Visualizing legal translation: a bibliometric study

Abstract As researches in legal translation advance rapidly, it is critical to keep abreast of emerging trends and critical turns of the collective knowledge development in this field. A bibliometric network using Citespace to examine the original articles obtained from an initial topic search on legal translation can provide a visualized profile for various themes in legal translation, by facilitating the analysis of the status quo, intellectual base, hotspots and emerging trends and providing a systematic review of the evolution of legal translation literature. According to a scientometric analysis of academic publications collected in the Web of Science Core Collection related to legal translation, this study profiles the key topics, the most influential institutions, authors and journals in this area, as well as the distribution of category and the future trend in the field. The scientometric analysis is expected to offer an overall view of legal translation per se as well as to provide implications for studies in relevant fields.