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Topic · Developmental and Educational Psychology

Second Language Acquisition and Learning

Second Language Acquisition and Learning is a research topic within Developmental and Educational Psychology. Science Explorer counts 24k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on various aspects of vocabulary acquisition in second language learning, including the use of corpora and corpus linguistics, lexical diversity, incidental learning, formulaic language, reading comprehension, collocations, and the role of learner corpora in language teaching.

  • Vocabulary Acquisition
  • Second Language Learning
  • Corpus Linguistics
  • Lexical Diversity
  • Incidental Learning
  • Formulaic Language
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Collocations
  • Learner Corpora
  • Language Teaching
Research works
24k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.5k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+20%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
China
27% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Second Language Acquisition and Learning

Which countries lead Second Language Acquisition and Learning research?

By volume, China and Indonesia publish the most (1.1k and 870 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 China 1.1k works
  2. 2 Indonesia 870 works
  3. 3 United States 619 works
  4. 4 Türkiye 264 works
  5. 5 Japan 243 works
  6. 6 United Kingdom 207 works
  7. 7 Spain 200 works
  8. 8 Malaysia 170 works
  9. 9 Vietnam 168 works
  10. 10 Saudi Arabia 164 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

China: 26.7%Indonesia: 22.0%United States: 15.6%Türkiye: 6.7%6 others listed: 29.1%27%largest
China1,056 · 26.7%Indonesia870 · 22.0%United States619 · 15.6%Türkiye264 · 6.7%6 others listed1,151 · 29.1%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Second Language Acquisition and Learning research?

By volume in 2022-now, Islamic Azad University, Tehran publishes the most Second Language Acquisition and Learning research, followed by China West Normal University and National University of Malaysia.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Islamic Azad University, TehranIran 36 works
  2. 2 China West Normal UniversityChina 32 works
  3. 3 National University of MalaysiaMalaysia 32 works
  4. 4 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 31 works
  5. 5 Uzbek State University of World LanguagesUzbekistan 28 works
  6. 6 State University of MakassarIndonesia 26 works
  7. 7 University of Hong KongChina 25 works
  8. 8 Victoria University of WellingtonNew Zealand 24 works
  9. 9 Universitas Islam Negeri Sumatera UtaraIndonesia 24 works
  10. 10 Education University of Hong KongChina 23 works

Who are the leading researchers in Second Language Acquisition and Learning?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Second Language Acquisition and Learning include Michael Tomasello.

  1. 1 Michael Tomasello Germany 135k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Second Language Acquisition and Learning?

The most cited paper in Second Language Acquisition and Learning is "TASK-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING" (Alison Mackey, 2004), with 2,871 citations. Next come "The English Lexicon Project" (2,836) and "Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system" (2,816).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 TASK-BASED LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING Alison Mackey · Studies in Second Language Acquisition Sep 2004 2,871
2 The English Lexicon Project David A. Balota, Melvin Ju-min Yap, Keith A. Hutchison et al. · Behavior Research Methods Open access Aug 2007 2,836
3 Mental control of the bilingual lexico-semantic system David William Green · Bilingualism Language and Cognition Aug 1998 2,816
4 A New Academic Word List Averil Coxhead · TESOL Quarterly 2000 2,790
5 Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do Simon Borg · Language Teaching Open access Apr 2003 2,542
All 99 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Second Language Acquisition and Learning research done?

The largest centres of Second Language Acquisition and Learning research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Shanghai (China) and Tokyo (Japan). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Tai Po and Nanchong.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 120 works
  2. 2 TashkentUzbekistan 81 works
  3. 3 ShanghaiChina 77 works
  4. 4 TokyoJapan 70 works
  5. 5 GuangzhouChina 68 works
  6. 6 MedanIndonesia 67 works
  7. 7 JakartaIndonesia 66 works
  8. 8 Ho Chi Minh CityVietnam 64 works
  9. 9 Hong KongChina 60 works
  10. 10 Kuala LumpurMalaysia 60 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. Tai PoCN · 23.4 works23×
  2. NanchongCN · 33.0 works20×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Second Language Acquisition and Learning than the world average.

See Second Language Acquisition and Learning on the map

Where is the best place to study Second Language Acquisition and Learning?

Among universities, judged by research, Education University of Hong Kong, University of Macau and Macao Polytechnic University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 30.95%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Macao Polytechnic Un…Education University…University of MacauVictoria University …
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Education University of Hong KongChina 73.528.8%28.1×23 +59.1%
2University of MacauChina 70.724.0%11.5×21 +49.0%
3Macao Polytechnic UniversityChina 70.245.6%25.3×12 -
4Victoria University of WellingtonNew Zealand 69.919.8%20.2×24 +6.9%
5University of Hong KongChina 69.823.3%4.7×25 +39.6%
6Chinese University of Hong KongChina 67.927.6%4.8×20 +50.6%
7University of AucklandNew Zealand 66.633.5%4.2×13 +52.3%
8Waseda UniversityJapan 66.037.4%8.1×15 +115.1%
9Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 63.625.9%4.1×20 +63.1%
10Georgia State UniversityUnited States 58.243.6%6.7×11 -11.5%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Second Language Acquisition and Learning, country by country

Is Second Language Acquisition and Learning research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 20% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Second Language Acquisition and Learning.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Second Language Acquisition and Learning as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.026% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%Second Language Acquisition and Learning0.030% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Second Language Acquisition and Learning over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Second Language Acquisition and Learning10.4% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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