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1. A diachronic study on the information provided
by the research titles of applied linguistics journals
Rahman Sahragard1 • Hussein Meihami1
Received: 1 February 2016
Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2016
Abstract This study aims to investigate different types and trends of information provided
by research titles published in the applied linguistics journals from 1975 to 2015. To this
end, 428 research titles published in 63 issues of three applied linguistics journals, namely,
Modern Language Journal, Language Learning, and Foreign Language Annals were
extracted. The research titles were analyzed for the information they contained in terms of
such categories as Method/Design, Result, Dataset, and Conclusion. The results revealed
that from 1975 to 2015, the research titles of the three applied linguistics journals tended to
provide the most information on Method/Design of the studies. In addition, the research
titles containing information on Topic, Result, and Dataset showed fluctuating rates in
different time intervals. However, the research titles containing information about Con-
clusion had a falling rate in the three journals. The study concludes with some discussion
on the results obtained.
Keywords Applied linguistics Categorical framework Diachronic study Research
titles
Introduction
The hyperproduction of professional literature in different scientific fields has made sci-
entists and readers pay their utmost attention to the research titles deemed interesting for
the purpose of their study (Salager-Meyer and Alcazar-Ariza 2013). The importance of first
impressions conveyed by research titles has been stressed by several scholars (e.g. Kumar
Hussein Meihami
s.hmeihami@rose.shirazu.ac.ir
Rahman Sahragard
rsahragard@rose.shirazu.ac.ir
1
Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran
123
Scientometrics
DOI 10.1007/s11192-016-2049-4

2. 2013, p. 361; Swales 1990, p. 224), the reason being that they act as an ‘‘eye catcher’’
which motivates the readers to continue reading (Ball 2009; Beel and Gipp 2009; Fox and
Burns 2015; Haggan 2004; Rath 2010), and also that a research title can promote an article
to be ‘‘findable’’, while a poorly phrased one can make discovering a paper difficult (Fox
and Burns 2015; Jacques and Sebire 2010). In terms of positioning, titles are front matter—
they are the first part of a research study which a reader encounters, but they are summary
matter in terms of function, since they succinctly convey the whole content of the research.
Titleology is the discipline that studies a genre in its own right. The term dates back to
1973 (Roy 2008), when Duchet introduced it in French as titrologie. Studies of academic
titles are varied in scope, method and disciplinary focus. For example, some analyse the
topics of titles (Haggan 2004; Laurence 2001; Whissell 1999), maybe reference could be
made to Jalilifar (2010), who examined syntactic and semantic aspects of titles; some
investigate titles from works belonging to the same genre (e.g., Laurence 2001; Salager-
Meyer and Alcazar-Ariza 2013; Yakhontova 2002), while others explore titles of different
kinds of publications (e.g., Baicchi 2003; Soler 2007, 2011); some are focused on a single
discipline (e.g., Gesuato 2009; Goodman et al. 2001; Siegel et al. 2007), while others are
cross-disciplinary (e.g. Nagano 2015; Soler 2007); some conduct corpus-based analyses of
titles (e.g., Rostami et al. 2013), while others carry out combined qualitative and quanti-
tative analysese (e.g., Jalilifar 2010).
Given the significant role of the research titles in distributing articles, in this paper, we
investigated the information provided by the titles of research articles published in applied
linguistics journals over the last 40 years. Moreover, the information trends of these
research titles were examined and reported.
Review of literature
Studies of titles of research publications can be classified into three groups. Those focused
on mono-disciplinary contexts, those with a cross-disciplinary orientation, and those with a
cross-cultural orientation.
Studies on research titles in ‘‘mono-disciplinary’’ contexts
One mono-disciplinary study is Gesuato (2009), which investigated the information
sequencing, lexical density, syntactic encoding, structural organization and length of titles
in dissertations, research articles, proceedings articles and books in linguistics. Her find-
ings revealed more similarities than differences across the four genres considered, and a
few distinctive traits for each genre.
In Forray and Woodilla (2005) explored the research titles of three management jour-
nals in terms of the use of academic terminology, punctuation and word choice, and
assumptions of temporality or timelessness. The results of their study demonstrated that the
speech community of management could be figured out by examining the management
research titles. Similarly, Wang and Bai (2007) investigated the syntactic structures of 417
titles of medical research articles, showing their frequent use of: (1) nominal groups, (2)
uni-head, bi-head and multi-head structures and (3) pre- and post-modifiers.
