research themes reflected from the HCPs in the linguistics field. Specifically, we investigated the important contributors of HCPs in terms of journals, authors and countries. Besides, we spotlighted the research topics by corpus-based analysis of the abstracts and a detailed analysis of the top HCPs. The study has produced several findings that bear important implications.

The first finding is that the HCPs are highly concentrated in a limited journals and countries. In regards to journals, those in the spheres of bilingualism and applied linguistics (e.g., language teaching and learning) are likely to accumulate more citations and hence to produce more HCPs. Journals that focus on bilingualism from a linguistic, psycholinguistic, and neuroscientific perspective are the most frequent outlets of HCPs as evidenced by the top two productive journals of HCPs, Bilingualism Language and Cognition and International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism . This can be explained by the multidisciplinary nature of bilingual-related research and the development of cognitive measurement techniques. The merits of analyzing publication venues of HCPs are two folds. One the one hand, it can point out which sources of high-quality publications in this field can be inquired for readers as most of the significant and cutting-edge achievements are concentrated in these prestigious journals. On the other hand, it also provides essential guidance or channels for authors or contributors to submit their works for higher visibility.

In terms of country distributions, the traditional powerhouses in linguistics research such as the USA and England are undoubtedly leading the HCP publications in both the number and the citations of the HCPs. However, developing countries are also becoming increasing prominent such as China and Iran , which could be traceable in the funding and support of national language policies and development policies as reported in recent studies ( Ping et al., 2009 ; Lei and Liu, 2019 ). Take China as an example. Along with economic development, China has given more impetus to academic outputs with increased investment in scientific research ( Lei and Liao, 2017 ). Therefore, researchers in China are highly motivated to publish papers in high-quality journals to win recognition in international academia and to deal with the publish or perish pressure ( Lee, 2014 ). These factors may explain the rise of China as a new emerging research powerhouse in both natural and social sciences, including English linguistics research.

The second finding is the multilingual trend in linguistics research. The dominant clustering of topics regarding multilingualism can be understood as a timely response to the multilingual research fever ( May, 2014 ). 34 out of the 143 HCPs have such words as bilingualism, bilingual, multilingualism , translanguaging , etc., in their titles, reflecting a strong multilingual tendency of the HCPs. Multilingual-related HCPs mainly involve three aspects: multilingualism from the perspectives of psycholinguistics and cognition (e.g., Luk et al., 2011 ; Leivada et al., 2020 ); multilingual teaching (e.g., Schissel et al., 2018 ; Ortega, 2019 ; Archila et al., 2021 ); language policies related to multilingualism (e.g., Shen and Gao, 2018 ). As a pedagogical process initially used to describe the bilingual classroom practice and also a frequently explored topic in HCPs, translanguaging is developed into an applied linguistics theory since Li’s Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language ( Li, 2018 ). The most common collocates of translanguaging in the Abstract corpus are pedagogy/pedagogies, practices, space/spaces . There are two main reasons for this multilingual turn. First, the rapid development of globalization, immigration, and overseas study programs greatly stimulate the use and research of multiple languages in different linguistic contexts. Second, in many non-English countries, courses are delivered through languages (mostly English) besides their mother tongue ( Clark, 2017 ). Students are required to use multiple languages as resources to learn and understand subjects and ideas. The burgeoning body of English Medium Instruction literature in higher education is in line with the rising interest in multilingualism. Due to the innate multidisciplinary nature, it is to be expected that, multilingualism, the topic du jour, is bound to attract more attention in the future.

The third finding is the application of Positive Psychology (PP) in second language acquisition (SLA), that is, the positive trend in linguistic research. In our analysis, 20 out of 143 HCPs have words or phrases such as emotions, enjoyment, boredom, anxiety , and positive psychology in their titles, which might signal a shift of interest in the psychology of language learners and teachers in different linguistic environments. Our study shows Foreign language enjoyment (FLE) is the most frequently explored emotion, followed by foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), the learners’ metaphorical left and right feet on their journey to acquiring the foreign language ( Dewaele and MacIntyre, 2016 ). In fact, the topics of PP are not entirely new to SLA. For example, studies of language motivations, affections, and good language learners all provide roots for the emergence of PP in SLA ( Naiman, 1978 ; Gardner, 2010 ). In recent years, both research and teaching applications of PP in SLA are building rapidly, with a diversity of topics already being explored such as positive education and PP interventions. It is to be noted that SLA also feeds back on PP theories and concepts besides drawing inspirations from it, which makes it “an area rich for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization of ideas” ( Macintyre et al., 2019 ).

It should be noted that subjectivity is involved when we decide and categorize the candidate topic items based on the Abstract corpus. However, the frequency and range criteria guarantee that these items are actually more explored in multiple HCPs, thus indicating topic values for further investigation. Some high frequent n-grams are abandoned because they are too general or not meaningful topics. For example, applied linguistics is too broad to be included as most of the HCPs concern issues in this research line instead of theoretical linguistics. By meaningful topics, we mean that the topics can help journal editors and readers quickly locate their interested fields ( Lei and Liu, 2019 ), as the author keywords such as bilingualism , emotions , and individual differences . The examination of the few 3/4-grams and monograms (mostly nouns) revealed that most of them were either not meaningful topics or they could be subsumed in the 2-grams. Besides, there is inevitably some overlapping in the topic categorizations. For example, some topics in the language teaching and learning category are situated and discussed within the context of multilingualism. The merits of topic categorizations are two folds: to better monitor the overlapping between the Abstract corpus-based topic items and the keywords; to roughly delineate the research strands in the HCPs for future research.

It should also be noted that all the results were based on the retrieved HCPs only. The study did not aim to paint a comprehensive and full picture of the whole landscape of linguistic research. Rather, it specifically focused on the most popular literature in a specified timeframe, thus generating the snapshots or trends in linguistic research. One of the important merits of this methodology is that some newly emerging but highly cited researchers can be spotlighted and gain more academic attention because only the metrics of HCPs are considered in calculation. On the contrary, the exclusion of some other highly cited researchers in general such as Rod Ellis and Ken Hyland just indicates that their highly cited publications are not within our investigated timeframe and cannot be interpreted as their diminishing academic influence in the field. Besides, the study does not consider the issue of collaborators or collaborations in calculating the number of HCPs for two reasons. First, although some researchers are regular collaborators such as Li CC and Dewaele JM, their individual contribution can never be undermined. Second, the study also provides additional information about the number of the FA/CA HCPs from each listed author, which may aid readers in locating their interested research.

We acknowledge that our study has some limitations that should be addressed in future research. First, our study focuses on the HCPs extracted from WoS SSCI and A&HCI journals, the alleged most celebrated papers in this field. Future studies may consider including data from other databases such as Scopus to verify the findings of the present study. Second, our Abstract corpus-based method for topic extraction involved human judgement. Although the final list was the result of several rounds of discussions among the authors, it is difficult or even impossible to avoid subjectivity and some worthy topics may be unconsciously missed. Therefore, future research may consider employing automatic algorithms to extract topics. For example, a dependency-based machine learning approach can be used to identify research topics ( Zhu and Lei, 2021 ).

Data availability statement

Author contributions.

SY: conceptualization and methodology. SY and LZ: writing-review and editing and writing-original draft. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work was supported by Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Fund of China MOE under the grant 20YJC740076 and 18YJC740141.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1052586/full#supplementary-material

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Interesting Linguistic Topics in Special Languages

There are over a million languages in the world. However, specific languages have been more widely spoken than others. The English language is considered to be the most spoken language all over the world.

Other languages such as French, Spanish, Chinese, Deutsch, and Portuguese are also relevant languages. Identified below are topics in linguistics you can consider in related to a few of these languages;

English Linguistics Research Topics

As a linguistics student, it is almost impossible not to research an English linguistics topic. Perhaps your subsequent research requires that you have a topic relating to English. You can consider the following topics;

The factor behind the universal speaking of English
The origin of the English language
Why are there variations of the English language?
Research on cognitive literacy in English poetry
Research on people’s choice between English and indigenous language
The effect of age on English pronunciation
Post-Tudor English: The similarities and the differences

Spanish Research Topics Linguistics

The Spanish language is one of the most studied languages in universities. The Hispanic language is categorized into old Spain and modern Spain. As such, there are a lot of research topics to consider in this area. The following are linguistics research topics in the Spanish language;

The history of the Hispanic language
Adopting Spanish as a second language: Effects of formal instructions
Research on models for Spanish phonology
Spanish language acquisition: The effect of social factors
Research on the history of the Hispanic language
Research on the difference and similarities between the medieval and the modern Spanish language
Research on the political and socio-cultural aspects of the Spanish language

Chinese Linguistics Research Topics

The Chinese language is the ancient language of the world has found preference in linguistics. There are different linguistics research topics you can consider as it relates to the Chinese language. Some of these topics are;

Difference between mass nouns and count nouns in Mandarin Chinese
Learning the Chinese language: Factors affecting proper acquisition of language
Challenges in effective teaching of the Chinese language
Research on the word ‘Chinese’: Its variations as a language and other referents
Research on word stress in Chinese linguistics
Research on English loan words in the Chinese language
Analysis of sound patterns in southern and central Chinese

Linguistic Anthropology Research Topics

Language as a whole is anthropology study. Linguistics research paper topics at times may have to deal with holistic aspects of language. Hence, the following are anthropology research topics you may want to consider;

The effect of mother’s tongue on the proper pronunciation of a second language
Research on the origin of human language
Human modes of communications aside from languages
What are the uses of a language other than communication?
Research on the relationship between culture and language
The reasons behind speaking different languages
Human growth and the acquisition of language

Linguistics Argumentative Research Topics

Languages are a universal subject. It is essential not to have a few things to disagree on regarding language and its uses. Different people have different dispositions to language and how it has been predicted either by culture or usage.

