A corpus-based analysis of research article titles in journals on English language and linguistics

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Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Yildiz Technical University, Graduate School of Social Sciences, Foreign Languages Educataion, Turkey

Approval Date: 2022

Thesis Language: English

Student: AYSEL GÜLER

Supervisor: Suzan Kavanoz

Open Archive Collection: AVESIS Open Access Collection

Abstract:

Researchers who need to communicate their thoughts, research processes, and scientific results within their academic circles are required to have a good understanding of their respective discourse communities' language conventions. Research publications serve as vital platforms for sharing and discussing knowledge within academic communities. By investigating a total number of 3200 article titles extracted from 19 SSCI-indexed quarterly Q1 English Language and Linguistics journals between 2017 and 2021, this research aims to demonstrate and profile the titles' most notable form characteristics, as well as their diachronic changes within the five years. The findings show that journals including more titles over the years suggest the research carried out in the field has increased steadily. The length of research paper titles has shown consistent, with a continuous and slight increase in length over the last five years. An ongoing decrease in lexical diversity with a very steady and linear variation in informativeness has been observed. Although both nominal and compound structures are commonly used in journals, compound constructs have consistently outnumbered nominal constructs in the selected English language and linguistics research article titles during the last five years. The current research has added to previous title studies and academic writing research. It is expected that the findings of this study will be leading to future title studies in the English language and linguistics context in Turkey.