Fox and Burns (2015) examined the titles of research articles published in the journal of
Functional Ecology between 1987 and 2013. They found that, over time, the titles became
longer, broader in scope and richer in humor; that those of intermediate length were quite
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3. successful in the review process; and that those containing names of organisms received
the lowest number of citations.
Studies on research titles with cross-disciplinary orientations
The majority of investigations done on research titles are cross-disciplinary. One of the
earliest was the one conducted by Buxton and Meadows (1977) in the fields of social and
natural sciences, whose findings showed that titles of natural sciences publication were
more informative than those in the social sciences. Another relevant study is Yitzhaki
(1994), which showed how in the hard sciences there was a positive correlation between
the number of authors of a given article and the informativity of its title, while this was not
the case in the social sciences or the humanities.
In another cross-disciplinary study, Haggan (2004) investigated research titles in lit-
erature, linguistics, and science. The research titles were examined based on their struc-
tures, which turned out to comprise three main structures: full sentence, compound and
noun phrase with or without postmodification (Haggan 2004). Haggan (2004) reported that
there existed fundamental differences in pragmatic intention of the research titles among
the three fields. However, he argued, based on the results obtained from his study, that
there were similarities in syntactic and structural choices among the research titles of the
three fields. Finally, Lewinson and Hartley (2005) and Hartley (2008) explored the use of
punctuation marks in academic publications in education, psychology and literary criticism
between 1880 and 1980. They found that titles with colons were longer and more infor-
mative than those without colons.
Studies on research titles with a cross-cultural orientation
Research titles were also investigated from a cross-cultural perspective. Nord (1995)
examined the functional value of 12,000 research titles written by researchers from different
countries including Germany, France, Spain, and England, finding no culture-specific vari-
ations across the nationalities considered. Five years later, Busch-Lauer (2000) conducted a
comparative study between German and English research titles in linguistics and medicine.
She found that the linguistics research titles were shorter than the medicine titles; that the
German titles were shorter than the English ones, and that in medicine, the German research
titles had title-subtitle structures, while the English titles had a mono-structure format.
Soler (2011) conducted a comparative study between research titles in English and
Spanish, finding that the nominal group construction was common in both languages, but
characterized by different patterns and structures, especially in the use of punctuation, with
English preferring colons to mark divisions within titles, and Spanish, instead, resorting to
commas, stops, colons or dashes.
Conclusion
In spite of the great body of work available on research titles in different fields, research
titles in applied linguistics journals have seldom been investigated, and never from a
diachronic perspective. The present study investigates research titles in the field of applied
linguistics diachronically by examining three journals of applied linguistics, namely,
Modern Language Journal, Language Learning, and Foreign Language Annals during the
last four decades. The research questions addressed are the following:
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4. 1. What kind of information features prominently in the research titles published in the
three applied linguistics journals—Modern Language Journal, Language Learning,
and Foreign Language Annals—from 1975 to 2015?
2. Are there any differences or similarities in the trends of information conveyed by the
research titles published in three applied linguistics journals—Modern Language
Journal, Language Learning, and Foreign Language Annals—from 1975 to 2015?
Method
Corpus of the study
For the purpose of this study, we examined research titles which were drawn from three
top-ranking applied linguistics journals, namely Modern Language Journal, Language
Learning, and Foreign Language Annals, all published by Wiley Publication, and all
known for ensuring timely publications. In particular, we selected the titles of all and only
the original articles—to the exclusion of review articles, book reviews, notes and
announcements—published over a 40-year time period, from 1975 to 2015 so as to be able
to detect possible diachronic trends in the choice of types of information encoded in titles.
Table 1 summarizes the main features of the journals from which the research titles were
selected.
The corpus used in this study included 428 research titles published in 63 issues of the
three applied linguistics journals from 1975 to 2015. Of the total research titles surveyed,
40 % belong to Foreign Language Annals, 32 % to Modern Language Journal, and 28 %
to Language Learning. The highest concentration of titles is found in 2015 (39 %) and the
lowest in 1995 (16 %). Most titles extracted from Modern Language Journal, Language
learning and Foreign Language annals were published in 1975 (8 %), 2015 (8 %), and
1985 (10 %), respectively.