As such, you might need to carry out argumentative research in linguistics. The following are research topics for argumentative research;

Did the primitive man communicate in language or signs?
Is language the most impressive form of communication?
Does learning more than one language enhance human reasoning?
Is it possible for a brain injury to affect the acquisition of language?
Is it possible for someone to come up with a new language at this age?
Is it essential for a person to learn more than one language?
The truth about the uniqueness of language to culture

Research Topics about Language History

The study of language is not complete without looking into human history. Every language has a history. As a result, most linguistics students tailor their research writing to the historical aspect of language. The following are historical linguistics paper topics you may consider;

Research on the mythology analysis of language history
The speculations and the truth about the origin of human language
The contribution of Greek philosophy on language
Research on different theories and evaluations on human language
The unanswered questions about the origin of human language.
Speculations on the evolution of man and his language
Research on the ancient Greek and Latin language in relation to the English language.

Sociolinguistic Research Topics

Language, culture, and society are inseparable entities. The role of language in the formation of human society is consequential. Hence, linguistics takes sociocultural as it relates to language into studies. As such, linguistics students are bound to carry out sociolinguistic research. The following are linguistics essay topics as it relates to sociocultural;

What are the roles of family and environment in language acquisition?
Language and identity: The relationship and the misconception
Ethnicity and language: The relationship and the disparities
What roles does language play in achieving unity in society?
Factors responsible for language variation within a community.
Multilingual language choice and its benefits on society
Sociolinguistic and its impact on social change and community development.

Computational Linguistics Research Topics

Computational linguistics is a sub-course for students studying linguistics. It is the study of language using statistical modeling and computational perspective. It can be a tedious aspect of linguistics for research. However, we have compiled research topics in languages you can consider as far as computational linguistics is concerned. The topics are as follows;

Analyzing medieval German language and poetry using supervised learning
Research on the performance measures of speech recognition
Research on how to find the dataset for Schizophrenia text
The effectiveness of computational linguistics in suggesting inter-language contrastive corpus evaluation
Danish verb extraction: The where and the how
Research on most viable computer-assisted software for comparison of phonetics in different dialects
Multidimensional analysis of linguistics: The definition and the characteristics

University Honors Topics in Linguistics

University students, especially undergraduates, are expected to write a lot of research papers. The research on each topic allows students to have a broader scope of what they have learned.

Having outstanding evaluations and grades for your research paper can enhance graduating as an exceptional student. The following research paper topics about language can be regarded as potential honors topics;

The negative and the positive effect of computers on modern-day language
Social media and text messages: The new language subculture
Research on the connection of emotion, communication, and language
How the brain works and the assimilation process while learning a new language
The distinction between verbal and non-verbal communication
Research on how political leaders employ languages as a tool for controlling the masses’ emotions
The effect of technology on language and communication

Best Dissertation Topics in Linguistics

It is not all linguistics paper topics that are dissertation-worthy. Some are good for ordinary research papers and essays. A linguistics topic meant for dissertation writing must be a topic with the capacity for a comprehensive exposition.

Writing a Ph.D. thesis in linguistics must feature a compelling topic and in-depth analysis in the paper. The following research topics in language are potential dissertation topics;

The system review of vowel pronunciation in the United Kingdom as compared to the United States
The evolution of slang and colloquial words
The effect of age in English language pronunciation
The use of sociolinguistic media in creating bias and for competition
Eye-tracking technology: What it is and its effect on applied language advancement
Comprehensive research on methods of applied linguistics
Language barrier in healthcare delivery: The effect and the solutions

Linguistics is a field of study with a broad scope. Researching this field can be a demanding one. The problem is half solved when you have been able to secure the best topic. However, you must ensure the topic chosen is related to the research assigned.

Developing your research paper starts with brainstorming on the linguistics research topic. This act helps generate ideas needed to develop tangible arguments. Furthermore, you can do research online or consult materials that could be helpful.

Generally speaking, writing a research paper can be demanding. Hence, you may want to seek the help of professional writers to handle your research paper writing.

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Research Topics in Applied Linguistics as Keywords from Authors and Keywords from Abstracts: A Bibliometric Study

First Online: 08 February 2024

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William S. Pearson ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0768-8461 3

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Applied linguists are increasingly looking to bibliometric analyses for top-down insights into the rapidly expanding and diversifying body of literature and to stay abreast of research trends in order to make informed decisions about what issues to research. Authors’ choices of keywords play an important role in conveying the topic of a research article, yet recent applied linguistics bibliometric analyses have largely ignored them. This study examines the author-provided keywords of 23,481 research articles across 42 high-ranking applied linguistics publications during three intervals between 2001 and 2021. It identifies (1) the prevalence of author-supplied keywords, (2) their lengths (measured in words), (3) syntactic structural patterns (e.g., noun + noun), (4) constituent word classes (e.g., noun, adjective, preposition), and, (5) the most frequent research topics as measured by keywords from authors and abstracts. The study found increasing standardisation in the provision of author keywords across research articles, especially combinations of four to six keywords that heavily featured nouns and adjectives in one to three-word phrases. The study identified several themes among topics of enduring, rising, and falling prevalence, although a notable divergence was exhibited between keywords from authors and abstracts. The implications for future bibliometric analyses that investigate research topics and other meta-research that utilises author-assigned keywords are discussed.

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On the scientometric value of full-text, beyond abstracts and titles: evidence from the business and economic literature

Avoiding obscure topics and generalising findings produces higher impact research.

The Seeds of the NEH Algorithm: An Overview Using Bibliometric Analysis

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Pearson, W.S. (2024). Research Topics in Applied Linguistics as Keywords from Authors and Keywords from Abstracts: A Bibliometric Study. In: Meihami, H., Esfandiari, R. (eds) A Scientometrics Research Perspective in Applied Linguistics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51726-6_5

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Research Paper Writing Guides

Linguistics Research Paper Topics for Students

Linguistics as a subject refers to studying different languages from several perspectives. And while you think writing a language essay equals describing the English language, you mustn’t get the point. This covers many fields like phonology, phonetics, semantics, morphology, and others.

First, you must choose its topic, whether you have to write a research paper or a language essay.

Interesting Language Essay Topics Just for You

Many linguistic phenomena can be described in language essays. But, at least, considering that there are more than 7,000 other languages worldwide, the choice becomes overwhelming. And you can spend so much time looking through books and generating some suitable language essay topics. But there is a way to make the selection process easier: use our linguistics topic suggestions as an inspiration. So go ahead and choose your perfect language essay topic!

How to Choose a Topic for a Language Essay?

Selecting a topic for your language essay is not a chaotic process. However, it does require following a particular procedure. Below, you can find the steps that will help you to pick up successful language essay topics.

Always focus on your preferences. Essay writing will not be accessible without inspiration. And that comes from choosing the area you are fond of. If you feel like researching the phenomenon of the English language – go ahead. But if you are into discovering other languages – why don’t you try that? At least you will be interested in writing your language essay.
Learn the trends. It is always crucial to remember that your essay should be relevant to modern discoveries in linguistics. You can read some works of modern linguists to get ideas of the actual discovery ground.
Research the sources. You want to write your language essays on themes that have a solid background. If you choose a controversial topic, it might be challenging for you to stand the position professionally. So always check the literature field when you decide on a specific topic.
Choose a particular time and field. As much as there are different languages, you can find schools, theories, and linguists. But your task is to single out one period of linguistics development.
Brainstorm some ideas. Write a lot of synonyms for the theme you are weighing up. Read similar topics to your opinions as it will help you to form your language essay topic properly.
Consult your professor. Having more expertise in academic writing, your professor will advise you whether your topic is a great match. The professional consultation will also guide you through the following essay-writing steps.

Foreign Language Essay: Best Topics

It is always helpful to have some language essay topics as an example. In this section, you will find the top 20 themes in linguistics at your disposal.

English as a second language: how to become fluent in English?
What is the influence of the mother tongue in learning other languages?
Gender differences in language
What impact do dialects have on the English language?
Does the fact of knowing different languages increase the level of literacy?
Will any other language replace the English language as the global language?
Comparative analysis of British and American accents
Language acquisition definition
Spanish language in medieval times and nowadays: a comparative study
How do the Central and Northern Chinese differ?
The history of the Italian language
Phonetics of the most melodious language in the world – the Italian language
Why do children learn different languages easier than adults?
Will the Chinese language replace the English language?
The phonology of the words in the English language is borrowed from the French language
The confluence of religion in the Arab language
Analyzing the language branches
Vowel pronunciation in British English
Non-verbal communication in the Italian language
What is the role of applied linguistics in teaching the English language?

Best Language Topics for Research Paper

Are you ready to meet another portion of the inspiration for your language essay topic selection process? Meet our following 25 topics for research papers in linguistics below.

Why is the language arbitrary?
Teaching English as a second language with the audio-visual method
How can language become dead?
Can a person learning English as a second language operate and understand it as a native speaker?
How do babies learn a language?
How does translation cause misunderstanding between different languages?
Is the language connected to mythology?
The origins of the English language
How does verbal communication help to express emotions?
The unique method of learning other languages by Michel Thomas
Is sign language a natural language?
How is the meaning of the words changing in the English language?
How do immigrants influence the English language?
Why should children learn a second language?
What is more powerful: verbal or non-verbal communication?
Cultural linguistics definition
Are any changes happening in the brain when a person is learning other languages?
The harmful impact of computers on language development
Learning a second language with neuro-linguistic programming
Is bilingualism a problem?
How does the language represent our thoughts?
Post-Tudor English language
Is slang a problem for a language?
Do social media use language for influence?
The difference between phonology and phonetics.

