Mapping Landmark Publications and Historical Roots of Translation Studies: A Bibliometric Analysis Using Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy.

This article presents a bibliometric analysis of translation studies (TS) by applying Reference Publication Year Spectroscopy (RPYS) to the cited references (CRs) of 6,279 articles published in fourteen Social Science Citation Index–indexed TS journals from 1955 to 2024. The study identifies ten landmark publications—primarily books and monographs from the 1950s to 1990s—that have had sustained theoretical influence on TS, highlighting the predominance of books over journal articles as key media for knowledge dissemination in the field. It delineates three evolutionary stages of TS: a budding period (pre-1955) characterized by foundational ideas from translators and critics; a formative period (1956–1990) marked by the establishment of core theoretical frameworks; and a consolidation period (1991–2017) featuring solidification and diversification of TS scholarship. The findings underscore TS's reliance on monographs for inward knowledge flow and reveal shifts in research focus from linguistic to cultural, social, and multimodal approaches, while also noting challenges such as the slower disciplinary advancement due to this book-centric citation pattern.