Data analysis framework
To investigate the information provided in the research titles, we adapted a framework
from Goodman et al. (2001), but adding definitions based on the features and character-
istics of applied linguistics. Hence research titles were divided into Topic Only, Method/
Design, Dataset, Result, and Conclusion titles. Table 2 shows the framework and the
descriptors for each type of research title.
Data analysis procedures
By visiting the websites of the three journals, Modern Language Journal, Language
Learning, and Foreign Language Annals, the research titles of the original articles pub-
lished from 1975 to 2015 were retrieved. These were categorized based on the year of
publication and the journal. Two coders examined the research titles based on Goodman
et al. (2001) adapted framework in terms of the information each research title provided.
These coders, experts in the field of applied linguistics and familiar with its various
domains, practiced using the framework before classifying the titles according to the
checklists in ‘‘Appendix’’.
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5. Interestingly, not all the research titles included just one type of the various types
information listed in the framework, but rather combined different types of information. In
such cases, the coders were asked to specify all the types of information instantiated. For
instance, for titles like ‘‘The Influence of First Language Lexicalization on Second Lan-
guage Lexical Inferencing: A Study of Farsi-Speaking Learners of English as a Foreign
Language’’ they were supposed to indicate that it contained information on both result (the
influence of…) and dataset (Farsi-Speaking Learners…).
Examples of research titles corresponding to the framework categories
The topic only titles are quite generic, because they do not provide information on the
method/design, dataset, or the result of the studies. Some examples are shown below:
Rationalizing Individualized Instruction
Language Acquisition and Language Learning: A Plea for Syncretism
Incidental Language Learning in Foreign Language Content Courses
Semantic Differentiation in the Acquisition of English as a Second Language
Phonological Memory and Rule Learning
Table 1 Information on the journals from which research titles were extracted (1975–2015)
Year Journal Number of titles Number of issues Total (%)
1975 MLJ 34 6 8
LL 20 2 5
FLA 23 4 6
Total (1975) MLJ; LL; FLA 77 12 19
1985 MLJ 21 4 6
LL 24 4 6
FLA 43 6 10
Total (1985) MLJ; LL; FLA 88 14 22
1995 MLJ 28 4 6
LL 16 4 4
FLA 28 4 6
Total (1995) MLJ; LL; FLA 72 12 16
2005 MLJ 25 4 6
LL 21 4 5
FLA 40 4 9
Total (2005) MLJ; LL; FLA 86 12 20
2015 MLJ 29 4 7
LL 38 4 8
FLA 38 3 ? the last issue of 2014 8
Total (2015) MLJ; LL; FLA 105 12 39
Total MLJ 137 22a
32
LL 119 19a
28
FLA 172 22a
40
MLJ; LL; FLA 428 63 100
a
The information is up to October 10th 2015
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6. Embodied L2 Construction Learning
Undergraduate Internship in Conversation
Parent Perceptions in the Screening of Performance in Foreign Language Courses
Middle School Foreign Language Instruction: A Missed Opportunity?
Decisions! Decisions! Decisions! Foreign Language in the Elementary School
The titles containing information about the method/design of the studies can be quite
specific in their content, as in the examples below:
The Efficacy of Written Corrective Feedback in Improving L2 Written Accuracy: A
Meta-Analysis
Using Video as an Advance Organizer to a Written Passage in the FLES Classroom
Evaluation of Communicative Competence: The ACTFL Provisional Proficiency
Guidelines
A Model for the Teaching of Advanced Syntax in a Foreign Language
Using a Corpus in a 300-Level Spanish Grammar Course
Investigating Aspects of the Language Learner’s Confidence: An Application of Theory
of Signal Detection
Explaining the Natural Order of L2 Morpheme Acquisition in English: A Meta-analysis
of Multiple Determination
Teaching Language Learners to Elaborate on Their Responses: A Structured, Genre-
Based Approach
They also include the titles containing words and expressions such as ‘‘Meta-Analysis’’ and
‘‘Approach’’, from which the reader can surmise on the probable method or design of the
study.
