Trends and Highlights in Discourse Marker Studies From 2009 to 2022

Abstract Discourse markers (DMs) in many languages have been investigated from various theoretical perspectives and within diverse methodological paradigms for decades. Studies within the field of DMs are accelerating rapidly; however, few state-of-the-art reviews have been conducted to systematically inform scholars of the current landscape of DM research. This investigation conducted a comprehensive review of 2, 183 studies from 2009 to 2022, leveraging CiteSpace for bibliometric analysis. The study aims to illuminate emerging trends and focal areas within DM research and lay the groundwork for further interdisciplinary exploration and collaboration in this area. The analysis reveals a growing interest in DM studies, identifies leading contributors, including countries, universities, and scholars, highlights the most cited journals and references shaping the field, and delineates prevalent research themes and topics, as well as methodological approaches employed. These findings indicate that DM research has evolved from a linguistic inquiry into an interdisciplinary domain employing varied methodologies such as qualitative and/or quantitative, experimental, and synchronic and/or diachronic. This study can provide important implications for future research in terms of the pragmatic turn, interdisciplinary nature, expansion of data from English to various other languages, and diversified methodologies.