A bibliometric analysis of doctoral dissertations in the subdiscipline of audiovisual translation

Abstract

This work analyses the evolution and current state of the art in audiovisual translation research as portrayed in doctoral dissertations worldwide, which is part of the studies I am conducting for my own PhD thesis at the University of Alicante, Spain. Audiovisual translation studies is still a very young subdiscipline of translation studies, and more research in this field is needed to describe and explain what its authors, institutions, journals, research groups and other actors have done so far, how and why. In this connection, doctoral dissertations usually represent the most comprehensive, cutting-edge investigation projects that researchers face in their careers, and therefore their study brings about abundant information enabling us to provide a portrait of the subdiscipline. That information includes main topics and trends, academic networks of authors, gender differences between authors and supervisors, academic networks, most productive supervisors, universities and countries, most common languages, years of publication or access mode. All this data helps to analyse, delineate and categorise the subdiscipline of audiovisual translation.