Table 2 Framework of investigating titles in terms of information (adapted from Goodman et al. 2001)
Type of
information
Descriptor
Topic only Title indicates a subject but does not include information on other categories listed
below, or it seems ambiguous. Titles referring to second language acquisition in
general are categorized in this category
Method/design Title specifies the topic and an approach to study design, data management, or analysis
(such as case–control, cohort, effectiveness, efficacy, frequency, incidence,
prevalence, trend, or validity study; meta-analysis; randomized), or provides a vague
description of a method (such as assessment, evaluation, or comparison) or refers to
the statistical tests used in a study (ANOVA, ANCOVA, MANOVA). It may contain
information about the method of the study but not its design (for example
randomization), or vice versa
Dataset Title indicates the topic and name or acronym of a specific study, which can reveal the
origin of the dataset considered or the population sample consulted
Result Title includes the topic and quantitative information (a specific value), semiquantitative
or ordinal information (such as increased, decreased, high, or low), or some other
specification of a relation (such as association, change, correlation, determinants,
effect, evidence, impact, influence, outcomes, predictors, relation, remission, risk,
variability, or variation) about the findings. Other titles may contain terms such as role,
effectiveness, relationship etc
Conclusion Title includes the topic and an unequivocal statement based on the analysis of the
reported evidence such as the implications of a study or the overall conclusion
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7. The dataset titles include information about the language data investigated and/or the
study participants. Different examples of this kind of research title are shown below:
Language and Choice: Using a Chinese Perspective
American College Students Studying Abroad in China: Language, Identity, and Self-
Presentation
Error Gravity in Learners’ Spoken Russian: A Preliminary Study
The Influence of First Language Lexicalization on Second Language Lexical Inferenc-
ing: A Study of Farsi-Speaking Learners of English as a Foreign Language
The Acquisition of Complex Deverbal Words by a French–English Bilingual Child
The titles containing information about the results of a study are characterized by the
presence of such words as association, relationship, effect, role etc., as in the following
examples:
The Role of Gestures and Facial Cues in Second Language Listening Comprehension
The Role of Audiovisual Speech and Orthographic Information in Nonnative Speech
Production
The Effects of Grammar Supplementation on Written Accuracy in an Intermediate
Spanish Content Course
A Study of Consciousness-Raising by Computer: The Effect of Metalinguistic Feedback
on Second Language Learning
The Effect of Pre-listening Activities on Listening Comprehension in Arabic Learners
The Relationship Between Task Difficulty and Second Language Fluency in French: A
Mixed Methods Approach
Finally, the research titles containing information on the implications and/or an overall
commentary of the study were classified as conclusion titles, as in the following examples:
Learner’s Language: Implications of Recent Research for Foreign Language Instruction
Nonverbal Cues: Clues to the Detection of Foreign Language Anxiety
Dialogue Journals: A Way to Personalize Communication in a Foreign Language
Conclusion titles differ from result titles is that the former are less direct and the latter
more explicit.
Data analysis procedure
When the research titles included two or more categories of information, the coders
counted all of them separately. For example, if a research title contained information about
results and datasets, the coders inserted one unit of frequency to the result category and one
to the dataset category. However, since the purpose of our study was not to consider the
frequency of research titles with more than one information category, we did not include a
separate category in our result sections for these research titles.
We used an end point analysis procedure in this study to show an increasing or
decreasing rate of use of given information categories at different time intervals so that we
could compare each interval with the one before it. Consequently, for instance, if it is
stated that there is a growing rate of research titles with dataset information in 1985, this
means that the increase is based on a comparison is between 1985 and 1975. Additionally,
for overall growing or declining in each category our criterion was the total. Hence, for
example, if it is stated that the research titles containing information about result are how a
growing rate, it means that we consider the total frequency/percentage.
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8. Inter-coder reliability
Computing inter-coder reliability is crucial for research involving the observations of
individuals on the content of a corpus, including content analysis studies (Ary et al. 2014).
To ensure inter-coder reliability, Krippendorff’s Alpha (KALPHA) was computed. This
was preferred over other measurements such as Cronbach Alpha, Cohen’s Kappa, and
Fleiss’s Kappa because it includes the formulation criteria of all known measurements (De
Swert 2012). The results indicated a high index of inter-coder reliability (r = .87), which
could be the result of discussions and practices that the coders had before starting the
codification process on the framework of the study.
