The Research Status and Hot Topics of Critical Discourse Analysis:

A Visualization Analysis based on Citespace

Jiajia Xia

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, South China Business College, Guangzhou, China

Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, CiteSpace, Research Status And Hot Topics, Visualization Analysis.

Abstract: Using the visual analysis software CiteSpace 5.8.R1 and bibliometric method, this paper takes the relevant

papers on critical discourse analysis in the core journals of China CNKI from 2000 to 2020 as the data

source for statistical analysis. It comprehensively combs and investigates the publishing years of these

papers, publishing journals, publishing institutions, core authors and research hotspots formed by keyword

clustering to present a visualization analysis for the outcome of this research. This helps to clarify the

current knowledge structure and development context of critical discourse analysis in China, and provide a

reference for the in-depth and advancement of research in this field in the future.

1 INTRODUCTION

The introduction of Critical Discourse Analysis

(CDA) emerged at the end of the 1980s, and has

made great progress in the research both at home

and abroad. Wodak & Meyer (2001) mentioned

CDA aims to critically study the social inequality

that is expressed, referred to, constructed and

legitimized by language. As a hot topic in the field

of language research in China for many years,

CDA’s interdisciplinary nature has become

increasingly prominent. These years, the research

connotation and extension are expanding, covering

research topics such as language and power,

ideology, identity and so on. Besides, the study of

discipline attributes involves different disciplines

such as discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and

linguistic sociology. Thus the relationship among

discourse, power and ideology has gradually been

the focus of CDA. As a linguistic paradigm, text

analysis methods of systemic functional linguistics,

cognitive linguistics and Corpus linguistics are

widely used in critical discourse studies (Zhao,

2021). All this contribute to many new topics to the

academic field with the construction and application

of critical discourse analysis (CDA). It can be

acknowledged that the study of CDA not only

provides more data analysis for researchers to

explore the linguistic phenomena of different

discourses, it has also greatly enhanced people's

deep understanding of different discourses and the

ideology behind the language.

Over the past 20 years, the related research and

academic achievements of CDA have been

increasing in China (Ji, 2001). Therefore, it is

necessary to deeply explore the current research

situation and hot spots in this field. In order to

objectively understand and grasp the real situation of

critical discourse analysis (CDA) research, this

paper combs the related papers on CDA research

from 2000 to 2020, and makes statistical analysis by

using the visual analysis software CiteSpace 5.8.R1

and bibliometric methods. By means of quantitative

and qualitative research, this paper makes a

comprehensive study of the publication time,

publication carrier, research institutions, core

authors and the research hotspots of keyword

clustering in China’s critical discourse analysis

research. The purpose is to better grasp the

knowledge structure and development of CDA

research in China, and to provide a reference for the

further study of CDA.

2 LITERATURE SOURCES AND

RESEARCH TOOLS

2.1 Literature Sources

In order to ensure the integrity of the research

object, this paper searches the core journals of CNKI

554

Xia, J.

The Research Status and Hot Topics of Critical Discourse Analysis: A Visualization Analysis Based on CiteSpace.

DOI: 10.5220/0011915900003613

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education (NMDME 2022), pages 554-559

ISBN: 978-989-758-630-9

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

by "time (unlimited --2020) + subject (critical

discourse analysis)". A total of 322 papers are

retrieved, and 280 effective papers are obtained by

eliminating conference reviews, book reviews and

content discrepancies and so on.

2.2 Research Tools

Compared with the previous advanced research

whose research tool mostly adopts the traditional

literature analysis method for the qualitative

induction, this paper uses the visual analysis

software CiteSpace 5.8.R1 developed by Professor

Chen Chaomei of Drexel University. In order to

explore the frontiers’ knowledge more effectively

and objectively, with the methods of scientometrics,

data and information visualization, this software

focuses on analyzing the potential information

contained in scientific knowledge, and reveals the

co-occurrence relationship in the knowledge units of

the papers related, such as the occurrence frequency

of authors, institutions and keywords (Li & Chen,

2016). One of the features of this software is that it

can draw a knowledge map to present a visualization

analysis for the outcome of a research. Currently,

CiteSpace has been applied in many fields such as

second language writing research, cross-cultural

education research and language translation research

(Du, 2021; Qu, 2021; Zhang, 2021) to explore the

knowledge structure and research hotspots in

various research fields and track their academic

trends. According to this software’s operating

principle, the study here is based on papers collected

in the core journals of CNKI related to CDA. The

time span of these papers is 20 years, from 2000 to

2020. And the single time division is 1 year with a

total of 20 single time division. Due to the limited

number of documents in this research, no restriction

conditions such as node thresholds are set, and no

network pruning algorithms are used to maintain the

integrity of the knowledge graph.

