Bibliometrics as a tool to map uncharted territory: A study on non-professional interpreting

Abstract

The descriptive and predictive applications of bibliometric methods are used in this paper to identify and describe non-professional interpreting as an emerging specialty within Translation and Interpreting Studies. ‘Collective communication efforts’ are used as a token of scholarly interest on this new area and exploited bibliometrically to build a corpus of relevant publications. Publication count methods are applied to this corpus of 268 scientific works published between 1973 and 2013 in order to shed light on the evolution of this research front, as well as its main features in terms of creation and dissemination of knowledge (authorship, publication types and disciplinary affiliations). Results point to an early apparition of the topic in the early 1970s, but a delayed growth in scholarly production starting in the early 2000s and taking the shape of journal articles and chapters in collective volumes. Research is spearheaded by a small group of scholars with a continuous interest in the issue and complemented by the research activities of ‘one-timers’ from a wide array of disciplines – from Translation and Interpreting Studies to Health Sciences, Psychology and Education – who tend to collaborate, if ever, within their discipline rather than across them.