A Bibliometric Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Chatbots in Language Education

Chatbots in language education demonstrate promising potential. This study identifies their developmental paths, recent designs, and primary application contexts through a bibliometric and visualization analysis. We find that artificial intelligence chatbots in language education have gained avid interest in recent years due to technological advancements and growing social attention. Research demonstrates an interdisciplinary trend, and integrating various technologies has improved chatbot effectiveness in education. This study identifies popular research issues on chatbots in language education, such as students’ perceptions, effectiveness evaluation, and technological upgrades. Additionally, we find various roles and functions of chatbots in specific language education domains characterized by learning content, strategies, and contexts. This study establishes its significance by summarizing and discussing the effects of artificial intelligence chatbots from a language education perspective. We propose a model for chatbot applications and research in language education that connects technological and pedagogical aspects, which can be extended and validated to broaden future research empirically.