Winning Topics for Linguistics Essay

A topic in a language essay is the first thing everyone sees. It should be compelling and beautiful. You can greatly benefit if you catch the reader’s attention from the very beginning. Use our language essay topics to make an impression on your readers!

Can the language be beautiful?
Can hate speech be called verbal violence?
Is applied linguistics still useful for modern language research?
Is knowing a written second language the same as knowing a spoken language?
The connection between literature and applied linguistics
Is multilingualism beneficial?
Can language be considered a national identity?
What is the language barrier when learning a second language?
The difference between syntax and morphology
Generative grammar principles
What languages are endangered?
Can the wording be replaced with codes?
What is the difference between adults’ second language learning and children’s second language learning?
Why are some languages easy to learn and other languages challenging to acquire?
Is the grammar-translation method still relevant in learning the English language?
What is the best way to assess a person’s ability to operate different languages?
The language definition by Vilhelm von Humboldt
Post-structuralism in linguistics
Comparative analysis of Shakespeare’s English and modern English language
What is the role of grammar in learning a second language?

Research Paper About Different Languages

Is discovering the English language, not your way? Then it would help if you chose something from the different languages research paper topics.

What are the modern methods of studying other languages?
The oldest language in the world
Slavic language branch linguistic characteristics
Analysis of artificial languages
Latin language and its influence on different languages
How did the writing originate? Analysis of writing systems
How do neologisms occur in languages?
Linguistic geography
The definition of Creole languages
Comparative analysis of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets
Indian language scripts
Ancient Arabic language and modern Arabic language
Is philology a natural science?
Famous linguists of the Medieval era
Great ape language: teaching language to gorillas and monkeys
Why can one language be spoken differently in different countries?
Lingoudidactis: modern and past methods of teaching foreign languages
Does brain injury influence the ability to acquire a language?
Origins of the Arabic alphabet
Foreign languages that are spoken in the USA.

Essay Topics on Learning Languages

Linguistics studies the phenomena of language as a system and the process of learning languages. This is a whole field of exploration, so you might also find these language essay topics suitable.

The right age to start learning a new language for children
Usage of innovative technologies in teaching the English language as a second language
How to develop communicative skills when teaching vocabulary
What are the most effective methods for learning a new language?
What should a modern language lesson look like?
Why is listening to the most challenging skill to develop when teaching languages?
Bilingual children and their psychology
Is grammar important while learning languages?
Overview of the foreign language learning strategies
The effectiveness of using educational software to learn a foreign language
The socio-cultural aspect of learning the language
Investigating cognitive processes while learning a new language
Learning languages through meditation: is it effective?
Is online education more effective when learning a language?
The history of foreign language learning methods
Case study methods in teaching languages
Game-based learning in teaching foreign languages
The direct method of teaching English overview
How to asset speaking skills in a new language?
Teaching new language through literature.

Top Ideas for Your Linguistics Essay

If you still haven’t decided which language essay topic is the best pick, we have prepared 15 bonus ideas from which you can formulate your theme for language essays.

How has technology caused the creation of a new linguistic subculture?
What role does body language play in communication?
The evolution of slang
Does someone have the predisposition to learn a language?
Is the English language a cause for other languages to become dead?
Linguistic changes in the English language
What is computational linguistics?
Linguistic dimensions overview
Diglossia in sociolinguistics
Are dictionaries still relevant?
Linguistics of commercial texts
Analysis of “How Language Shapes the Way We Think” Ted Talk by Boroditsky
The linguistics of pictograms
Overview of the translation theories
Is punctuation important in modern writing?

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This series focuses on the main topics of study in sociolinguistics today. It consists of accessible yet challenging accounts of the most important issues to consider when examining the relationship between language and society. Some topics have been the subject of sociolinguistic study for many years, and are here re-examined in the light of new developments in the field; others are issues of growing importance that have not so far been given a sustained treatment. Written by leading experts, the books in the series are designed to be used on courses and in seminars, and include useful suggestions for further reading and a helpful glossary.

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16 results in Key Topics in Sociolinguistics

Sociophonetics

Tyler Kendall , Valerie Fridland
Published online: 26 February 2021 Print publication: 11 March 2021
Get access Buy a print copy Check if you have access via personal or institutional login Log in Register
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View description Sociophonetics focuses on the relationship between phonetic or phonological form on the one hand, and social and regional factors on the other, working across fields as diverse as sociolinguistics, phonetics, speech sciences and psycholinguistics. Covering methodological, theoretical and computational approaches, this engaging introduction to sociophonetics brings new insights to age-old questions about language variation and change, and to the broader nature of language. It includes examples of important work on speech perception, focusing on vowels and sibilants throughout to provide detailed exemplification. The accompanying website provides a range of online resources, including audio files, data processing scripts and links. Written in an accessible style, this book will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, phonetics, speech sciences and psycholinguistics. See book website at http://lingtools.uoregon.edu/sociophonetics/

Language Maintenance and Shift

Anne Pauwels
Published online: 05 August 2016 Print publication: 04 August 2016
View description What motivates some linguistic minorities to maintain their language? Why do others shift away from it rather quickly? Are there specific conditions - environmental or personal - influencing these dynamics? What can families and communities do to pass on their 'threatened' language to the next generation? These and related questions are investigated in detail in Language Maintenance and Shift. In this fascinating book, Anne Pauwels analyses the patterns of language use exhibited by individuals and groups living in multilingual societies, and explores their efforts to maintain their heritage or minority language. She explores the various methods used to analyse language maintenance, from linguistic demography to linguistic biography, and offers guidance on how to research the language patterns and practices of linguistic minorities around the world.

Languages in Contact

Lisa Lim , Umberto Ansaldo
Published online: 05 November 2015 Print publication: 29 September 2015
View description Introducing new findings from popular culture, the globalised new economy and computer-mediated communication, this is a fascinating study of contact between languages in modern societies. Ansaldo and Lim bring together research on multilingualism, code-switching, language endangerment, and globalisation, into a comprehensive overview of world Englishes and creoles. Illustrated with a wide range of original examples from typologically diverse languages, including Sinitic, Autronesian, Dravidian and other non-Indo-European varieties, the book focuses on structural analyses of Asian ecologies and their relevance for current theories of contact phenomena. Full of new insights, it is essential reading for students and researchers across linguistics, culture and communication.

Multilingualism

Anat Stavans , Charlotte Hoffmann
Published online: 05 February 2015 Print publication: 12 January 2015
View description How do children and adults become multilingual? How do they use their languages? What influence does being multilingual have on their identities? What is the social impact of multilingualism today and how do societies accommodate it? These are among the fascinating questions examined by this book. Exploring multilingualism in individuals and in society at large, Stavans and Hoffmann argue that it evolves not from one factor in particular, but from a vast range of environmental and personal influences and circumstances: from migration to globalisation, from the spread of English to a revived interest in minority languages, from social mobility to intermarriage. The book shows the important role of education in helping to promote or maintain pupils' multilingual language competence and multilingual literacy, and in helping to challenge traditional monolingual attitudes. A clear and incisive account of this growing phenomenon, it is essential reading for students, teachers and policy-makers alike.

Sociolinguistic Fieldwork

Natalie Schilling
Published online: 05 April 2013 Print publication: 11 April 2013
View description Looking for an easy-to-use, practical guide to conducting fieldwork in sociolinguistics? This invaluable textbook will give you the skills and knowledge required for carrying out research projects in 'the field', including:How to select and enter a communityHow to design a research sampleWhat recording equipment to choose and how to operate itHow to collect, store and manage dataHow to interact effectively with participants and communitiesWhat ethical issues you should be aware of.Carefully designed to be of maximum practical use to students and researchers in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and related fields, the book is packed with useful features, including:Helpful checklists for recording techniques and equipment specificationsPractical examples taken from classic sociolinguistic studiesVivid passages in which students recount their own experiences of doing fieldwork in many different parts of the world

Writing and Society

An Introduction
Florian Coulmas
Published online: 05 February 2013 Print publication: 07 February 2013
View description How does writing relate to speech? What impact does it have on social organisation and development? How do unwritten languages differ from those that have a written form and tradition? This book is a general account of the place of writing in society. Drawing on contemporary and historical examples, from clay tablets to touchscreen displays, the book explores the functions of writing and written language, analysing its consequences for language, society, economy and politics. It examines the social causes of illiteracy, demonstrating that institutions of central importance to modern society are built upon writing and written texts, and are characterised by specific forms of communication. It explores the social dimensions of spelling and writing reform, as well as of digital literacy, a new mode of expression and communication posing novel challenges to the student of language in society.

Language Attrition

Monika S. Schmid
Published online: 05 June 2012 Print publication: 07 July 2011
View description 'Language attrition' describes the loss of, or changes to, grammatical and other features of a language as a result of declining use by speakers who have changed their linguistic environment and language habits. In such a situation there may, for example, be simplification in the tense system or in certain properties of subordinate clauses; some vocabulary items might fall into disuse and phonetic features may be restructured. These changes can be affected by features of the speaker's environment, but also by his or her attitudes and processes of identification. This book provides a detailed and up-to-date introduction to the way in which language attrition can affect language, as well as to the extra- and sociolinguistic features involved. It also familiarizes the reader with experimental approaches to attrition and data analysis techniques and provides hands-on guidelines on how to apply them.

