1 Introduction

Introduced the historical background and importance of critical thinking, and pointed out the lack of critical thinking in foreign language teaching. Since the late 1990s, the domestic and foreign language community has begun to pay attention to the study of critical thinking, but progress has been slow. Critical thinking is a core competency in cultivating innovative talents and plays a crucial role in achieving national strategic goals. In recent years, national education policies have begun to emphasize the importance of critical thinking. This article aims to observe the progress of critical thinking research, identify issues, and look forward to future trends by analyzing literature from 2016 to 2021.

2 Research questions and methods

Explored the hotspots, progress, and shortcomings of critical thinking research in the field of foreign language teaching in China from 2016 to 2021, as well as future research trends. The research data was sourced from 48 relevant papers in 9 CSSCI source journals. Using bibliometric methods and CiteSpace 5.8.3 tool, visualize the publication volume, highly cited literature, and co-occurrence keywords of the paper to reveal research topic hotspots, analyze phenomena, and predict future trends.

3 research findings

Between 2016 and 2021, a total of 48 critical thinking research articles were published in CSSCI source journals, with an average annual publication volume 2.4 times that of 2000-2015, indicating an increase in academic attention. Foreign Language World has the highest number of publications, reaching 16 articles. The peak of publication occurred in 2016, 2018, and 2019, synchronized with the release of national education policies, reflecting the positive response of the foreign language academic community to the policies. According to highly cited literature statistics, Wen Qiufang, Lin Yan, and Ma Lihong are the top three authors in terms of the number of published articles. Their research covers critical thinking abilities of college students, the combination of English skill based courses and critical thinking, and high school writing research. Among the top ten papers with the highest citation count, Sun Youzhong's "Principles of Speculative English Teaching" has the highest citation count, proposing eight principles for speculative English teaching. The increasing proportion of empirical research papers reflects the foreign language community's focus on the integration of teaching practice and critical thinking. Highly cited literature authors and academic institutions exhibit geographically concentrated characteristics, with Beijing Foreign Studies University being particularly concentrated.

4 Existing Problems

There are shortcomings in the research of critical thinking in the field of foreign language teaching, including insufficient research on the integration of knowledge-based courses into the cultivation of critical thinking, small scope of research subjects in terms of majors and stages, lack of case studies and large-scale empirical research, lack of specialized research on critical thinking courses, and serious deficiencies in critical thinking research on teacher groups. It is recommended to establish specialized critical thinking courses in the curriculum of foreign language majors and increase the cultivation and research of critical thinking among the teacher community.

5 Outlook and Suggestions

The research on critical thinking in China has made progress, and in the future, there is a need to strengthen cooperation, multi stage coverage, and teacher training. Suggest establishing an academic community and conducting large-scale empirical research; Pay attention to learners' critical thinking tendencies and cultivate them from the basic education stage; Establishing critical thinking courses in normal universities to enhance the status of teacher training system and promote the development of critical thinking education in the basic education stage.

6 Conclusion

This study analyzed critical thinking research papers from 9 domestic foreign language CSSCI source journals using CiteSpace software and found significant progress in the past 6 years, including an increase in publication volume, empirical research, and diversified topic selection. Future research suggests strengthening collaboration among scholars, expanding the scale and scope of empirical research, using the curriculum as a critical thinking training platform, emphasizing lifelong cultivation of students' critical thinking skills and tendencies, and strengthening the cultivation of teachers' critical thinking to promote the comprehensive and in-depth development of foreign language critical thinking research, and cultivate talents for an innovative society.