QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENTS OF THE IMPACT OF LINGUISTIC THEORY ON INFORMATION-SCIENCE

A citation analysis was performed on a subset of the information science literature in which quantitative and qualitative measures were employed to explore its relationship to linguistic theory. The overall findings showed that this portion of the information science literature cited linguistic theory very little. Further data analysis showed that small numbers of citing and cited authors accounted for most of the activity; that syntax and semantics occupied more attention from information scientists than other branches of linguistic theory; that information scientists did not cite the same works over time; and that most of the citations to linguistic theory belong to qualitative "non-use" categories.