Attitudes to Language

Peter Garrett
Published online: 05 June 2012 Print publication: 08 April 2010
View description Just about everyone seems to have views about language. Language attitudes and language ideologies permeate our daily lives. Our competence, intelligence, friendliness, trustworthiness, social status, group memberships, and so on, are often judged from the way we communicate. Even the speed at which we speak can evoke reactions. And we often try to anticipate such judgements as we communicate. In this lively introduction, Peter Garrett draws upon research carried out over recent decades in order to discuss such attitudes and the implications they have for our use of language, for social advantage or discrimination, and for social identity. Using a range of examples that includes punctuation, words, grammar, pronunciation, accents, dialects and languages, this book explores the intricate and fascinating ways in which language influences our everyday thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Language and Identity

An introduction
John Edwards
Published online: 05 June 2012 Print publication: 17 September 2009
View description The language we use forms an important part of our sense of who we are - of our identity. This book outlines the relationship between our identity as members of groups - ethnic, national, religious and gender - and the language varieties important to each group. What is a language? What is a dialect? Are there such things as language 'rights'? Must every national group have its own unique language? How have languages, large and small, been used to spread religious ideas? Why have particular religious and linguistic 'markers' been so central, singly or in combination, to the ways in which we think about ourselves and others? Using a rich variety of examples, the book highlights the linkages among languages, dialects and identities, with special attention given to religious, ethnic and national allegiances.

World Englishes

The Study of New Linguistic Varieties
Rajend Mesthrie , Rakesh M. Bhatt
Published online: 05 September 2012 Print publication: 19 June 2008
View description The spread of English around the world has been and continues to be both rapid and unpredictable. World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties deals with this inescapable result of colonisation and globalisation from a social and linguistic perspective. The main focus of the book is on the second-language varieties of English that have developed in the former British colonies of East and West Africa, the Caribbean, South and South-East Asia. The book provides a historical overview of the common circumstances that gave rise to these varieties, and a detailed account of their recurrent similarities in structure, patterns of usage, vocabulary and accents. Also discussed are debates about language in education, the rise of English in China and Western Europe, and other current developments in a world of global travel and migration.

Language Variation and Identity
Nikolas Coupland
Published online: 14 May 2010 Print publication: 09 August 2007
View description Style refers to ways of speaking - how speakers use the resource of language variation to make meaning in social encounters. This 2007 book develops a coherent theoretical approach to style in sociolinguistics, illustrated with copious examples. It explains how speakers project different social identities and create different social relationships through their style choices, and how speech-style and social context inter-relate. Style therefore refers to the wide range of strategic actions and performances that speakers engage in, to construct themselves and their social lives. Coupland draws on and integrates a wide variety of contemporary sociolinguistic research as well as his own extensive research in this field. The emphasis is on how social meanings are made locally, in specific relationships, genres, groups and cultures, and on studying language variation as part of the analysis of spoken discourse.

Language and Ethnicity

Carmen Fought
Published online: 05 September 2012 Print publication: 31 August 2006
View description What is ethnicity? Is there a 'white' way of speaking? Why do people sometimes borrow features of another ethnic group's language? Why do we sometimes hear an accent that isn't there? This lively overview, first published in 2006, reveals the fascinating relationship between language and ethnic identity, exploring the crucial role it plays in both revealing a speaker's ethnicity and helping to construct it. Drawing on research from a range of ethnic groups around the world, it shows how language contributes to the social and psychological processes involved in the formation of ethnic identity, exploring both the linguistic features of ethnic language varieties and also the ways in which language is used by different ethnic groups. Complete with discussion questions and a glossary, Language and Ethnicity will be welcomed by students and researchers in sociolinguistics, as well as anybody interested in ethnic issues, language and education, inter-ethnic communication, and the relationship between language and identity.

Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation

Sali A. Tagliamonte
Published online: 05 June 2012 Print publication: 11 May 2006
View description The study of how language varies in social context, and how it can be analyzed and accounted for, are the key goals of sociolinguistics. Until now, however, the actual tools and methods have been largely passed on through 'word of mouth', rather than being formally documented. This is the first comprehensive 'how to' guide to the formal analysis of sociolinguistic variation. It shows step-by-step how the analysis is carried out, leading the reader through every stage of a research project from start to finish. Topics covered include fieldwork, data organization and management, analysis and interpretation, presenting research results, and writing up a paper. Practical and informal, the book contains all the information needed to conduct a fully-fledged sociolinguistic investigation, and includes exercises, checklists, references and insider tips. It is set to become an essential resource for students, researchers and fieldworkers embarking on research projects in sociolinguistics.

A Critical Introduction
Jan Blommaert
Published online: 02 December 2009 Print publication: 10 February 2005
View description This engaging 2005 introduction offers a critical approach to discourse, written by an expert uniquely placed to cover the subject for a variety of disciplines. Organised along thematic lines, the book begins with an outline of the basic principles, moving on to examine the methods and theory of CDA (critical discourse analysis). It covers topics such as text and context, language and inequality, choice and determination, history and process, ideology and identity. Blommaert focuses on how language can offer a crucial understanding of wider aspects of power relations, arguing that critical discourse analysis should specifically be an analysis of the 'effects' of power, what power does to people, groups and societies, and how this impact comes about. Clearly argued, this concise introduction will be welcomed by students and researchers in a variety of disciplines involved in the study of discourse, including linguistics, linguistic anthropology and the sociology of language.

Language Policy

Bernard Spolsky
Published online: 22 December 2009 Print publication: 11 December 2003
View description Language policy is an issue of critical importance in the world today. In this introduction, Bernard Spolsky explores many debates at the forefront of language policy: ideas of correctness and bad language; bilingualism and multilingualism; language death and efforts to preserve endangered languages; language choice as a human and civil right; and language education policy. Through looking at the language practices, beliefs and management of social groups from families to supra-national organizations, he develops a theory of modern national language policy and the major forces controlling it, such as the demands for efficient communication, the pressure for national identity, the attractions of (and resistance to) English as a global language, and the growing concern for human and civil rights as they impinge on language. Two central questions asked in this wide-ranging survey are of how to recognize language policies, and whether or not language can be managed at all.

Richard J. Watts
Published online: 24 November 2009 Print publication: 25 September 2003
View description During the fifteen years prior to the first publication of this book, existing models of linguistic politeness generated a huge amount of empirical research. Using a wide range of data from real-life speech situations, this introduction to politeness breaks away from the limitations of those models and argues that the proper object of study in politeness theory must be commonsense notions of what politeness and impoliteness are. From this, Watts argues, a more appropriate model, one based on Bourdieu's concept of social practice, is developed. The book aims to show that the terms 'polite' and 'impolite' can only be properly examined as they are contested discursively. In doing so, 'polite' and 'impolite' utterances inevitably involve their users in a struggle for power. A radically new account of linguistic politeness, the book will appeal to students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, in linguistics and the social sciences.

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.

TSL 3251 - Applied Linguistics for ESL (Del Prado)

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Language, globalization, and intercultural studies, master of science in education (m.s.ed.), you are here, understand communication across cultures & contexts for careers in study abroad, community organizations, and global business. .

The master's in Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies puts you on the path to a variety of careers and academic pursuits—including international student advising, study abroad programming, and refugee and immigrant support. You gain the skills and knowledge to understand linguistic and social practices between people with differing cultural and organizational backgrounds.

This program was previously known as Intercultural Communication M.S.Ed. Beginning in Fall 2025, this program will be titled Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies M.S.Ed.

What Sets Us Apart

About the program.

As a student in the Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies program, you’ll participate in a broad range of coursework and field experiences in the ethnographic study of communication between members of different cultural groups—including linguistic, social, racial, ethnic, national, and gender groupings—and within different organizational contexts.

Fall: 3 courses
Spring: 3 courses
Summer: Internship
Spring: 3 courses

Culminating experience Internship: LGIS Seminar (final paper or portfolio required)

Transfer courses accepted 2 (as electives only)

A degree in Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies (LGIS) prepares you for careers such as cultural exchange advising and administration, study-abroad programming, refugee and immigrant support, curriculum development, and consulting around organizational and cultural complexities. The program also provides a solid foundation in ethnographic and discourse analysis research methods for students considering a career in intercultural research and/or doctoral study. Although speciﬁc interests and career goals vary, all students learn to analyze the many linguistic, discursive, social, and cultural issues encountered in interaction.

The master’s degree program in Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies offers a campus-wide interdisciplinary experience. In addition to 7 required courses, you choose 5 electives from across Penn GSE and the University of Pennsylvania. A key component of the program is the summer internship, in which you can put into practice the skills and theories you learn in the classroom .

For more information on courses and requirements, visit the Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies M.S.Ed. program in the University Catalog .

Suggested Plan of Study

Participant observation at an internship site.

For more information, see description below

Elective within ELX
Distribution

Note: This suggested plan of study is for full-time students; students enrolled part-time will work with the program manager and faculty to determine the best plan of study for their situation.

For a full list of courses offered at GSE, visit Penn’s University Course Catalog .

Sample elective courses.

