Doctoral Theses and Translation Studies in Spain. A Bibliometric Analysis based on BITRA

This article attempts to provide an analysis of the nature and historical development of Ph.D. theses dealing with translation and interpreting studies (TIS) in Spain. Using a mixed methodology, mainly quantitative but also qualitative as regards the interpretation of the data, the article provides a critical analysis of the doctoral production in Spanish TIS within the context of global TIS. The main parameters under study are the diachronic, productivity in the different universities, length, languages, kind of access, topical distribution and impact. The main source of the data is BITRA (Bibliography of Interpreting and Translation), a holistic database which included over 77,000 entries as of August 2019. The results include a notable productivity of Spanish Ph.D. theses within TS, placing them at the head of the discipline, an open distribution pattern of the languages they are written in and their almost systematic open-access publication in the last two decades.