Knowledge graph analysis of ideological and political education in China’s foreign language courses: Evolution, research hotspots and innovation paths

To systematically clarify the development context and core characteristics of research on the construction of ideological and political education in foreign language courses in Chinese universities, this paper takes 384 core literature published in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database from 2019 to 2025 as the research object. With the aid of the CiteSpace visual analysis tool, a systematic analysis is carried out from the dimensions of publication trends, academic cooperation networks, research hotspots and evolutionary context. The research shows that studies in this field present distinct phased characteristics of policy-driven development, which have successively gone through the policy-responsive rapid growth period from 2019 to 2021, the practice-oriented steady development period from 2022 to 2023, and stepped into the quality-oriented rational adjustment period from 2024 to 2025. The research focus has gradually shifted from the interpretation of macro concepts to the innovation of teaching models and the cultivation of students’ core competencies. Although certain achievements have been accumulated in existing research, there are still prominent problems such as the scarcity of core scholars with long-term in-depth research, loose cooperation networks among authors and institutions, and insufficient cross-institutional collaborative innovation. Research hotspots have evolved along the trajectory of “macro educational objectives-meso construction plans-micro core elements”, and “teaching models” have become the core cutting-edge topic in the current field. To promote the sustainable development of this field, future research needs to focus on the construction of academic communities, the innovation of theoretical systems and the exploration of new forms of digital and intelligent education, so as to provide theoretical support and practical guidance for the high-quality development of foreign language education.