Citizen Sociolinguistics
Globalization & the University
Education in Developing Countries
Linguistic Anthropology of Education
Language Teaching & Literacy Development in Multilingual Contexts
Classroom Discourse & Interaction
Approaches to Teaching English & Other Modern Languages
Indigenous Education & Language Revitalization
Teaching Performance Arts for Cross-Cultural Education ( TPACE )
School & Society in America
Cross-Cultural Awareness ( PACE )
Selected Topics in Educational Linguistics
Intercultural Communication & Miscommunication
Gender & Education
Cultural Perspectives on Human Development
Language Diversity & Education
Second Language Development
Adult Literacy
Issues in Second Language Acquisition
Genealogies of Race and Language in Educational Research
Language Policy & Planning
Language in Culture & Society

Participant observation is an integral component of the LGIS M.S.Ed program at Penn GSE. It allows students to bridge the theoretical concepts they are learning in their coursework with practical skills and experiences gained outside the classroom while promoting critical reflection.

Developing intercultural competence, therefore, happens not only in the classrooms at Penn GSE but also in experiences outside academia, especially while completing the 160-hour participant observation at an internship site over the summer between the first and second year. Fulfilling the internship requirements is not merely about logging a certain number of hours at a host site but about learning from, with, and about the people and communities with whom one interacts.

Previous internship sites include international student advising offices, elementary and secondary schools, community outreach organizations, social service agencies, educational or cultural exchange programs, and consulting firms. An Internship Proposal must be approved by the faculty prior to starting the Internship.

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Community Impact: Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies in Philadelphia

Community engagement and service-learning are integral to the Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies M.S.Ed. program. Service-learning fieldwork allows students to bridge the theoretical concepts learned in coursework with practical skills and experiences gained outside of the classroom. Our interactive map showcases student teaching and fieldwork sites in Philadelphia. To learn more about our work in the community, contact Jackie Lopez, our Fieldwork and Service-Learning Coordinator.

Our Faculty

Program Staff

Hannah Brenneman Associate Director of Fieldwork & Service-Learning (215) 746-8237 [email protected]

Katherine O'Morchoe Program Manager (215) 898-5212 [email protected]

Suzanne Oh Program Assistant (215) 898-6998 [email protected]

"I bring together students from different backgrounds and experiences to help them learn from one another and build a richer community. I would not be able to succeed without the foundation I received from Penn GSE."

Kia Marie Lor

Our graduates.

With a master’s degree in Language, Globalization, and Intercultural Studies from Penn GSE, you’ll be prepared for careers in cultural exchange advising and administration, study-abroad programming, refugee and immigrant support, and curriculum development training and facilitation. A number of our graduates enroll in doctoral programs to pursue in-depth research in fields such applied linguistics and education.

Alumni Careers

Adult Education Coordinator, Lutheran Children & Family Services
Assistant Director of Language and Intercultural Learning, Wesleyan University
Associate Education Analyst, NYC Department of Education
Associate Professor, Yunnan Nationalities University
Deputy Head of Admissions Counseling, The Edge Learning Center
Media Campaign Manager, Google, Inc.
Doctoral Student in Multicultural Education, University of Washington
Education Abroad Program Coordinator, Kennesaw State University
English Teacher, Upper Merion High School
Immigration Advisor and Cultural Consultant, Virginia Commonwealth University
Education Programs Manager, Asian Arts Initiative

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Please visit our Admissions and Financial Aid pages for specific information on the application requirements , as well as information on tuition, fees, financial aid, scholarships, and fellowships.

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Please view information from our Admissions and Financial Aid Office for specific information on the cost of this program.

Penn GSE is committed to making your graduate education affordable, and we offer generous scholarships, fellowships, and assistantships.

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Working Papers in Educational Linguistics

Working Papers in Educational Linguistics is a student-managed journal focused on the many areas of research within educational linguistics.

Craft the Perfect Title for Your Thesis Paper, With 10 Examples

Your thesis title is the first part of your thesis anybody will read. It may also be the only part of your thesis they read—that’s a feature, not a bug. An effective thesis title previews your paper and helps prospective readers decide whether it’s relevant to their research.

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What is a thesis title?

A thesis title is the title of a thesis paper. Typically about as long as a sentence, a thesis title summarizes the paper and generates reader interest, making them want to continue reading.

Students typically write thesis papers in the final semester of their master’s program (and in some cases, their bachelor’s program). The thesis paper is a culmination of the student’s work during their program. It is a research paper that discusses the individual’s research, usually in greater depth and detail than a standard research paper.

A thesis title is not the same as a thesis statement. While they share similarities—both are a synopsis of your research paper—they are two distinct parts of your work.

In any research paper or academic essay, the thesis statement is the sentence or two that clearly express your writing’s main idea. It is just one of the components that come together to form a full research paper, like the abstract, thesis acknowledgement , and bibliography.

The purpose of a thesis title

A thesis title is more than just the title of a thesis paper . It’s a concise summary of the paper that acts as its preview. To entice people to continue reading the paper, it should answer the following questions:

What is the paper about?
How did its author conduct the research?
Who was the subject of the research?
What did the researcher find through their work?

Regarding the last point, a thesis title doesn’t have to explicitly state the researcher’s findings, but mentions these findings broadly. For example, a thesis paper about self-reported snacking and social media use could be titled Snacking Drives Scrolling: The Correlation Between Snacking and Social Media Use in Young Adults .

It’s important that a thesis title answers these questions because, in the future, it may become a source that other students and researchers can consult when writing their own papers. They may come across it in a database or academic journal, where they might pass it over if the title is vague or inaccurate.

Components of an effective thesis title

A strong thesis title is:

That’s because it needs to:

Accurately describe the paper
Communicate the paper’s tone
Engage potential readers

And it needs to do all this in about 10 to 15 words.

How to write a thesis title

Start with a working title.

You don’t need to choose a title before you start writing, but it can be helpful to have a working title. This is the “first draft” title of your work, which you’ll likely determine as you conduct your research.

When you’re writing, a working title can help you keep your writing focused and determine appropriate sections to include. Don’t overthink your working title; you will most likely change it after completing your paper.

Reflect your research in the title

Many thesis titles state the kind of research their author conducted. If it helps to accurately summarize your paper, include this information. You can do this by using keywords related to your topic and research methods.

Achieve clarity and specificity

Your thesis paper is unique. A title that accurately depicts its unique content makes it stand out among similar works. However, this comes with a caveat. Be as specific as possible without relying on complex jargon. Using non-specialized language in the title will help your work reach wider audiences, such as academics outside your field.

Consider searchability and SEO

Potential readers will likely find your work through a library database or an advanced search engine like Google Scholar. To ensure that people looking for papers on your topic find and read your paper, include keywords in your thesis title. Keywords are clear, explicit words that describe your subject. For example, if your paper is about academic achievement in middle-school-aged girls, use this exact phrasing in your title.

Seek feedback and revise the title

Great writing is often the result of collaboration. Ask colleagues and classmates for feedback on different titles you’re considering to help you determine the best title for your paper.

Common thesis title mistakes to avoid

Capitalize your thesis title according to the style guide you followed in your paper. Capitalization that’s inconsistent with your style guide can undermine your work by looking like an oversight. Similarly, follow your style guide’s rules for quotation marks and other punctuation. APA format has different rules from MLA and Chicago style .

However, don’t include a period at the end of your title. Even if the title could be a declarative sentence, it is not a declarative sentence. Only end your thesis title with a punctuation mark if it is a question, in which case you would end it with a question mark.

Avoid unnecessary jargon in your thesis title. Although the individuals reading it are likely to be your instructor and peers, jargon can make your paper’s title unnecessarily long and awkward. Stick with straightforward language that accurately summarizes your paper.

Don’t be ambiguous. Use the most specific words available for the concepts you need to express in your thesis title, as these will help prospective readers decide whether to continue reading.

Real-life examples of effective thesis titles

It can be helpful to familiarize yourself with other thesis titles to find inspiration for yours. Take a look at these 10 thesis title examples from Columbia University :

How Sovereign Credit Rating Changes Impact Private Investment (2022)
Exploring Key Predictors of Subsequent IPO Performance in the United States Between 2016–2021 (2022)
Overeducation: The Effects of the Great Recession on the Labor Market (2021)
Exploring the Experiences of People Living With HIV in the United States: Modelling Muscle Ache/Pain and Medicaid Expansion (2017)
An Ounce of Prevention Is Worth a Pound of Cure: An Algorithm Using Non-Health Indicators to Predict Health Risks of an Individual (2017)
How the Presidential Election in 2016 Affects the Stock Market – a Twitter Sentiment Analysis Perspective (2016)
Evaluating the Impact of Self-Perceptions of Creativity and Demographic Factors on Arts Participation: Evidence From the United States (2021)
An Empirical Research for Studying the Influence of Star Popularity on the Box Office of Movies (2022)
Couple Dissolution Between Couples Who Meet Offline Versus Couples Who Meet Online (2021)
Which Yelp Reviews Will Be Voted Useful? Predicting the Number of Useful Votes Yelp Reviews Will Get Using Machine Learning Algorithms (2014)

Key takeaways

When writing your thesis title, consider the characteristics that attract you to books, movies, podcasts, and other media you choose. The things that make a book or podcast title intriguing—like specificity and the promise that if you keep engaging, you’ll be rewarded with satisfying content—are the same things that make a thesis title effective.

So prioritize conciseness and accuracy in your thesis title. Do this by including effective keywords, stating your subject and the type of research you conducted, and avoiding filler words.

Thesis title FAQs

How long should a thesis title be.

A thesis title should be approximately 10 to 15 words long.

Is it necessary to include a subtitle in a thesis title?

No, it is not necessary to include a subtitle in a thesis title. A subtitle can specify your title or add key details, but it is not required or necessary.

