IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v11y2021i2p21582440211009191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Linguistic Diversity Index: A Scientometric Measure to Enhance the Relevance of Small and Minority Group Languages

Author

Listed:
  • Václav Linkov
  • Kieran O’Doherty
  • Eunsoo Choi
  • Gyuseog Han

Abstract

Current scientometric indexes do not encourage the linguistic diversity of sources cited in academic texts and researchers are not motivated to cite texts written in smaller languages. This diminishes the cultural diversity of the sources cited and limits the representation of small and indigenous cultures. This text proposes a scientometric measure designed to encourage the linguistic diversity of sources cited in articles, books, and papers. The Linguistic Diversity Index is based on two stipulations: (a) the more linguistically diverse the sources, the higher the score, and (b) the rarer the languages cited, the higher the score. If such a metric were used for the evaluation of social science and humanities journals, it would encourage the publication of papers that cite ideas from rarely represented cultural groups such as indigenous nations, ethnic groups from small countries, and other linguistic groups that have been omitted from mainstream scientific discourse. This might help to produce new research, which would help to improve the situation for these groups and create an epistemology that is more just to small cultural groups.

Suggested Citation

  • Václav Linkov & Kieran O’Doherty & Eunsoo Choi & Gyuseog Han, 2021. "Linguistic Diversity Index: A Scientometric Measure to Enhance the Relevance of Small and Minority Group Languages," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:21582440211009191
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440211009191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440211009191
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440211009191?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diego Chavarro & Ismael Ràfols & Puay Tang, 2018. "To what extent is inclusion in the Web of Science an indicator of journal ‘quality’?," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 106-118.
    2. David Budtz Pedersen & Jonas Følsgaard Grønvad & Rolf Hvidtfeldt, 2020. "Methods for mapping the impact of social sciences and humanities—A literature review," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 4-21.
    3. Miguel-Angel Vera-Baceta & Michael Thelwall & Kayvan Kousha, 2019. "Web of Science and Scopus language coverage," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1803-1813, December.
    4. Dag W. Aksnes & Liv Langfeldt & Paul Wouters, 2019. "Citations, Citation Indicators, and Research Quality: An Overview of Basic Concepts and Theories," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440198, February.
    5. Irene López-Navarro & Ana I. Moreno & Miguel Ángel Quintanilla & Jesús Rey-Rocha, 2015. "Why do I publish research articles in English instead of my own language? Differences in Spanish researchers’ motivations across scientific domains," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 939-976, June.
    6. Torsten Diekhoff & Peter Schlattmann & Marc Dewey, 2013. "Impact of Article Language in Multi-Language Medical Journals - a Bibliometric Analysis of Self-Citations and Impact Factor," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-1, October.
    7. Robert J W Tijssen & Johann Mouton & Thed N van Leeuwen & Nelius Boshoff, 2006. "How relevant are local scholarly journals in global science? A case study of South Africa," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 163-174, December.
    8. Kayvan Kousha & Mike Thelwall, 2008. "Sources of Google Scholar citations outside the Science Citation Index: A comparison between four science disciplines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 74(2), pages 273-294, February.
    9. Kaile Gong & Juan Xie & Ying Cheng & Vincent Larivière & Cassidy R. Sugimoto, 2019. "The citation advantage of foreign language references for Chinese social science papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1439-1460, September.
    10. Jordi Ardanuy & Cristóbal Urbano & Lluís Quintana, 2009. "A citation analysis of Catalan literary studies (1974–2003): Towards a bibliometrics of humanities studies in minority languages," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(2), pages 347-366, November.
    11. Emanuela Reale & Dragana Avramov & Kubra Canhial & Claire Donovan & Ramon Flecha & Poul Holm & Charles Larkin & Benedetto Lepori & Judith Mosoni-Fried & Esther Oliver & Emilia Primeri & Lidia Puigvert, 2018. "A review of literature on evaluating the scientific, social and political impact of social sciences and humanities research," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 298-308.
    12. Daniel Stockemer & Michael J. Wigginton, 2019. "Publishing in English or another language: An inclusive study of scholar’s language publication preferences in the natural, social and interdisciplinary sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 645-652, February.
    13. Peter Weingart, 2005. "Impact of bibliometrics upon the science system: Inadvertent consequences?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 62(1), pages 117-131, January.
    14. Peter Dahler-Larsen, 2018. "Making citations of publications in languages other than English visible: On the feasibility of a PLOTE-index," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 212-221.
