Still on the topic of relevant research published right around the time my own book was in press, so here’s another item of interest from the September 2023 issue of Journal of Data and Information Science. Yves Fassin and Ronald Rousseau suggest in their “The Notion of Dominant Terminology in Bibliometric Research” that, like the notion of “dominant design” in technological fields, “dominant terminologies” can be identified throughout scientific literature, and the emergence of a “dominant term” in disciplines can be mapped as part of the study of scientific knowledge.
However, there are various factors in such an emergence: since language is a social phenomenon, the biological analogy of natural or random drift of genetic variants is not applicable, though shared vocabularies can arise more or less spontaneously in an environment in which many competing new alternative words exist. (Or, expanding on the examples they give, special interests can also impact the use of specific words: highly prolific researchers can popularize their preferred terms; intellectual property considerations can make certain words inaccessible for most uses by others; changing mores may make some formerly acceptable terms inadvisable for use by anyone; and marketing endeavors can make particular words into “buzzwords” for an entire field.)
Fassin and Rousseau provide several examples from other studies (e.g., management and medicine) before turning to information science. They note that the general field of statistical analysis of literatures was originally known as “statistical bibliography,” then as “bibliometrics” (with “scientometrics” usually reserved for the study of scientific literatures and “altmetrics” usually reserved for the study of social media citations). Their own preferred term “informetrics” appears to be a losing contender in the competition for dominance, though of course this too may change with time.
They conclude that “This phenomenon illustrates the dilemma between a plurality of terminologies to reflect different research needs and the need for a common ontology to improve information retrieval and knowledge integration. The increasing interdisciplinarity of contemporary science has enlarged this dilemma” (page 5).
As is usual with Rousseau, it’s well-done and well-supported, even though it’s only an opinion piece. A more detailed version of their empirical work on this (“Use of Bibliometrics-Related Terms, their Evolution, and the Growth of Metrics in Science“) also appeared in the Journal of Scientometric Research in September 2023, with some thoughtful recommendations regarding keywords:
“Our analysis shows the need for a better categorization system. This could require a post-publication review of the assignment of keywords to each article, possibly with first and second-order keywords. This same observation is valid for other scientific fields and subfields, with a variety of themes. Because science progresses in new subdomains and new themes such a categorization cannot be statically designed ad hoc but
needs regular adaptations over time. Seen the imperfection of the categorization with imperfect keywords, a comprehensive bibliometric study should make use of a combination of related keywords to cover the whole field of study. This remark, of course, also holds for all studies related to a given field, not only to bibliometrics/scientometrics” (page 519)
Interestingly, there is no mention of “dominant terminology” in this article, so I would have been unable to use that as a keyword for retrieval (though I did follow the citation to the JSR paper in the JDIS one) So, hopefully, this will point anyone else interested in Fassin & Rousseau’s notions of “dominant terminologies” more directly to their work, as I think it’s of considerable interest in the context of keyword theorizing.
Keywords In and Out of Context 