How can I ensure my thesis title stands out in academic databases?

Include relevant keywords in your thesis title to ensure it stands out in academic databases.

Can the thesis title be a question?

Yes, a thesis title or subtitle can be a question.

How do I balance creativity with academic rigor in my thesis title?

Prioritize accuracy and conciseness when writing a thesis title. Following these guidelines, choose words that are likely to pique the interests of potential readers, like action words and descriptive nouns. Prioritize relevant keywords to ensure the title is academically appealing.

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Science that makes you laugh then think —

Meet the winners of the 2024 ig nobel prizes, the award ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures..

Jennifer Ouellette - Sep 12, 2024 10:00 pm UTC

Curiosity is the driving force behind all science, which may explain why so many scientists sometimes find themselves going in some decidedly eccentric research directions. Did you hear about the WWII plan to train pigeons as missile guidance systems? How about experiments on the swimming ability of a dead rainbow trout or that time biologists tried to startle cows by popping paper bags by their heads? These and other unusual research endeavors were honored tonight in a virtual ceremony to announce the 2024 recipients of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes. Yes, it's that time of year again, when the serious and the silly converge—for science.

Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor "achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think." The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in just seven words. Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds. And as the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn't mean it's devoid of scientific merit.

Viewers can tune in for the usual 24/7 lectures, as well as the premiere of a "non-opera" featuring various songs about water, in keeping with the evening's theme. In the weeks following the ceremony, the winners will also give free public talks, which will be posted on the Improbable Research website.

Without further ado, here are the winners of the 2023 Ig Nobel prizes.

Citation: B.F. Skinner, for experiments to see the feasibility of housing live pigeons inside missiles to guide the flight paths of the missiles.

This entertaining 1960 paper by American psychologist B.F. Skinner is kind of a personal memoir relating "the history of a crackpot idea, born on the wrong side of the tracks intellectually speaking but eventually vindicated in a sort of middle class respectability." Project Pigeon was a World War II research program at the Naval Research Laboratory with the objective of training pigeons to serve as missile guidance systems. At the time, in the early 1940s, the machinery required to guide Pelican missiles was so bulky that there wasn't much room left for actual explosives—hence the name, since it resembled a pelican "whose beak can hold more than its belly can."

Skinner reasoned that pigeons could be a cheaper, more compact solution since the birds are especially good at responding to patterns. (He dismissed the ethical questions as a "peacetime luxury," given the high global stakes of WWII.) His lab devised a novel harnessing system for the birds, positioned them vertically above a translucent plastic plate (screen), and trained them to "peck" at a projected image of a target somewhere along the New Jersey coast on the screen—a camera obscura effect. "The guiding signal was picked up from the point of contact of screen and beak," Skinner wrote. Eventually, they created a version that used three pigeons to make the system more robust—just in case a pigeon got distracted at a key moment or something.

Nose cone of NIST glide bomb showing the three-pigeon guidance system.

There was understandably a great deal of skepticism about the viability of using pigeons for missile guidance; at one point, Skinner lamented, his team "realized that a pigeon was more easily controlled than a physical scientist serving on a committee." But Skinner's team persisted, and in 1944, they finally got the chance to demonstrate Project Pigeon for a committee of top scientists and show that the birds' behavior could be controlled. The sample pigeon behaved perfectly. "But the spectacle of a living pigeon carrying out its assignment, no matter how beautifully, simply reminded the committee of how utterly fantastic our proposal was." Apparently, there was much "restrained merriment."

Even though this novel homing device was resistant to jamming, could react to a wide variety of target practice, needed no scarce materials, and was so simple to make that production could start in 30 days, the committee nixed the project. (By this point, as we now know, military focus had shifted to the Manhattan Project.) Skinner was left with "a loftful of curiously useless equipment and a few dozen pigeons with a strange interest in a feature of the New Jersey coast." But vindication came in the early 1950s when the project was briefly revived as Project ORCON at the Naval Research Laboratory, which refined the general idea and led to the development of a Pick-off Display Converter for radar operators. Skinner himself never lost faith in this particular "crackpot idea."

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Peer Reviewed

GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation

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Academic journals, archives, and repositories are seeing an increasing number of questionable research papers clearly produced using generative AI. They are often created with widely available, general-purpose AI applications, most likely ChatGPT, and mimic scientific writing. Google Scholar easily locates and lists these questionable papers alongside reputable, quality-controlled research. Our analysis of a selection of questionable GPT-fabricated scientific papers found in Google Scholar shows that many are about applied, often controversial topics susceptible to disinformation: the environment, health, and computing. The resulting enhanced potential for malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base, particularly in politically divisive domains, is a growing concern.

Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås, Sweden

Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

Division of Environmental Communication, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden

Research Questions

Where are questionable publications produced with generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) that can be found via Google Scholar published or deposited?
What are the main characteristics of these publications in relation to predominant subject categories?
How are these publications spread in the research infrastructure for scholarly communication?
How is the role of the scholarly communication infrastructure challenged in maintaining public trust in science and evidence through inappropriate use of generative AI?

research note Summary

A sample of scientific papers with signs of GPT-use found on Google Scholar was retrieved, downloaded, and analyzed using a combination of qualitative coding and descriptive statistics. All papers contained at least one of two common phrases returned by conversational agents that use large language models (LLM) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Google Search was then used to determine the extent to which copies of questionable, GPT-fabricated papers were available in various repositories, archives, citation databases, and social media platforms.
Roughly two-thirds of the retrieved papers were found to have been produced, at least in part, through undisclosed, potentially deceptive use of GPT. The majority (57%) of these questionable papers dealt with policy-relevant subjects (i.e., environment, health, computing), susceptible to influence operations. Most were available in several copies on different domains (e.g., social media, archives, and repositories).
Two main risks arise from the increasingly common use of GPT to (mass-)produce fake, scientific publications. First, the abundance of fabricated “studies” seeping into all areas of the research infrastructure threatens to overwhelm the scholarly communication system and jeopardize the integrity of the scientific record. A second risk lies in the increased possibility that convincingly scientific-looking content was in fact deceitfully created with AI tools and is also optimized to be retrieved by publicly available academic search engines, particularly Google Scholar. However small, this possibility and awareness of it risks undermining the basis for trust in scientific knowledge and poses serious societal risks.

Implications

The use of ChatGPT to generate text for academic papers has raised concerns about research integrity. Discussion of this phenomenon is ongoing in editorials, commentaries, opinion pieces, and on social media (Bom, 2023; Stokel-Walker, 2024; Thorp, 2023). There are now several lists of papers suspected of GPT misuse, and new papers are constantly being added. 1 See for example Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . While many legitimate uses of GPT for research and academic writing exist (Huang & Tan, 2023; Kitamura, 2023; Lund et al., 2023), its undeclared use—beyond proofreading—has potentially far-reaching implications for both science and society, but especially for their relationship. It, therefore, seems important to extend the discussion to one of the most accessible and well-known intermediaries between science, but also certain types of misinformation, and the public, namely Google Scholar, also in response to the legitimate concerns that the discussion of generative AI and misinformation needs to be more nuanced and empirically substantiated (Simon et al., 2023).

Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com , is an easy-to-use academic search engine. It is available for free, and its index is extensive (Gusenbauer & Haddaway, 2020). It is also often touted as a credible source for academic literature and even recommended in library guides, by media and information literacy initiatives, and fact checkers (Tripodi et al., 2023). However, Google Scholar lacks the transparency and adherence to standards that usually characterize citation databases. Instead, Google Scholar uses automated crawlers, like Google’s web search engine (Martín-Martín et al., 2021), and the inclusion criteria are based on primarily technical standards, allowing any individual author—with or without scientific affiliation—to upload papers to be indexed (Google Scholar Help, n.d.). It has been shown that Google Scholar is susceptible to manipulation through citation exploits (Antkare, 2020) and by providing access to fake scientific papers (Dadkhah et al., 2017). A large part of Google Scholar’s index consists of publications from established scientific journals or other forms of quality-controlled, scholarly literature. However, the index also contains a large amount of gray literature, including student papers, working papers, reports, preprint servers, and academic networking sites, as well as material from so-called “questionable” academic journals, including paper mills. The search interface does not offer the possibility to filter the results meaningfully by material type, publication status, or form of quality control, such as limiting the search to peer-reviewed material.

To understand the occurrence of ChatGPT (co-)authored work in Google Scholar’s index, we scraped it for publications, including one of two common ChatGPT responses (see Appendix A) that we encountered on social media and in media reports (DeGeurin, 2024). The results of our descriptive statistical analyses showed that around 62% did not declare the use of GPTs. Most of these GPT-fabricated papers were found in non-indexed journals and working papers, but some cases included research published in mainstream scientific journals and conference proceedings. 2 Indexed journals mean scholarly journals indexed by abstract and citation databases such as Scopus and Web of Science, where the indexation implies journals with high scientific quality. Non-indexed journals are journals that fall outside of this indexation. More than half (57%) of these GPT-fabricated papers concerned policy-relevant subject areas susceptible to influence operations. To avoid increasing the visibility of these publications, we abstained from referencing them in this research note. However, we have made the data available in the Harvard Dataverse repository.