    15. David Pontille & Didier Torny, 2010. "The controversial policies of journal ratings: evaluating social sciences and humanities," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(5), pages 347-360, December.
    16. Dejan Pajić, 2015. "Globalization of the social sciences in Eastern Europe: genuine breakthrough or a slippery slope of the research evaluation practice?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(3), pages 2131-2150, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreea Mironescu & Alina Moroșanu & Anca-Diana Bibiri, 2023. "The regional dynamics of multilingual publishing in web of science: A statistical analysis of central and eastern european journals and researchers in linguistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(2), pages 1133-1162, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Valentina Della Corte & Giovanna Del Gaudio & Fabiana Sepe & Simone Luongo, 2021. "Destination Resilience and Innovation for Advanced Sustainable Tourism Management: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-19, November.
    2. Raminta Pranckutė, 2021. "Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-59, March.
    3. Mehdi Rhaiem & Nabil Amara, 2020. "Determinants of research efficiency in Canadian business schools: evidence from scholar-level data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 53-99, October.
    4. Sven Helmer & David B. Blumenthal & Kathrin Paschen, 2020. "What is meaningful research and how should we measure it?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(1), pages 153-169, October.
    5. Martín-Martín, Alberto & Orduna-Malea, Enrique & Thelwall, Mike & Delgado López-Cózar, Emilio, 2018. "Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 1160-1177.
    6. Raf Vanderstraeten & Frédéric Vandermoere, 2021. "Inequalities in the growth of Web of Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8635-8651, October.
    7. Ole Henning Sørensen & Jakob Bjørner & Andreas Holtermann & Johnny Dyreborg & Jorid Birkelund Sørli & Jesper Kristiansen & Steffen Bohni Nielsen, 2022. "Measuring societal impact of research—Developing and validating an impact instrument for occupational health and safety," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 118-131.
    8. Giovanni Abramo & Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelo & Myroslava Hladchenko, 2023. "Assessing the effects of publication requirements for professorship on research performance and publishing behaviour of Ukrainian academics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(8), pages 4589-4609, August.
    9. Michael Gusenbauer, 2022. "Search where you will find most: Comparing the disciplinary coverage of 56 bibliographic databases," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2683-2745, May.
    10. Massimo Franceschet, 2010. "A comparison of bibliometric indicators for computer science scholars and journals on Web of Science and Google Scholar," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 83(1), pages 243-258, April.
    11. Alberto Martín-Martín & Enrique Orduna-Malea & Emilio Delgado López-Cózar, 2018. "Coverage of highly-cited documents in Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: a multidisciplinary comparison," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2175-2188, September.
    12. Jorrit P Smit & Laurens K Hessels, 2021. "The production of scientific and societal value in research evaluation: a review of societal impact assessment methods [Systems Thinking, Knowledge and Action: Towards Better Models and Methods]," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 30(3), pages 323-335.
    13. Andrey Lovakov & Anna Panova & Maria Yudkevich, 2022. "Global visibility of nationally published research output: the case of the post-Soviet region," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2643-2659, May.
    14. Adriana Bin & Sergio Salles-Filho & Ana Carolina Spatti & Jesús Pascual Mena-Chalco & Fernando Antonio Basile Colugnati, 2022. "How much does a Ph.D. scholarship program impact an emerging economy research performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 6935-6960, December.
    15. Andrea Bonaccorsi & Filippo Chiarello & Gualtiero Fantoni, 2021. "Impact for whom? Mapping the users of public research with lexicon-based text mining," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(2), pages 1745-1774, February.
    16. Kaile Gong & Ying Cheng, 2022. "Patterns and impact of collaboration in China’s social sciences: cross-database comparisons between CSSCI and SSCI," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 5947-5964, October.
    17. Müller, Harry, 2012. "Die Zitationshäufigkeit als Qualitätsindikator im Rahmen der Forschungsleistungsmessung," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 1/2012, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    18. Lucy Semerjian & Kunle Okaiyeto & Mike O. Ojemaye & Temitope Cyrus Ekundayo & Aboi Igwaran & Anthony I. Okoh, 2021. "Global Systematic Mapping of Road Dust Research from 1906 to 2020: Research Gaps and Future Direction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-21, October.
    19. Alberto Saracco, 2022. "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Citations," The Mathematical Intelligencer, Springer, vol. 44(4), pages 326-330, December.
    20. Ho, Manh-Toan, 2021. "English or Vietnamese," OSF Preprints bwn9t, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:21582440211009191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.