Results
Analysis of research titles of each journal from 1975 to 2015
The first research question of this study sought to investigate the information provided by
the research titles in different applied linguistics journals, utilizing the framework adapted
from Goodman et al. (2001). To this end, 137 research titles (extracted from original
articles) were examined from 22 issues published in Modern Language Journal from 1975
to 2015. Table 3 shows the results of the analysis of the information provided by the
research tiles in the Modern Language Journal.
Given that sometimes the research titles investigated included different types of
information simultaneously, the sum of frequencies and percentages shown in Table 3 are
not equal to the total of the research titles investigated.
Table 3 shows that in 1975 the most and the least frequent titles are those that contain
information about topic only (41 %) and conclusion (2 %), respectively. In 1975 the
information on method/design was included in 32 % of the research titles and information
on results and datasets was seen in 18 % of them. However, in 1985, information on topic
only (24 %) and conclusion (none) decreased, compared to 1975, while the number of
research titles with information on method/design (52 %), dataset (29 %), and result
(19 %) very slightly increased in 1985 if compared to 1975. Table 3 also indicates that in
1995 the research titles mostly provided information on method/design (35 %), results
(32 %), and topic only (25 %), while they were the least informative about datasets (21 %)
and conclusions (none). The research titles with information on results (44 %), method/
Table 3 Modern Language Journal: information provided by research titles from 1975 to 2015
Year 1975 (%) 1985 (%) 1995 (%) 2005 (%) 2015 (%) Total (%)
Topic only 14 (41) 5 (24) 7 (25) 11 (44) 6 (20) 43 (31)
Method/design 11 (32) 11 (52) 10 (35) 9 (36) 15 (52) 56 (41)
Dataset 6 (18) 6 (29) 6 (21) 1 (4) 2 (6) 21 (15)
Result 6 (18) 4 (19) 9 (32) 11 (44) 17 (58) 46 (33)
Conclusion 1 (2) 0 0 1 (4) 1 (3) 3 (2)
Total 37 (27) 26 (19) 32 (22) 33 (24) 41 (30) 137 (100)
The total is not equivalent with 137 since some of the titles included more than one type of information
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9. design (36 %), and topic only (44 %) continued to expand in 2005. However, in 2005,
there was a drastic decline in the research titles providing information on datasets (4 %).
Moreover, it appears that the number of dataset research titles continued to decrease in
2015 (6 %), if compared to 1995 and 2005. A decrease in the number of topic-only titles
(20 %) can also be seen in 2015. However, method/design titles (52 %) and result titles
(58 %) continued to increase in 2015.
Overall, Table 3 indicates that from 1975 to 2015 the research titles published in the
Modern language Journal provided the most information on method/design (41 %), results
(33 %), and topic only (31 %) and the least information on datasets (15 %) and conclu-
sions (2 %). From a diachronic perspective, Fig. 1 shows that the titles published from
1975 to 2015 in the Modern Language Journal mostly provided information on method/
design and results, while topic-only titles had a declining rate of use.
Language Learning was the second journal whose research titles were examined in
terms of the information they provided. A total of 119 research titles published in 19 issues
during the last 40 years were considered. Table 4 provides an overview of the findings.
Table 4 shows that the titles of the studies published in Language learning during 1975
provided the most information on results (35 %) and topic only (35 %), and the least on
conclusions (none) and datasets (10 %). Moreover, information on method/design was
identified in 25 % of the research titles. In 1985, however, the information provided by the
research titles on methods/design (33 %) and dataset (20 %) increased and the information
on topic only (25 %) decreased, while information provided on results (35 %) and
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL
Topic Only
Method
Dataset
Result
Conclusion
Fig. 1 Modern language journal research titles trend in providing information from 1975 to 2015
Table 4 Language Learning: information provided by research titles from 1975 to 2015
Year 1975 (%) 1985 (%) 1995 (%) 2005 (%) 2015 (%) Total (%)
Topic only 7 (35) 6 (25) 6 (37) 6 (28) 16(42) 41 (34)
Methods/design 5 (25) 8 (33) 6 (37) 5 (23) 12 (31) 36 (30)
Dataset 2 (10) 5 (20) 0 (0) 1 (4) 2 (5) 10 (8)
Results 7 (35) 9 (35) 4 (25) 9 (42) 8 (21) 37 (31)
Conclusion 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 1 (4) 0 (0) 1 (1)
Total 21 (17) 28 (23) 16 (13) 22 (18) 38 (32) 119 (100)
The total is not equivalent with 119 since some of the titles included more than one type of information
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10. conclusion (none) was the same as in 1975. Table 4 indicates that in 1995 the frequency of
method/design titles (37 %) and result titles (25 %) decreased, that of topic-only titles
increased (37 %), while no conclusion titles were attested. In 2005, most research titles
provide information on results (42 %), topic only (28 %), and method/design (23 %), and
only occasionally on conclusions and datasets (4 %).
