Trend Analysis of the Research on Construction Grammar in CSSCI Journals from 2010 to 2020

Abstract

This study aims at analyzing the tendency and change in the research on construction grammar from 2010 to 2020. Descriptively, this study includes the publication year, research topic, research direction, research content, and the research methods. Twenty-four CSSCI journals were selected as the research samples using the keyword – “Construction Grammar.” The research topics mainly include Chinese construction research, foreign language construction research, and comparative studies on Chinese and other language constructions. The results showed that there are many Chinese construction research, but the other two research topics still require improvement. Ontology research was the main focus; acquisition research and teaching research are worthy for further exploration. Case studies and theoretical studies were the most concerned contents, whereas studies on language acquisition, pedagogy, and corpus construction were feeble. Qualitative description and theoretical review were the most popular methods, while empirical, quantitative, and diachronic analyses were less frequently used. After analyzing the trends, it has been predicted that the research on construction grammar would continue to heat up in the future, and there would be more research directions and contents along with diversified research methods.