Mapping the Intellectual and Thematic Evolution of L2 Willingness to Communicate Research: A Bibliometric Analysis

Willingness to communicate (WTC) in a second language (L2) is a central construct in second language acquisition (SLA), yet the intellectual structure and thematic development of the field remain insufficiently mapped. This study provides a bibliometric analysis of 477 English-language L2 WTC records indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) from 1996 to 31 July 2025. Using CiteSpace (6.4.R1), the study examines publication trends, collaboration networks, co-citation structures, keyword co-occurrence, thematic evolution, and research bursts. The findings show sustained growth in L2 WTC research and a knowledge base anchored in established work on psychological and affective dimensions, including anxiety, motivation, attitudes, confidence, and emotions. Collaboration networks indicate that research activity is concentrated among a relatively limited set of countries and institutions, while co-citation analysis reveals a highly structured intellectual base centered on influential work in WTC, emotions, classroom environments, and related psychological and contextual dimensions. Keyword and temporal analyses further show thematic diversification, with established concerns increasingly accompanied by classroom context, positive psychology, out-of-class communication, and emerging artificial intelligence (AI)-related research. In particular, positive psychology and out-of-class communication appear among the recent burst terms, whereas AI literacy appears as the label of a recent keyword cluster; these recent patterns should be interpreted cautiously because the 2025 data are incomplete. Overall, the findings suggest continued expansion of the L2 WTC research agenda rather than a wholesale replacement of established perspectives, providing an updated map of the field’s intellectual foundations and thematic development and identifying directions for future empirical research.