Overall, Table 4 shows that, during the past 40 years, the research titles published in
Language Learning provided the most information on topic only (34 %), results (31 %),
and method/design (30 %). Figure 2 illustrates that, from 1975 to 2015, research titles
which provided information on topic only and method/design were on the increase, while
research titles which provided information on results and dataset showed a declining trend.
Research titles with information on conclusions, like Modern Language Journal, were too
scarce to reveal any trend.
The research titles of Foreign Language Annals from 1975 to 2015 were also examined
with regard to the information they provided. In particular, 22 issues of this journal
containing 172 research titles were investigated. Table 5 summarizes the results of this
investigation.
As Table 5 shows, most of the research titles published in 1975 included information on
the topic (43 %) and the method/design (34 %). Interestingly, research titles with infor-
mation about datasets, results, and conclusions were each accounted for 13 % of the data.
In 1985, the research titles containing topic only (75 %) and method/design (73 %), dataset
(20 %) and result (15 %) information continued to display an increasing trend, while the
conclusion titles declined to none. Table 5 shows a transient phase in 1995, when topic
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
LANGUAGE LEARNING
Topic Only
Method/Design
Dataset
Result
Conclusion
Fig. 2 Language Learning research titles trend in providing information from 1975 to 2015
Table 5 Foreign Language Annals: information provided by research titles from 1975 to 2015
Year 1975 (%) 1985 (%) 1995 (%) 2005 (%) 2015 (%) Total (%)
Topic only 10 (43) 18 (75) 10 (35) 13 (32) 4 (10) 55 (32)
Methods/design 8 (34) 17 (73) 10 (35) 19 (47) 21 (55) 75 (43)
Dataset 3 (13) 8 (20) 3 (10) 6 (15) 10 (26) 30 (17)
Results 3 (13) 6 (15) 9 (33) 11 (28) 11 (28) 40 (23)
Conclusion 3 (13) 0 (0) 1 (3) 0 (0) 0 (0) 4 (2)
Total 27 (15) 43 (25) 33 (19) 49 (28) 46 (26) 172 (100)
The total is not equivalent with 172 since some of the titles included more than one type of information
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11. only (35 %), method/design (35 %), and dataset (10 %) titles decreased, while both results
(33 %) and conclusion (3 %) titles increased, if compared to 1975 and 1985. In 2005;
however, method/design (32 %) and dataset (15 %) titles were on the increase again (the
end point for comparison is 1995). During 2005, topic only (32 %) and result titles (28 %)
were on the decline, and there was no title which provided information on conclusion.
Table 5 also indicates that, during 2015, research titles containing information about
method/design (55 %) and dataset (26 %) continued to have an increasing frequency of
use. Nevertheless, research titles with information on topic only (10 %) continued their
declining rate. As can be seen in Table 5, no change happened in the rate of research titles
containing information about result (28 %) and conclusion (none).
Overall, Table 5 shows that: during the last 40 years, research titles published in
Foreign Language Annals provided the most information on method/design (43 %) and the
least information on conclusion (2 %); the research titles containing information about
topic only and result were 32 and 23 %, respectively, of the total; and 17 % of research
titles published in Foreign Language Annals containing information about dataset. The
trend in the frequency of use of types information in the research titles published from
1975 to 2015 in Foreign Language Annals is shown in Fig. 3. It indicates that method/
design, dataset, and to some limited extent result titles had an increasing rate of use during
the last 40 years. However, there was a falling rate of use in the publication of topic-only
and conclusion research titles (the end point for comparison is 2015).
