The study supports scholars and practitioners in navigating the complex and evolving landscape of politeness in digital and intercultural contexts by offering a data-driven roadmap for future research, emphasising underexplored areas such as cross-cultural/comparative pragmatics and computational approaches.
Abstract
Abstract Over the past three decades, the field of politeness studies has undergone significant growth and theoretical refinement. Despite this expansion, a comprehensive overview that maps the evolution of politeness studies remains limited. This study aims to visualise the emerging trends and new developments in politeness studies, identify thematic shifts, highlight key contributors, and outline evidence-based directions for future research. Using a scientometric approach, 8,574 publications from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, from 1995 to 2024, were analysed through the CiteSpace 6.3 R3 Advanced version. Co-citation, keyword co-occurrence, author country, and institution network analyses were conducted to uncover influential trends and emerging hotspots. Results show that publication output increased roughly tenfold from 1995 to 2024, with 2024 marking the peak. Seven distinct co-citation clusters were identified (Q = 0.803; average silhouette = 0.94), encompassing classical theories like “Politeness Theory” and “Relational Work,” as well as newer trends in “Digital Communication”, “Social Media”, and “Computational Linguistics”. The United States and the United Kingdom remain central contributors, while recent citation bursts in China, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia indicate growing global participation. Thematic shifts include a transition from face-threatening acts to directive speech acts and AI-mediated communication interactions, with notable influence from scholars such as Culpeper, Leech, Bousfield, Kádár, Haugh, Mills, Eelen, and Locher. These findings offer a data-driven roadmap for future research, emphasising underexplored areas such as cross-cultural/comparative pragmatics and computational (NLP-based) approaches. The study supports scholars and practitioners in navigating the complex and evolving landscape of politeness in digital and intercultural contexts.
Since the end of the Cold War, Joseph S. Nye’s concept of soft power has become a central analytical framework for understanding national attraction and non-coercive influence in international relations. Despite the rapid expansion of both theoretical and empirical research, the field still lacks systematic bibliometric evidence concerning its knowledge structure, thematic evolution, and patterns of scholarly collaboration. To address this gap, this study constructs a comprehensive bibliometric map of global soft power research based on 2,772 English-language social science articles indexed in the Scopus database from 1991 to 2025. Using VOSviewer and RStudio (Biblioshiny), the analysis examines publication trends, citation structures, country collaboration networks, author co-citation relationships, keyword co-occurrence patterns, and thematic evolution pathways. The findings indicate that soft power research experienced steady growth after 2005, followed by a pronounced acceleration after 2015. While the United States, China, and the United Kingdom remain the principal research hubs, Australia emerges as an important cross-regional bridge, suggesting a shift toward a more multi-center structure of knowledge production. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution further reveal a transition from early concept-oriented debates to a more diversified and policy-focused research agenda. In addition, soft power is increasingly conceptualized as an observable and comparable form of international influence, with growing attention to practical domains such as higher education cooperation, sports diplomacy, digital diplomacy, vaccine diplomacy, and the Belt and Road Initiative. Overall, this study systematically maps the intellectual structure and emerging frontiers of global soft power research, highlighting the rise of multipolar soft power and a shift toward policy-oriented and interdisciplinary inquiry, while providing a bibliometric foundation for developing measurable soft power assessment frameworks.
Na Wang, M. Ahmad· Multidisciplinary Reviews· 0 citations
Drawing on bibliometric records of Long March-related scholarly articles indexed in the CNKI database from 2011 to 2025, this paper identifies a three-stage developmental trajectory, demarcated by the pivotal years 2016 and 2021. Employing VOSviewer and CiteSpace for co-occurrence and co-citation analyses, we construct a comprehensive visual mapping of the knowledge structure and thematic contours characterizing this body of research. Empirical analyses generate three salient observations on Long‑March‑related scholarship. First, it features a distinct two‑tiered intellectual structure: foundational canonical historical themes (e.g., Mao ZD, the Zunyi Conference) dominated research in 2011‑2015, while contemporary agendas such as the Long March National Cultural Park and rural revitalization prevailed during 2021‑2025. Second, the field has undergone a paradigmatic shift from historical textual criticism and archival compilation toward policy exegesis and applied inquiry, moving from discipline‑driven historical scholarship to applied and cultural‑communication‑oriented research. Third, journals display functional stratification: core outlets prioritize theoretical elaboration and historical contextual reconstruction, whereas non‑core journals mainly publish practice‑centered and pedagogy‑focused studies on Long March culture. This study clarifies the evolutionary logic and disciplinary layout of Long March research, provides theoretical reference and practical implications for the innovative inheritance and international cross-cultural communication of Chinese Red Culture.