The publications were related to three issue areas—health (14.5%), environment (19.5%) and computing (23%)—with key terms such “healthcare,” “COVID-19,” or “infection”for health-related papers, and “analysis,” “sustainable,” and “global” for environment-related papers. In several cases, the papers had titles that strung together general keywords and buzzwords, thus alluding to very broad and current research. These terms included “biology,” “telehealth,” “climate policy,” “diversity,” and “disrupting,” to name just a few. While the study’s scope and design did not include a detailed analysis of which parts of the articles included fabricated text, our dataset did contain the surrounding sentences for each occurrence of the suspicious phrases that formed the basis for our search and subsequent selection. Based on that, we can say that the phrases occurred in most sections typically found in scientific publications, including the literature review, methods, conceptual and theoretical frameworks, background, motivation or societal relevance, and even discussion. This was confirmed during the joint coding, where we read and discussed all articles. It became clear that not just the text related to the telltale phrases was created by GPT, but that almost all articles in our sample of questionable articles likely contained traces of GPT-fabricated text everywhere.

Evidence hacking and backfiring effects

Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) can be used to produce texts that mimic scientific writing. These texts, when made available online—as we demonstrate—leak into the databases of academic search engines and other parts of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication. This development exacerbates problems that were already present with less sophisticated text generators (Antkare, 2020; Cabanac & Labbé, 2021). Yet, the public release of ChatGPT in 2022, together with the way Google Scholar works, has increased the likelihood of lay people (e.g., media, politicians, patients, students) coming across questionable (or even entirely GPT-fabricated) papers and other problematic research findings. Previous research has emphasized that the ability to determine the value and status of scientific publications for lay people is at stake when misleading articles are passed off as reputable (Haider & Åström, 2017) and that systematic literature reviews risk being compromised (Dadkhah et al., 2017). It has also been highlighted that Google Scholar, in particular, can be and has been exploited for manipulating the evidence base for politically charged issues and to fuel conspiracy narratives (Tripodi et al., 2023). Both concerns are likely to be magnified in the future, increasing the risk of what we suggest calling evidence hacking —the strategic and coordinated malicious manipulation of society’s evidence base.

The authority of quality-controlled research as evidence to support legislation, policy, politics, and other forms of decision-making is undermined by the presence of undeclared GPT-fabricated content in publications professing to be scientific. Due to the large number of archives, repositories, mirror sites, and shadow libraries to which they spread, there is a clear risk that GPT-fabricated, questionable papers will reach audiences even after a possible retraction. There are considerable technical difficulties involved in identifying and tracing computer-fabricated papers (Cabanac & Labbé, 2021; Dadkhah et al., 2023; Jones, 2024), not to mention preventing and curbing their spread and uptake.

However, as the rise of the so-called anti-vaxx movement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing obstruction and denial of climate change show, retracting erroneous publications often fuels conspiracies and increases the following of these movements rather than stopping them. To illustrate this mechanism, climate deniers frequently question established scientific consensus by pointing to other, supposedly scientific, studies that support their claims. Usually, these are poorly executed, not peer-reviewed, based on obsolete data, or even fraudulent (Dunlap & Brulle, 2020). A similar strategy is successful in the alternative epistemic world of the global anti-vaccination movement (Carrion, 2018) and the persistence of flawed and questionable publications in the scientific record already poses significant problems for health research, policy, and lawmakers, and thus for society as a whole (Littell et al., 2024). Considering that a person’s support for “doing your own research” is associated with increased mistrust in scientific institutions (Chinn & Hasell, 2023), it will be of utmost importance to anticipate and consider such backfiring effects already when designing a technical solution, when suggesting industry or legal regulation, and in the planning of educational measures.

Recommendations

Solutions should be based on simultaneous considerations of technical, educational, and regulatory approaches, as well as incentives, including social ones, across the entire research infrastructure. Paying attention to how these approaches and incentives relate to each other can help identify points and mechanisms for disruption. Recognizing fraudulent academic papers must happen alongside understanding how they reach their audiences and what reasons there might be for some of these papers successfully “sticking around.” A possible way to mitigate some of the risks associated with GPT-fabricated scholarly texts finding their way into academic search engine results would be to provide filtering options for facets such as indexed journals, gray literature, peer-review, and similar on the interface of publicly available academic search engines. Furthermore, evaluation tools for indexed journals 3 Such as LiU Journal CheckUp, https://ep.liu.se/JournalCheckup/default.aspx?lang=eng . could be integrated into the graphical user interfaces and the crawlers of these academic search engines. To enable accountability, it is important that the index (database) of such a search engine is populated according to criteria that are transparent, open to scrutiny, and appropriate to the workings of science and other forms of academic research. Moreover, considering that Google Scholar has no real competitor, there is a strong case for establishing a freely accessible, non-specialized academic search engine that is not run for commercial reasons but for reasons of public interest. Such measures, together with educational initiatives aimed particularly at policymakers, science communicators, journalists, and other media workers, will be crucial to reducing the possibilities for and effects of malicious manipulation or evidence hacking. It is important not to present this as a technical problem that exists only because of AI text generators but to relate it to the wider concerns in which it is embedded. These range from a largely dysfunctional scholarly publishing system (Haider & Åström, 2017) and academia’s “publish or perish” paradigm to Google’s near-monopoly and ideological battles over the control of information and ultimately knowledge. Any intervention is likely to have systemic effects; these effects need to be considered and assessed in advance and, ideally, followed up on.

Our study focused on a selection of papers that were easily recognizable as fraudulent. We used this relatively small sample as a magnifying glass to examine, delineate, and understand a problem that goes beyond the scope of the sample itself, which however points towards larger concerns that require further investigation. The work of ongoing whistleblowing initiatives 4 Such as Academ-AI, https://www.academ-ai.info/ , and Retraction Watch, https://retractionwatch.com/papers-and-peer-reviews-with-evidence-of-chatgpt-writing/ . , recent media reports of journal closures (Subbaraman, 2024), or GPT-related changes in word use and writing style (Cabanac et al., 2021; Stokel-Walker, 2024) suggest that we only see the tip of the iceberg. There are already more sophisticated cases (Dadkhah et al., 2023) as well as cases involving fabricated images (Gu et al., 2022). Our analysis shows that questionable and potentially manipulative GPT-fabricated papers permeate the research infrastructure and are likely to become a widespread phenomenon. Our findings underline that the risk of fake scientific papers being used to maliciously manipulate evidence (see Dadkhah et al., 2017) must be taken seriously. Manipulation may involve undeclared automatic summaries of texts, inclusion in literature reviews, explicit scientific claims, or the concealment of errors in studies so that they are difficult to detect in peer review. However, the mere possibility of these things happening is a significant risk in its own right that can be strategically exploited and will have ramifications for trust in and perception of science. Society’s methods of evaluating sources and the foundations of media and information literacy are under threat and public trust in science is at risk of further erosion, with far-reaching consequences for society in dealing with information disorders. To address this multifaceted problem, we first need to understand why it exists and proliferates.

Finding 1: 139 GPT-fabricated, questionable papers were found and listed as regular results on the Google Scholar results page. Non-indexed journals dominate.

Most questionable papers we found were in non-indexed journals or were working papers, but we did also find some in established journals, publications, conferences, and repositories. We found a total of 139 papers with a suspected deceptive use of ChatGPT or similar LLM applications (see Table 1). Out of these, 19 were in indexed journals, 89 were in non-indexed journals, 19 were student papers found in university databases, and 12 were working papers (mostly in preprint databases). Table 1 divides these papers into categories. Health and environment papers made up around 34% (47) of the sample. Of these, 66% were present in non-indexed journals.


Indexed journals*	5	3	4	7	19
Non-indexed journals	18	18	13	40	89
Student papers	4	3	1	11	19
Working papers	5	3	2	2	12
Total	32	27	20	60	139

Finding 2: GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are disseminated online, permeating the research infrastructure for scholarly communication, often in multiple copies. Applied topics with practical implications dominate.

The 20 papers concerning health-related issues are distributed across 20 unique domains, accounting for 46 URLs. The 27 papers dealing with environmental issues can be found across 26 unique domains, accounting for 56 URLs. Most of the identified papers exist in multiple copies and have already spread to several archives, repositories, and social media. It would be difficult, or impossible, to remove them from the scientific record.

As apparent from Table 2, GPT-fabricated, questionable papers are seeping into most parts of the online research infrastructure for scholarly communication. Platforms on which identified papers have appeared include ResearchGate, ORCiD, Journal of Population Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology (JPTCP), Easychair, Frontiers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer (IEEE), and X/Twitter. Thus, even if they are retracted from their original source, it will prove very difficult to track, remove, or even just mark them up on other platforms. Moreover, unless regulated, Google Scholar will enable their continued and most likely unlabeled discoverability.


Environment	researchgate.net (13)	orcid.org (4)	easychair.org (3)	ijope.com* (3)	publikasiindonesia.id (3)
Health	researchgate.net (15)	ieee.org (4)	twitter.com (3)	jptcp.com** (2)	frontiersin.org (2)

A word rain visualization (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023), which combines word prominences through TF-IDF 5 Term frequency–inverse document frequency , a method for measuring the significance of a word in a document compared to its frequency across all documents in a collection. scores with semantic similarity of the full texts of our sample of GPT-generated articles that fall into the “Environment” and “Health” categories, reflects the two categories in question. However, as can be seen in Figure 1, it also reveals overlap and sub-areas. The y-axis shows word prominences through word positions and font sizes, while the x-axis indicates semantic similarity. In addition to a certain amount of overlap, this reveals sub-areas, which are best described as two distinct events within the word rain. The event on the left bundles terms related to the development and management of health and healthcare with “challenges,” “impact,” and “potential of artificial intelligence”emerging as semantically related terms. Terms related to research infrastructures, environmental, epistemic, and technological concepts are arranged further down in the same event (e.g., “system,” “climate,” “understanding,” “knowledge,” “learning,” “education,” “sustainable”). A second distinct event further to the right bundles terms associated with fish farming and aquatic medicinal plants, highlighting the presence of an aquaculture cluster. Here, the prominence of groups of terms such as “used,” “model,” “-based,” and “traditional” suggests the presence of applied research on these topics. The two events making up the word rain visualization, are linked by a less dominant but overlapping cluster of terms related to “energy” and “water.”

