Translation Studies In The Arab World Trends & Impacts: A Bibliometric Study Of Published Articles Funded By Arabic Observatory Of Translation/ دراسات الترجمة في الوطن العربي الاتجاهات والتأثير: دراسة ببيليومترية للأبحاث الممولة بواسطة المرصد العربي للترجمة

Ibrahim Jibreel

Abstract


This bibliometric study aimed to investigate the relationship between trends and impact of translation studies (TS) in the Arab World, exploring the correlation between an article’s trend and citation as well as some other factors, namely year of publication, authorship (sole author/coauthors), scope/s(uni-/bi-), source of citation, and journal indexing. In addition, it attempted to map the contribution to the TS movement in the Arab World regarding the author’s nationality and university affiliation. The bibliometric analysis depended on the Arabic Observatory of Translation (AOT) beta-website’s corpus to collect data from 125 articles of two translation grant sessions (2022 & 2023). The titles of articles were thematically analyzed and quantified in frequencies and percentages, and the Citation Analysis (CA) helped to record the research’s impact utilizing Google Scholar. The other influential potential factors were controlled for internal validity, and the two-rater method was utilized for reliability. Pearson Correlation, Partial Correlation Analysis, and Multiple Linear Regression were used in the analysis regarding correlations. Translation technology, literary translation, and audio-visual were the most frequent trends among all the trends funded by the AOT. However, the correlation between research trend and impact is weak, negative, and insignificant (r=-.067, p=0.476). The results also showed that interdisciplinary scopes have a positive correlation and significant effect on articles’ citations (B = 4.41, β = 0.29, p < .001), while journal indexing has a negative correlation and significant impact (B = -1.22, β = -0.34, p < .001). Factors like authorship, research trend, citation source, and publication year insignificantly influenced articles’ citation (p >.05). Mapping TS movement contribution, by nationality, Saudi researchers ranked first, followed by Yemeni, Jordanian, and Egyptian, respectively. King Saud University made a significant contribution among universities, followed by King Abdulaziz University, Applied Science Private University, and Middle East University from Jordan, as well as University of Saba Region, Amran University, and University of Science & Technology from Yemen. By authors, Jibreel (2023) came first with (27) citations of a two-fold article: Translation Technology & Literary Translation, then AlOtaibi (2024) with (25) citations of a two-fold article: Applications of Translation & Teaching Translation.

Keywords


Arabic Observatory of Translation; AOT; Citation Analysis; Google Scholar; New Trends; Translation Studies

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ahmad, S., Ur Rehman, S., & Ashiq, M. (2021). A Bibliometric Review Of Arab World Research From 1980-2020. Science & Technology Libraries

Alangari, E. (2024). Translation and interpreting research in Saudi Arabia: A Bibliometric Analysis

AlBkowr, N., & Haider, A. S. (2023). Subtitling For People With Hearing Impairments In The Arab World Context: The case of the Blue Elephant 2 movie Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies

Alharbi, W. 2023. The Use and Abuse of Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Machine Translation in the EFL Classroom: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Education and e-learning Research

Al-Khalifa, H., Al-Khalefah, K., & Haroon, H. (2024). Error analysis of pretrained language models (PLMs) in English-to-arabic machine translation. Human-Centric Intelligent Systems, 4(2), 206-219.‏

Alotaibi, H., & Salamah, D. (2023). The impact of translation apps on translation students performance. Education and Information Technologies, 28(8), 10709-10729.‏

Alshehri, F. (2020). Examining the Norms of Translating English-Arabic Cultural Items: Case Studies of Translated Literature in Saudi Arabia.‏ Published PhD thesis, Swansea University. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=ar&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Examining+the+Norms+of+Translating+EnglishArabic+Cultural+Items%3A+Case++Studies+of+Translated+Literature+in+Saudi+Arabia&btnG=

Alwathnani, D., Mahdi, H., & Alotaibi, H. M. (2024). Does Translation Technology Affect Translators' Performance? A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Language Teaching & Research.‏

Bornmann, L. (2013). A better alternative to the h index. J. Informetric.

Bornmann, L. (2014). Measuring impact in research evaluations. arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.1895.‏

DeepakHajoary, Narzary, R., Das, H.C., Basumatary, R., Sarmah, K., & Hajoary, D.2025. Analyzing Citation Dynamics and Forecasting Academic Trends: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Approach Using ARIMA and AHP. Communications on Applied Nonlinear Analysis

Dewi, H. D. (2018). Present and Future Trends in Translation Studies. Deskripsi Bahasa.‏

Doğan, Y. & Talan, T. (2024). Artificial intelligence in foreign language learning: A bibliometric analysis. Journal of Pedagogical Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.33902/JPR.202427734

Dong, D., & Chen, M. L. (2015). A Bibliometric Analysis of Translation Studies between 1999 and 2014. Compilation & Translation Review.‏

Dorta-González, P., & Dorta-González, M. I. (2022). Collaboration effect by co-authorship on academic citation and social attention of research. Mathematics.‏

Farghal, M., Haider, A. S., & Abu Tair, S.2023. Codeswitching in Arabic reality food competition shows through the lens of partial subtitling: A case study of the MENA adaptation of Top Chef. Cogent Arts & Humanities.‏

Franco Aixelá, J., & Rovira-Esteva, S. (2015). Publishing and impact criteria, and their bearing on translation studies: In search of comparability. Perspectives‏

‏Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education: Culture, power, and liberation. Bergin & Garvey.‏

Gambier, Y., & Van Doorslaer, L. (2016a). Border crossings: Translation studies and other disciplines (Vol. 126). John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Gambier, Y., & Van Doorslaer, L. 2016. Disciplinary dialogues with translation studies. Border Crossings. Translation Studies and Other Disciplines. Amsterdam, John Benjamins

Gazni, A., & Thelwall, M. (2014). The long-term influence of collaboration on citation patterns. Research Evaluation.‏

Ghazala, H. S. (2021). Translation Theory between Theorization and Theoricization. Academic Journal of Research and Scientific Publishing| Vol 27 (3).‏

Ghazala, H. S. 2023. Proximity Principle in Legal Translation. AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies‏

Grimm, E., Blois, J.L., & Williams, J.W. (2006). Recent Developments and Future Directions.