3 RESEARCH RESULTS AND

ANALYSIS

3.1 Chronological Distribution

Statistics

To a certain extent, the chronological distribution of

literature reflects the academic research level and

development speed of a certain field (Cai & Fu,

2016). Using the econometric visual analysis of

CNKI, this paper draws the chronological

distribution map of papers related to critical

discourse analysis research in China (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Chronological distribution of papers reated to CDA in China (2000-2020)

From the perspective of time series, in 2000,

there were no papers published in the core journal

database of CNKI. The related research of CDA was

first written by Ji Yuhua in 2001. His paper “Critical

Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method” introduces

the history of critical discourse analysis and its basic

theoretical origins and so on. Besides, the number of

papers published in the field of critical discourse

analysis in China was relatively small from 2000 to

2006. But from 2007 it grew gradually to 26 papers

in 2008. Although it fell in 2009 and 2010, the

number was still higher than that before 2006.

Papers published during this period include: (1)

emerging social groups with their discourse in

contemporary China; (2) government and

institutional discourse; (3) the construction of

discourse and social identity; (4) China in the eyes

of Western media and the West in the eyes of

Chinese media; (5) discourse, thought, power

relations and social change and so on. For example,

Wang Jinling (2009) uses the basic theory of CDA to

analyze the changes of Russian media function after

The Research Status and Hot Topics of Critical Discourse Analysis: A Visualization Analysis Based on CiteSpace

555

the collapse of the Soviet Union. He also explains

the ways and means of the influence and

manipulation of Russian political news discourse on

mass ideology; Jiang Yue and Li Lu (2010) study

vague language in TV interview programs in the

way of CDA. They verify that the use of vague

language can achieve self-protection, thus

expressing politeness or making speech more

objectively and representatively. Surprisingly, in

2011 the number of papers published sharply. But it

fluctuated significantly in 2012 and 2014. While

since 2015, it has maintained a relatively good

publishing trend, especially 28 papers in 2016. As

can be seen from figure 1, CDA has created a

dynamic space for interdisciplinary discourse

analysis involving social and political background,

and its theoretical and applied fields have been

expanding continuously.

3.2 Journal Distribution Statistics

Published in different journals, these 280 papers are

ranked in descending order according to the number

of papers published respectively. The top 5 journals

with 67 papers published are shown in table 1,

which are Foreign Language Studies, Foreign

Language and Foreign Language Teaching, Foreign

Language Journal, Foreign Language Teaching and

Journal of Foreign Languages. These papers, as

important sources of CDA related research making

up 33.5% of all, have roughly formed the core group

of CDA in China.

Table 1. Papers and periodicals related to CDA in China

(2000-2020)

Number Journal Title

Paper

(pieces)

Proportion

Foreign Language

Studies

20 10%

Foreign Language

and Foreign

Language

Teachin

17 8.5%

Foreign Language

Journal

12 6%

Foreign Language

Teachin

10 5%

Journal of

Foreign

Languages

8 4%

3.3 Core Author Statistics

This paper carries out a statistical analysis of all the

authors of these 280 papers using CiteSpace,

resulting in a total of 285 nodes, that is, a total of

285 authors of these papers. According to CiteSpace,

the top ranked item is Tian Hailong in Cluster #11.5

with citation counts of 14. The second one is Xin Bin

in Cluster #4.5 with citation counts of 8. The third is

Liu Min in Cluster #6.5 with citation counts of 6.

The 4th is Liu Wenyu in Cluster #0.5 with citation

counts of 6. The 5th is Zhang Hui in Cluster #3.5

with citation counts of 5. The 6th is Ding Jiangxin in

Cluster #11.5 with citation counts of 4. The 7th is

Miao Xingwei in Cluster #0.5 with citation counts of

4. The 8th is Ji Yuhua in Cluster #5.5 with citation

counts of 4. The 9th is Zhang Tianwei in Cluster

#3.5 with citation counts of 4. While the 10th is Zhu

Guisheng in Cluster #1.5 with citation counts of 4.

On the side of centrality, the top ranked item is

Tian Hailong in Cluster #11.5 with centrality of 6.

