A visualizing analysis of Chinese character processing in the past 40 years (1981–2020)

The article uses CiteSpace to analyze the research of Chinese character processing through two analyses. A document co-citation analysis of the research in the past 40 years has found ten obvious clusters and described their transitional pattern by timeline visualization and betweenness centrality measurement. Additionally, an emerging trend analysis has also been carried out to describe the current directions of research in the field within the past 5 years, from which we found that multi-method research and acquisition of Chinese literacy are the most productive domains. By converging the results of the two analyses, we came up with a framework of combination between cognitive processes and anatomical structure, as well as a framework of development trajectory for Chinese character awareness. The two frameworks can be used to make predictions and show future directions in these two domains and other related domains, such as the research of Chinese character processing by Chinese foreign language learners.