Huang, Q., & Liu, F. 2019. International translation studies from 2014 to 2018: A bibliometric analysis and its implications. Translation Review

Istito, Abd Jabar. 2011. Dirasat Al Tarjamah Bil Maghrib: Bibliyugrafiyah Wathaniyah. Tarjaman

Jibreel, I. (2023). Online machine translation efficiency in translating fixed expressions between English and Arabic (proverbs as a case-in-point). Theory and Practice in Language Studies.‏

Katerattanakul, P., Razi, M., & Kam, H. J. (2003). IS Journal Rankings Versus Citation Analysis: Consistency And Concerns.‏

Larivière, V., & Gingras, Y. (2010). On the relationship between interdisciplinarity and scientific impact. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology.‏

Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Börner, K. (2015). Long-distance interdisciplinarity leads to higher scientific impact

Li, C., Lin, Y., Yan, R., & Yeh, M. (2015). Trend-Based Citation Count Prediction for Research Articles. Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining

Li, X. (2008). Trajectories of Research in Translation Studies. Journal of Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management.

Martín-Martín, A., Orduna-Malea, E., Thelwall, M., & López-Cózar, E. D. (2018) Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories. Journal of informetrics.‏

Moed, H.F., Bar-Ilan, J., & Halevi, G. (2015). Comparing source coverage, citation counts and speed of indexing in Google Scholar and Scopus. ArXiv, abs/1512.05741.

Mohsen, M. A., Althebi, S., & Albahooth, M. (2023). A scientometric study of three decades of machine translation research: Trending issues, hotspot research, and co-citation analysis. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 10(1), 2242620.‏

Munday, J. 2001. Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and applications. London and New York: Routledge.

Nightingale, J. M., & Marshall, G. (2013). Reprint of “Citation analysis as a measure of article quality, journal influence, and individual researcher performance”. Nurse education in practice, 13(5), 429-436.‏

Obiajulu Umeanowai, K., & HU, G. (2024). Unveiling the Dynamic Landscape of Translation Studies: A Bibliometric Analysis. SAGE Open, 14(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241300123 (Original work published 2024)

Odyuo, S. (2020). Trends in Research Publication: Conceptualizing the Idea of Citation Indexing for Research Scholars. Available at SSRN 3604059.‏

Qassem, M., & AlThebi, S. (2025). Mapping Saudi Institutions’ Translation and Interpreting Research in the Web of Science and Scopus:: A Bibliometrics Approach. New Voices in Translation Studies‏

Qobti, A., & Almohaimeed, S. (2024). Translation Research in the Arabic Language: A Bibliometric Study. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation.‏

Ronda‐Pupo, G. A., & Katz, J. S. (2017). The scaling relationship between citation-based performance and coauthorship patterns in natural sciences. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.‏

Rossoni, L., & Rosa, R. A. (2024). Reducing the Matthew Effect on Journal citations through an inclusive indexing logic: the Brazilian Spell (Scientific Periodicals Electronic Library) experience. Publications

Rovira-Esteva, S., Aixelá, J. F., & Olalla-Soler, C. (2020). A bibliometric study of co-authorship in Translation Studies. Onomázein.‏

Saed, H., Haider, A. S., & Tair, S. A. (2023). Gender, sexual, Ethnic, color and Disability-related Epithets and labels across languages: Evidence from Arabic subtitling of English Movies and series. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics‏

Sahari, Y., Altalid, B., & Alqarni, A. (2025). Emerging trends and research clusters in translation studies: A scientometric analysis of four decades of research. Dragoman Journal of Translation Studies. Antwerp Belgium: ATI.

Shhaiber, R., & Haider, A. S. (2023). Strategies of subtitling egyptian idiomatic expressions and proverbs into English. Language Value.‏

Singson, M., Thiyagarajan, S., & Leeladharan, M. (2016). Relationship between electronic journal downloads and citations in library consortia. Library Review.‏

Stitou, A. (2021). Translation Studies in the Arab Region: A Diachronic Look at Half a Century of Scientific Production. ALTRALANG Journal .

Thelwall, M., & Kousha, K. (2017). ResearchGate versus Google Scholar Which finds more early citations?. Scientometrics.‏

Van Doorslaer, L., & Gambier, Y. 2015. Measuring relationships in translation studies. On affiliations and keyword frequencies in the translation studies bibliography. Perspectives

Wang, J., Thijs, B., & Glänzel, W. (2015). Interdisciplinarity and impact: Distinct effects of variety, balance, and disparity. PloS one

Weld-Ali, E. W., Obeidat, M. M., & Haider, A. S. (2023). Religious and cultural expressions in legal discourse: Evidence from interpreting Canadian courts hearings from Arabic into English. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique.‏

Yegros-Yegros, A., Rafols, I., & D’este, P. (2015). Does interdisciplinary research lead to higher citation impact? The Different Effect Of Proximal And Distal Interdisciplinarity. PloS one‏

Zafar, L., & Masood, N. (2020). Impact of Field of Study Trend on Scientific Articles. IEEE Access

Zhu, X., & Aryadoust, V. (2023). A Scientometric Review Of Research In Translation Studies In The Twenty-First Century. Target.‏




DOI: https://doi.org/10.18860/ijazarabi.v8i3.36082

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2025 Ibrahim Jibreel

License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/