The structure and operation of Confucius Institute (CI), as an organization promoting Chinese language and culture,have attracted much scholarship in recent years. Based on research papers revolving the themes of CI published from 2005 to 2017, this paper uses the visualization software CiteSpace to identify the key topics and disciplinary areas of CI studies. It is found that the key topics scoped into CI research include the Chinese language teaching in CI, the sustainable development of CI, the impact of CI on China’s soft power and public diplomacy, the economic and business functions of CI, and the issues of CI in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative. It reveals that the CI studies constitute a loose research area with multiple research focus and cross-disciplinary methodologies. For future CI studies, the author proposes that more academic endeavors from other disciplines should be made in order to conduct broader, more in-depth and more sustainable research in this field.
Key words
Confucius Institute /
CiteSpace /
key topics /
subjects /
literature review
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