This study examines the development and thematic evolution of sociolinguistics from 1884 to 2022 through a scientometric analysis of 51 620 publications sourced from Scopus, Web of Science (WoS) and Lens, the majority of which are in English, though publications in additional languages are represented in the WoS database. Bibliometric indicators, co-authorship and co-citation networks, keyword burst analysis and thematic clustering were conducted using VOSviewer and CiteSpace. The analysis traces the field’s expansion over time, documents shifting patterns in collaborative authorship and highlights the emergence and consolidation of major research areas. Core topics – such as language variation and change, language policy, discourse analysis and identity – remain prominent, while recent years show increasing attention to digital communication, translanguaging and socio-phonetics. Interdisciplinary connections with psychology, education and computational linguistics are reflected in both network structures and keyword trends. The study also maps the diversification of publication venues and identifies evolving clusters around themes such as linguistic justice and multilingual practices. By integrating results across multiple databases and analytic approaches, this review provides an evidence-based account of how sociolinguistics has developed in scope, methodology and research focus, and identifies areas for future inquiry and broader international engagement.
Alduais et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
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