Analysis of the research titles information trends in applied linguistics
journals
The second research question of this study was whether similarities or differences could be
identified in the information trends of the research titles of the three applied linguistics
journals, namely, Modern Language Journal, Language Learning, and Foreign Language
Annals from 1975 to 2015. Figure 4 illustrates the trends in the use of topic only titles in
the three above-mentioned journals.
While in 1975 the research titles of the three journals were to some extent in the same
position with regard to topic only titles, they showed different trends at the other time
intervals. Language learning and Modern language journal had similar trends, namely
their use of topic only titles. Instead, from 2005 to 2015, Modern Language Journal and
Foreign Language Annals decreased, while Language Learning increased, their use of
topic only titles.
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS
Topic Only
Method/Design
Dataset
Result
Conclusion
Fig. 3 Foreign Language Annals research titles trend in providing information from 1975 to 2015
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12. Figure 5 shows the trends in the frequency of use of method/design titles in the three
journals from 1975 to 2015.
It appears that the three journals had similar trends from 1975 to 2015, showing an
increase in the use of these titles, although not to the same extent: Foreign Language
Annals (73 %), Modern Language Journal (52 %), and Language Learning (33 %). Fig-
ure 6 illustrates the evolution in the use of dataset titles in the three journals.
41%
24%
25%
44%
20%
35%
25%
37%
28%
42%
43%
75%
35% 32%
10%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
TOPIC ONLY
ML J
L L
FLA
Fig. 4 Topic only titles: comparison across the three journals
32%
52%
35% 36%
52%
25%
33%
37%
23%
31%
34%
73%
35%
47%
55%
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
METHOD/DESIGN
MLJ
LL
FLA
Fig. 5 Method/design titles: comparison across the three journals
18%
29%
21%
4%
6%
10%
20%
0%
4%
5%
13%
20%
10%
15%
26%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
DATASET
MLJ
LL
FLA
Fig. 6 Dataset titles: comparison across the three journals
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13. Similar trends were observed for the dataset titles, although with different frequency
rates at different time intervals. For instance, during the second and third intervals,
1985–1995, Fig. 6 shows a declining trend in titles with information about dataset, but not
in the same way for the three journals: Modern Language Journal (from 29 to 21 %),
Foreign Language Annals (from 20 to 10 %), and Language Learning (from 20 % to
none). Also, differences emerged in the third interval. While Foreign Language Annals and
Language Learning started a growing rate toward the fourth interval, Modern language
Journal continued its declining rate toward this interval.
Figure 7 shows the comparative findings of the rate of use of the result titles in the three
journals.
Figure 7 shows more differences than similarities. Indeed, except for the first and
second time intervals, 1975–1985, from the second interval onward, Modern Language
Journal started a growing rate and continued it toward the end, 2015. However, the other
two journals, Language Learning and Foreign Language Annals, went through various ups
and downs during different time intervals. Figure 8 illustrates the trends in use of the
infrequently attested conclusion titles.
As illustrated in Fig. 8 the frequency of use of the Conclusion titles registered frequent
ups and downs in the three journals. Figure 8 also indicates that in some of the intervals
such as 1985 the three journals included no conclusion titles.
18%
19%
32%
44%
58%
35% 35%
25%
42%
21%
13%
15%
33%
28% 28%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
RESULT
MLJ
LL
FLA
Fig. 7 Result titles: comparison across the three journals
2%
0% 0%
4%
3%
0% 0% 0%
4%
0%
13%
0%
3%
0% 0%
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
CONCLUSION
MLJ
LL
FLJ
Fig. 8 Conclusion titles: comparison across the three journals
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14. Discussion
This study was an attempt to investigate the research titles published in three applied
linguistics journals in terms of the information they provided. Moreover, the information
trends of the research titles were examined within each journal and across all journals. The
findings showed that the frequency of use of research titles containing information about
method/design of studies increased during the last 40 years (Figs. 1, 2, 3); that topic-only
titles and result titles had different rates within different journals; that result titles increased
in Modern Language Journal (Fig. 1), but decreased drastically in Language Learning
(Fig. 2) and declined smoothly in Foreign Language Annals (Fig. 3); that topic only titles
had a falling rate during the last 40 years in Modern Language Journal (Fig. 1) and
Foreign Language Annals (Fig. 3), but a smooth increasing rate in Language Learning
(Fig. 2); that the dataset titles had a falling rate in the two applied linguistics journals from
1975 to 2015: Modern Language Journal (Fig. 1) and Language Learning (Fig. 2), but an
increasing rate in Foreign Language Annals (Fig. 3); and that all the journals showed a
falling rate (approaching zero) of use of conclusion titles.