The bar chart of the terms in the paper subset (see Figure 2) complements the word rain visualization by depicting the most prominent terms in the full texts along the y-axis. Here, word prominences across health and environment papers are arranged descendingly, where values outside parentheses are TF-IDF values (relative frequencies) and values inside parentheses are raw term frequencies (absolute frequencies).

Finding 3: Google Scholar presents results from quality-controlled and non-controlled citation databases on the same interface, providing unfiltered access to GPT-fabricated questionable papers.

Google Scholar’s central position in the publicly accessible scholarly communication infrastructure, as well as its lack of standards, transparency, and accountability in terms of inclusion criteria, has potentially serious implications for public trust in science. This is likely to exacerbate the already-known potential to exploit Google Scholar for evidence hacking (Tripodi et al., 2023) and will have implications for any attempts to retract or remove fraudulent papers from their original publication venues. Any solution must consider the entirety of the research infrastructure for scholarly communication and the interplay of different actors, interests, and incentives.

We searched and scraped Google Scholar using the Python library Scholarly (Cholewiak et al., 2023) for papers that included specific phrases known to be common responses from ChatGPT and similar applications with the same underlying model (GPT3.5 or GPT4): “as of my last knowledge update” and/or “I don’t have access to real-time data” (see Appendix A). This facilitated the identification of papers that likely used generative AI to produce text, resulting in 227 retrieved papers. The papers’ bibliographic information was automatically added to a spreadsheet and downloaded into Zotero. 6 An open-source reference manager, https://zotero.org .

We employed multiple coding (Barbour, 2001) to classify the papers based on their content. First, we jointly assessed whether the paper was suspected of fraudulent use of ChatGPT (or similar) based on how the text was integrated into the papers and whether the paper was presented as original research output or the AI tool’s role was acknowledged. Second, in analyzing the content of the papers, we continued the multiple coding by classifying the fraudulent papers into four categories identified during an initial round of analysis—health, environment, computing, and others—and then determining which subjects were most affected by this issue (see Table 1). Out of the 227 retrieved papers, 88 papers were written with legitimate and/or declared use of GPTs (i.e., false positives, which were excluded from further analysis), and 139 papers were written with undeclared and/or fraudulent use (i.e., true positives, which were included in further analysis). The multiple coding was conducted jointly by all authors of the present article, who collaboratively coded and cross-checked each other’s interpretation of the data simultaneously in a shared spreadsheet file. This was done to single out coding discrepancies and settle coding disagreements, which in turn ensured methodological thoroughness and analytical consensus (see Barbour, 2001). Redoing the category coding later based on our established coding schedule, we achieved an intercoder reliability (Cohen’s kappa) of 0.806 after eradicating obvious differences.

The ranking algorithm of Google Scholar prioritizes highly cited and older publications (Martín-Martín et al., 2016). Therefore, the position of the articles on the search engine results pages was not particularly informative, considering the relatively small number of results in combination with the recency of the publications. Only the query “as of my last knowledge update” had more than two search engine result pages. On those, questionable articles with undeclared use of GPTs were evenly distributed across all result pages (min: 4, max: 9, mode: 8), with the proportion of undeclared use being slightly higher on average on later search result pages.

To understand how the papers making fraudulent use of generative AI were disseminated online, we programmatically searched for the paper titles (with exact string matching) in Google Search from our local IP address (see Appendix B) using the googlesearch – python library(Vikramaditya, 2020). We manually verified each search result to filter out false positives—results that were not related to the paper—and then compiled the most prominent URLs by field. This enabled the identification of other platforms through which the papers had been spread. We did not, however, investigate whether copies had spread into SciHub or other shadow libraries, or if they were referenced in Wikipedia.

We used descriptive statistics to count the prevalence of the number of GPT-fabricated papers across topics and venues and top domains by subject. The pandas software library for the Python programming language (The pandas development team, 2024) was used for this part of the analysis. Based on the multiple coding, paper occurrences were counted in relation to their categories, divided into indexed journals, non-indexed journals, student papers, and working papers. The schemes, subdomains, and subdirectories of the URL strings were filtered out while top-level domains and second-level domains were kept, which led to normalizing domain names. This, in turn, allowed the counting of domain frequencies in the environment and health categories. To distinguish word prominences and meanings in the environment and health-related GPT-fabricated questionable papers, a semantically-aware word cloud visualization was produced through the use of a word rain (Centre for Digital Humanities Uppsala, 2023) for full-text versions of the papers. Font size and y-axis positions indicate word prominences through TF-IDF scores for the environment and health papers (also visualized in a separate bar chart with raw term frequencies in parentheses), and words are positioned along the x-axis to reflect semantic similarity (Skeppstedt et al., 2024), with an English Word2vec skip gram model space (Fares et al., 2017). An English stop word list was used, along with a manually produced list including terms such as “https,” “volume,” or “years.”

Artificial Intelligence
/ Search engines

Cite this Essay

Haider, J., Söderström, K. R., Ekström, B., & Rödl, M. (2024). GPT-fabricated scientific papers on Google Scholar: Key features, spread, and implications for preempting evidence manipulation. Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review . https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-156

/ Appendix B

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This research has been supported by Mistra, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research, through the research program Mistra Environmental Communication (Haider, Ekström, Rödl) and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation [2020.0004] (Söderström).

Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

The research described in this article was carried out under Swedish legislation. According to the relevant EU and Swedish legislation (2003:460) on the ethical review of research involving humans (“Ethical Review Act”), the research reported on here is not subject to authorization by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (“etikprövningsmyndigheten”) (SRC, 2017).

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original author and source are properly credited.

Data Availability

All data needed to replicate this study are available at the Harvard Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WUVD8X

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the article manuscript as well as the editorial group of Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review for their thoughtful feedback and input.

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The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Most supporters of both former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris say they’ve thought a lot about the candidates this year and say the outcome of the race really matters. As in other recent elections, t he two coalitions are roughly equally engaged and interested.

And satisfaction with the field is much higher than it was a few months ago – as Harris’ backers are now much more likely to say they are satisfied than President Joe Biden’s supporters were in July.

Nearly two-thirds of voters (64%) say they have given a lot of thought to the candidates who are running in the 2024 presidential election.

Chart shows Harris and Trump supporters are about equally engaged in the 2024 election

As was the case in 2020, supporters of the two candidates are about equally likely to say they have given a lot of thought to the candidates running for president. Today, 63% of Harris supporters and 66% of Trump supporters say this.

About three-quarters of voters (76%) say it really matters who wins the election. This is on par with voters’ views about the 2020 election in both August (76%) and October (78%) of that year.

Similar shares of Harris (76%) and Trump (77%) supporters say it really matters who wins the 2024 election.

Throughout the late summer and fall of both 2016 and 2020, supporters of the two major party candidates were also about equally likely to say the outcome really mattered. For example, 78% of Biden supporters and 76% of Trump supporters said in early August 2020 that it really mattered who won that presidential election. And in September 2016, roughly three-quarters of both Clinton and Trump backers said that year’s election outcome really mattered.

Satisfaction with the candidates

Overall voter satisfaction with the presidential candidates is substantially higher than it was two months ago, and this shift is mostly a result of Harris supporters being nearly three times more likely to say they are satisfied with the candidates than Biden supporters were in July.

Chart shows Harris supporters are more likely than Trump backers to be satisfied with the presidential candidates – a shift from the dynamic when Biden was in the race

About half of registered voters (48%) now say they are very or fairly satisfied with the presidential candidates this year, while a similar share (51%) say they are not satisfied with the candidates. Satisfaction is now 17 percentage points higher than it was in July.

About half of Harris supporters (52%) say they are satisfied with the presidential candidates, while a smaller share of Trump supporters (45%) say the same.

In July – before Biden dropped out of the race – Trump supporters were much more likely than Biden supporters to say they were satisfied with the candidates (51% vs. 18%).

Harris supporters are now also more likely to say they are satisfied with the candidates than Biden supporters were at a similar point in 2020 (52% vs. 41%).

By contrast, current Trump supporters (45%) are less likely than those who supported Trump in 2020 (53%) to say they are satisfied with the candidates running for president.

When asked to think about the “ordinary Americans” who support the other candidate, overwhelming shares of both Trump and Harris supporters say that they not only have different views on politics and policies, but also that these disagreements extend to “core American values and goals.”

Three-quarters of Harris supporters – and about eight-in-ten Trump supporters (81%) – say they fundamentally disagree with the other group about the nation’s core values.

Chart shows Most Harris and Trump backers say their differences extend to ‘core American values and goals’

By contrast, 24% of Harris supporters and 18% of Trump supporterssay that they “share a fundamental commitment to the same core American values and goals” with those who back the other candidate, despite their different political and policy priorities.

Harris supporters are now somewhat more likely than Biden supporters were in 2020 to see a shared fundamental commitment to the same core American values and goals as Trump supporters (24% now vs. 18% then).

By contrast, Trump supporters today (18%) are slightly less likely than Trump supporters four years ago (22%) to say their differences with the Democratic candidate’s supporters are limited to political and policy priorities.

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