Content and structural assessment of linguistics encyclopedias in the last two decades (2000-2020)

The aim of the present study is to assess the linguistics encyclopedias of the last two decades (2000-2020) based on content and structural analysis. For this purpose, this research was conducted by survey method using content and structural analysis. The statistical population of the study includes 10 PhD students in linguistics and the chosen corpus are encyclopedia of linguistics (2004), encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2005) and the Routledge encyclopedia of linguistics (2010). The tool for assessing encyclopedias and data collection is a questionnaire consisting of seven content and structural criteria. The research data were analyzed as descriptive statistics. Findings showed that base on content analysis of the given encyclopedias, the criteria of linguistic main fields, the criteria of linguistic sub- fields, the criteria of linguistics branches and the criteria of articles are faced with shortcomings. Based on the structural analysis, all three encyclopedias have some shortcomings in the criterion of entries, the criterion of authors and the criterion of encyclopedia organization. However, by comparing the content and structural analysis of the three linguistics encyclopedias, it was found that the rate of fulfillment of structural criteria is more than content criteria. Therefore, it was concluded that encyclopedias of the last two decades in linguistics cannot yet be considered as specialized and reference sources in terms of the content.