1 Introduction

Since foreign language education became a secondary discipline under foreign language and literature in 2024, academic attention to it has increased. Traditional foreign language education models face challenges in cultivating the interdisciplinary and innovative global talents required by the nation. Unreasonable disciplinary layouts hinder timely research, with few existing studies adopting a foreign language education perspective. Against the backdrop of opportunities and challenges in foreign language education, constructing this discipline is both urgently necessary and theoretically imperative. Scholars propose establishing foreign language education as a discipline, strengthening top-level design and overall planning, coordinating research across dimensions, enhancing China's foreign language education capacity, and improving international communication capabilities. This study employs bibliometric analysis to examine trends in literature growth, thematic evolution, keyword co-occurrence networks, and emerging research frontiers, as well as how to establish the discipline's status, its research characteristics, and future directions.

2 Research Data and Methods

This section introduces the data sources, tools, and processing methods. Data were retrieved from CNKI, limited to journal articles published between 1987 and 2023, yielding 81 papers. Tools like Pajek6.4, VOSviewer1.6.3, and COOC14.3 were used for extraction, cleaning, and deduplication, resulting in 69 papers. The methodology combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. Quantitative analysis visualizes paper growth trends and thematic evolution, while qualitative analysis explores the macro-system, micro-features, and interdisciplinary dependencies of foreign language education research, assessing the discipline's completeness, diverse perspectives, and content richness.

3 Findings and Discussion: Distribution Patterns of Foreign Language Education Literature

This section examines literature growth, thematic evolution, keyword co-occurrence networks, and predicts future trends. Findings reveal two phases: a conceptualization phase (1987–2004) focused on teaching methods and practice, and a disciplinary establishment phase (2005–present) marked by diversified research on the discipline's system and positioning. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identifies core themes (e.g., foreign language education, pedagogy) and their interdisciplinary links. Emerging research highlights the integration of educational technology and pedagogy, system refinement, and multidisciplinary explorations of the relationship between foreign language education and its parent discipline. These insights aid in understanding the discipline's development and forecasting future directions.

4 Conclusion

The discipline of foreign language education is evolving, with macro- and micro-research trends toward refinement and interdisciplinary integration. Its development is stage-specific, advancing both itself and foreign language and literature. While the research system is robust in perspective and content, theoretical and systematic construction requires further effort. This bibliometric study visualizes the discipline's establishment and growth, identifies gaps, and uncovers new research trends. It serves as a reference for disciplinary design, with its methodology applicable to other fields. Future research will deepen the fusion of educational technology and pedagogy, solidify the disciplinary system, and explore multidisciplinary perspectives on foreign language education. Cross-domain, multi-perspective, and AI-integrated studies will become new knowledge frontiers. Limitations include single data sources, limited samples, and unexplored textual correlations.