The second one is Zhang Hui in Cluster #3.5 with

centrality of 5. The third is Liu Wenyu in Cluster

#0.5 with centrality of 4. The 4th is Ding Jianxin in

Cluster #11.5 with centrality of 4. The 5th is Lie Min

in Cluster #6.5 with centrality of 3. The 6th is Miao

Xinwei in Cluster #0.5 with centrality of 3. The 7th

is Ji Yuhua in Cluster #5.5 with centrality of 3. The

8th is Zhi Yongbi in Cluster #8.5 with centrality of 3.

The 9th is Xiang Minyou in Cluster #-0.5 with

centrality of 3. And the 10th is Hu Jin in Cluster

#-0.5 with centrality of 3.

It is worth noting that these authors have not

only published a large number of papers, but also

published papers with high frequency. For instance,

Ding Jianxin’s paper "A Review of Critical

Discourse Analysis" published in 2001 has been

cited 481 times. And Xin Bin’s paper "Critical

Discourse Analysis: Objectives, Methods and

Developments" published in 2013 has been cited

317 times. In this research, CiteSpace helps show to

a certain extent the core authors of China's critical

discourse analysis research and their cooperative

relationship. As can be cited by CiteSpace, Ding

Jianxin and Liao Yiqing, Xin Bin and Gao Xiaoli, Ji

Weining and Xin Bin, Xin Zhiying and Huang

Guowen, Qian Yufang and Tian Hailong all have

cooperative relations and have formed an academic

community with 128 pairs of cooperative

relationships among all authors. It is believed that

this outcome is on one hand concerned with the

relatively new research field of critical discourse

analysis

in China, and on the other hand with the

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higher technique and method requirements of the

research itself.

3.4 Statistics of Issuing Organizations

The amount of papers issued by an institution can

reflect the research strength and influence of related

fields to a certain extent. As of December 31, 2020,

among the publishing organizations of critical

discourse analysis research in the CNKI core journal

database, the top 3 ones are Nanjing Normal

University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, and

Xiamen University. We then draw a summary table

of more than 4 papers on CDA from 2000 to 2020

(table 2) .

Table 2. Summary of institution with more than 4 papers

on CDA in China (2000-2020)

Publishing

Organizations

Paper Publishing

Organizations

Paper

Nanjing

Normal

Universit

Tianjin Foreign

Studies

Universit

Beijing

Foreign

Studies

University

Shanghai

International

Studies

University

Xiamen

University

Communication

University of

China

Tianjin

University of

Commerce

Zhong Shan

University

These ten universities have published 71 papers,

accounting for about 40% of all papers. Most of the

core authors who have published more than 4 papers

come from the above-mentioned universities. They

have contributed many papers to the

above-mentioned universities in China's critical

discourse analysis research.

3.5 Research Hotspot Analysis

As keywords can highly summarize the main ideas

and research topics of papers, we can grasp the

research content, research direction and research

hotspots of a certain field through keywords. With

CiteSpace5.8.R1, this paper searches for key nodes

(research hotspots) and the centrality of computing

nodes based on the frequency of keywords. The

frequency of keyword appearance is directly

proportional to a research popularity, and the higher

the keyword appearance frequency, the stronger the

research popularity (2014). Besides, the higher the

centrality of the keyword, the more central the

keyword will be in the network, showing more

influence and dominance in the network. Therefore,

we use keywords as nodes and a time zone of 1 year

to draw a hotspot knowledge map of Chinese critical

discourse analysis research with outcome as follows.

The network is divided into 21 co-citation

clusters labeled by index terms from their own

citers. The largest 7 clusters are summarized in table

Table 3. Summary of the largest 7 clusters (2000-2020)

Cluster

Size

Silhouette

Label (TFIDF)

Mean

(Citee

Year)

0 141 0.995 Discourse and the

social changes in China

today

2015

1 80 0.944 Introduction to

"Identity Analysis in

Discourse"

2013

2 56 0.92 Recontextualization of

news discourse

2012

3 44 0.938 Recontextualization of

news discourse

2012

4 39 0.913 A Study of Critical

Discourse Analysis

from the Perspective of

nitive Meton

2013

5 30 0.948 Research on Critical

Discourse Based on

Evolutionary

cholo

2016

6 21 0.995 The Crisis of Identity

and the Reconstruction

of the "News

Field"--Analysis of

Media Criticism

Discourse on Paid

Interviews

2008

7 17 0.922 The Crisis of Identity

and the Reconstruction

of the "News

Field"--Analysis of

Media Criticism

Discourse on Paid

Interviews

2011

As can be seen from table 3, these clusters all

have high silhouette value above 0.9. Silhouette is

the degree of silhouette, indicating the closeness or

homogeneity between members of a cluster.

