A Visualization Analysis of Artificial Intelligence-empowered College English Education Research Based on CiteSpace

Artificial intelligence is a decisive force in modern society. This study takes 268 Chinese journal papers in the field of artificial intelligence empowering university English education, which were published in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) from 2015 to 2025, as the data source. It conducts a visual analysis using CiteSpace. The results show that the number of research papers shows a “staged” increasing trend. From 2015 to 2017, it was the initial stage, with an average of 1 paper per year. From 2018 to 2023, it was a slow development stage, with an average of 17 papers per year. From 2024 to 2025, it entered a rapid growth stage, with an average of 79 papers per year. In terms of the research subjects, the author collaboration network is sparse, and the types of institutions are diverse, but cross-institutional cooperation is weak. The research hotspots focus on the two core words “college English” and “artificial intelligence”, and the cluster analysis shows Q = 0.5091 and S = 0.0978, with a significant structure and high reliability. The research has evolved from “teaching mode innovation” to “generative artificial intelligence”.