Abstract：It has been thirty years since the concept of “community expression” was advanced and under investigation. This paper provides a concise overview of the concept evolution, outlines the fundamental theories, and the developing trajectories around the main research lines. By organizing the existing findings, this paper summarizes the research content into three categories: the analysis of “name” and “reality” concerning the concept, the collection of community expression along with case studies, and the dictionary-based research. Furthermore, it identifies four key characteristics of community expression research: the broad applicability of the research field, the complementarity of the research perspectives, the scientific rigor of the research process, and the coherence of the research tasks align with a common goal. Based on the analysis of the problems of the existing research, we propose several directions for future research: field investigations to prioritize on-the-ground study, the differences and similarities between community expression and its related terms should be further clarified, more attention should be paid to the application value of the community expression, and efforts should be made to enhance the internationalization of the theory of community expression.