Mijia Chen, Wenjun Lu, Linda Zhang· Journal of Education Teachin...· 0 citations
Press freedom serves as a fundamental pillar within a democratic system, ensuring that journalists can perform their role as social watchdogs without the shadow of intimidation. Globally, however, the integrity of this profession faces systemic challenges ranging from physical aggression to repression by state actors and interest groups. This study employs bibliometric analysis to map the evolving landscape of press freedom, identifying key trends, influential actors, and emerging themes within global scholarly literature. A total of 602 peer-reviewed articles indexed in Scopus from 1989 to 2025 were analyzed using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer, revealing a robust annual growth rate of 13.02% with a peak of 82 publications in 2025. The co-word network analysis identifies "Press Freedom" as the most central theme (betweenness centrality = 770.46), bridging critical clusters such as Censorship and Democracy alongside emerging themes of Digital Authoritarianism, Online Harassment, and Disinformation. The study reveals a notable shift towards digital authoritarianism, highlighting how online harassment and disinformation are increasingly used to silence journalists, thereby obstructing their watchdog function and weakening democratic discourse. The findings underline the growing need for comprehensive protection policies that address both physical and digital threats to journalists, ensuring the continued functioning of a free press in a rapidly changing political environment.
G. Pratiwi, H. Hafiar, Pandan Yudhapramesti· Jurnal Komunikasi dan Bisnis· 0 citations
This study aims to map the intellectual and conceptual landscape of the B Corp movement within the scientific literature through a quantitative bibliometric analysis. Utilising the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database, the research analyses 108 peer-reviewed articles published between 2007 and 2025. Data visualisation and network analysis, including co-authorship and keyword co-occurrence, were performed using the VOSviewer software. The results show that the number of publications has been growing exponentially since 2011, and the majority of the articles are in the business and management field. A total of 282 keywords were evaluated, and “B Corp” (total link strength: 315) and “Corporate Social Responsibility” (total link strength: 92) were identified as central conceptual pillars. The most cited influential work is by Julie Battilana and Alnoor Ebrahim, with 728 citations. Geographic concentration is still strong in the USA and Europe, but research on emerging economies, such as Türkiye, where there are presently 15 certified B Corps, is critically lacking. The results show a conceptual move from general corporate responsibility to specific issues of 'social impact' and 'employee ownership'. The paper concludes with a research agenda for future research that can help bridge the gap between global norms and local institutional contexts, particularly for researchers in Türkiye.
Şafak Altay· Trends in Business and Econo...· 0 citations
The Scopus-based core corpus consists of 704 English-language journal articles from 1966 to 2025, and this study analyzes the intellectual foundations, thematic evolution, and international collaboration structure of this research field. Since the records were retrieved on 22 October 2025, the 2025 data are analyzed as partial-year data rather than as a complete year. Bibliometric procedures included bibliographic description, thematic mapping, thematic evolution, document co-citation, author keyword co-occurrence, and country co-authorship networks, using association-strength normalization and performed with Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. A search-completeness test with the expanded query ("abusive supervision" and "despotic leadership") yielded 876 records, of which 695 matched the core corpus, and 181 were retained as a sensitivity set. The results reveal that publications were sparse for several decades, but after 2018 there was a significant rise in publications. Venue influence is concentrated in a small interdisciplinary core, with The Leadership Quarterly and Journal of Business Ethics providing theory and synthesis, and the Journal of Nursing Management and Frontiers in Psychology reflecting more recent applied diffusion. Document co-citation reveals a tripartite intellectual base comprising definitional accounts, exchange and justice mechanisms, and measurement or personality-trait traditions. Keyword structures identify three current fronts: abusive and exploitative mechanisms, dark-trait and ethics-oriented research, and healthcare-oriented studies of bullying, stress, and culture. Country co-authorship indicates a transatlantic and Asia-Pacific core with recent regional diversification. Overall, the field shows increasing convergence among fragmented labels while retaining important conceptual distinctions.
Alum Kusumah, Sulistyandari, Cheng-Wen Lee· Asian Journal of Interdiscip...· 0 citations
This paper conducts a bibliometric exploration of research linking two concepts i.e. clusters and entrepreneurship, a domain that has expanded steadily over the past thirty years. Using 155 peer-reviewed articles sourced from the Dimensions database (1996–2025), the study applies the SPAR-4-SLR framework along with visualization software (VOSviewer) to identify intellectual patterns in publication trend, citations trend, influential journals, influential field of research and new themes map. The analysis highlights a consistent growth in publications from the early 2000s, with output peaking around 2021, followed by diversification into new thematic directions. Contributions are geographically widespread, though the United States accounts for much of the citation influence, particularly through foundational studies by Feldman (2001, 2005) and Sonfield & Lussier (2004). Among journals, Entrepreneurship and Regional Development leads in productivity, whereas Industrial and Corporate Change demonstrates higher citation impact. Bibliographic coupling reveals eight thematic clusters, centering on networks, social capital, proximity, and entrepreneurial capability as drivers of cluster vitality. Emerging topics such as digital entrepreneurship, artisanal industries, and handloom clusters suggest the field’s increasing socio-economic scope. Overall, the findings emphasize clusters as catalysts of innovation, entrepreneurship and regional competitiveness, while offering insights for scholars and policymakers interested in advancing sustainable and entrepreneurship-driven development.
Dinesh Rawat, Kalpana Rawat· International journal of bus...· 0 citations