Different explanations can be given for the changes observed in the information pro-
vided by the research titles within each journal. One of the key explanations is the concept
of situational options which constrain the research titles in each interval such as journal
guidelines (Gesuato 2009). That is, the researchers write their titles in conformity with
journal policies, which may change with different editorial boards (Whissell 2013). In a
macro-level sense, following situational options might contribute to making the paper, first,
publishable in a journal and, second, discoverable after its publication (Kumar 2013).
In a micro-level sense, the characteristics of different information categories provided by
the research titles may be mentioned as another reason for the changes observed within each
journal in different time intervals. In the current study, the research titles were investigated in
terms of the information they provided on topic, method/design, result, dataset, and conclu-
sion. Each category has its own degree of explicitness/implicitness. With respect to this,
research titles containing information about method/design and results are believed to be more
explicit and consequently more informative (Haggan 2004; Jalilifar 2010). On the other hand,
research titles included information about conclusion and topic of the research are considered
to be more implicit and less informative. Since researchers’ goal in their publications is to be
explicit and informative, research titles about method/design are expected to be more frequent.
The current study also examined the information trends of the research titles published
in the three applied linguistics journals to detect their probable similarities and differences.
The findings of the study revealed that the method/design, dataset, conclusion, and to some
extent result titles, the three journals had similar patterns of use in most of the time
intervals, if not all of them, maybe because relevant to the same discipline (see Gesuato
2009; Soler 2007) and published in the same journals and publisher.
Conclusions, implications, and further studies
As an intra-disciplinary study, this investigation examined the information provided by
research titles in three applied linguistics journals diachronically. Moreover, the study
explored the research titles information trends across the journals. The findings are partly
in line with the results of studies by Goodman et al. (2001) and Siegel et al. (2007), in
which the research titles they investigated showed that the titles tended to provide more
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123

15. information on method/design and topic. However, it should be noted that these studies
were related to the medical field of study. The results of this study indicated that there
existed similarities and differences in the types of information provided by research titles
in the field of applied linguistics both within and across journals. The findings suggested
that there was a higher tendency among the three journals to include research titles con-
taining information on method/design, and more marginally on result and topic and even
less so on conclusion. Moreover, there existed, to some extent, sharp differences in dif-
ferent time intervals within journals on how the research titles provided information about
the data sources of the studies.
The findings of this study have both pedagogical and academic implications. First, the
results of this study can be used in research writing courses when writing instructors teach
how to write an academic research title. This can be done through teaching different
categorizations of the research titles, specifically within the field of applied linguistics.
Moreover, the results of this study can help applied linguists who are seeking to publish
their studies in the three journals we examined in this study. The applied linguists can
format their research titles in line with the titles which have already published. As the
results of this study showed in the last interval we examined in the three journals, the
likelihood of publishing papers which had research titles including information about
method/design is higher than for other categories. Therefore, the researchers may consider
this in formatting their research titles.
As a whole, the findings of this study showed that the information trends across the
three applied linguistics journals showed similar patterns. This might be due to some
reasons such as similarity in communicative goal, discourse community, and the publisher.
Further studies may consider research titles in applied linguistics journals published by
different publishers, examine fluctuations in frequency of use across smaller time intervals,
and/or explore titles from a cross-disciplinary perspective (i.e., by comparing and con-
trasting titles in linguistics vs. psycholinguistics vs. sociolinguistics).
Appendix
See Table 6.
Table 6 Research titles information checklist
Title Topic
only
Method/
design
Dataset Result Conclusion
Incidental language learning in foreign language
content courses
Investigating aspects of the language learner’s
confidence: an application of theory of signal
detection
American college students studying abroad in china:
language, identity, and self-presentation
The acquisition of complex deverbal words by a
French–English bilingual child
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