Four decades of research on multiword expressions: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract Multiword expressions have been a prominent research topic in applied linguistics and second language acquisition. However, no bibliometric analysis has been conducted to examine the landscape of this field. Using CiteSpace, we analyzed 1,302 research articles published from 1983 to 2024, retrieved from the Web of Science database. We performed various bibliometric analyses based on citation, co-citation information, and keywords from the publications to identify the most influential authors, scholarly documents, and journals in the field. We also visualized collaboration networks between authors, research institutions, and countries. Additionally, we identified the key research areas and the most frequently discussed topics over different time periods. By tracking and visualizing the patterns in research on multiword expressions over the past four decades, our study offers insights into the intellectual structure and dynamics of this field, thereby guiding future research on larger-than-word units.