Generally more than 0.7 indicates a good degree of

compactness or similarity within the cluster.

The Research Status and Hot Topics of Critical Discourse Analysis: A Visualization Analysis Based on CiteSpace

557

According to CiteSpace5.8. R1, the top ranked

item by citation counts is "critical discourse

analysis" with citation counts of 169. The second

one is "nonjudgmental" with citation counts of 60.

The third is "ideology" with citation counts of 39.

The 4th is "corpus" with citation counts of 13. The

5th is "discourse analysis" with citation counts of

13. The 6th is "cognitive linguistics" with citation

counts of 9. The 7th is "discourse strategy" with

citation counts of 8. The 8th is "systemic functional

linguistics" with citation counts of 8. The 9th is

"news discourse" with citation counts of 7. And the

10th is "positive discourse analysis" with citation

counts of 6.

While the top ranked item by centrality is

"critical discourse analysis" with centrality of 306.

The second one is "nonjudgmental" with centrality

of 111. The third is "ideology" with centrality of 64.

The 4th is "discourse analysis" with centrality of 28.

The 5th is "corpus" with centrality of 21. The 6th is

"The New York Times" with centrality of 20. The

7th is "text analysis" with centrality of 19. The 8th is

"paid interviews" with centrality of 17. The 9th is

"news field" with centrality of 17. And the 10th is

"discourse strategy" with centrality of 16.

We can find that among the 280 critical

discourse analysis-related papers included in CNKI's

core journal full-text database from 2000 to 2020,

"critical discourse analysis" is the largest node, with

a frequency of 169, followed by "nonjudgmental",

"ideology", "corpus", "discourse analysis",

"cognitive linguistics" and "discourse strategy" and

so on. Besides, centrality can determine the research

hotspots in the research field, reflecting the degree

of co-words of keywords. While keywords with high

centrality can reflect the focus and direction of

researchers in a certain period of time, and are likely

to become the hotspots and frontiers of research.

Sorted by centrality, "critical discourse analysis",

"nonjudgmental" and "ideology" are listed in the top

three, followed by "corpus", "New York Times",

"text analysis", "paid interview" and "news". These

words play an important mediating role in the field

of critical discourse analysis research.

4 CONCLUSION

The visual analysis software CiteSpace5.8. R1 is

used to conduct statistical analysis on critical

discourse analysis related research in the full-text

database of CNKI’s core journals from 2000 to

2020. Integrating the relevant knowledge of

literature statistics and the information in the visual

knowledge graph, we can find that since 2008, the

application-related research of critical discourse

analysis has risen sharply, and the number of papers

in 2011 and 2016 has also reached a peak,

respectively 26 and 28 papers. But in terms of the

number of papers published each year, there were

significant fluctuations between 2006 and 2016,

indicating that the number of research papers

published in this area has not been stable.

Nonetheless, the number of papers published has

remained relatively stable since 2016, indicating the

continuous development of CDA research in recent

years.

At the same time, from the perspective of

journals, the four journals "Foreign Language

Studies", "Foreign Languages and Foreign

Language Teaching", "Foreign Languages Journal"

and "Foreign Language Teaching" have roughly

formed the core journal group of critical discourse

analysis research in China. While on the side of the

authors, Tian Hailong, Xin Bin, Liu Ming, Liu

Wenyu, Zhang Hui, Ding Jianxin, Miao Xingwei, Ji

Yuhua, Zhang Tianwei, and Zhu Guisheng all

constitute the core group of authors in this field. In

addition, from the perspective of research hotspots,

critical discourse analysis, nonjudgmental, and

ideology are the three hotspots in the development

of this field.

In general, the development of critical discourse

analysis research has been on the right track,

producing core journal groups, core author groups,

stable research institutions, and gradually forming

research hotspots and directions. However, there are

some limitations in the study of CDA, such as the

lack of interdisciplinary perspective and the lack of

breakthrough in many specific analytical techniques.

While with the rapid development of information

technology, the advent of the era of big data has

brought new development opportunities for critical

discourse analysis research. We believe that based

on big data and the development of mobile internet,

critical discourse analysis will reflect greater value

in Chinese language teaching and related research.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author wishes to acknowledge the support from

the Project of Guangdong Higher Education

Teaching Reform “A Study on the Innovation of

Intercultural Teaching Paradigm of College English

with “Ideological and Political Guidance” and the

project "A Practical Study on Integrating Ideological

and Political Education into College English

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558

Cross-cultural Curriculum" (2020KCSZ23) in

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, South

China Business College in the writing up of this

paper.

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