The Evolution and Development of ecotranslatology Studies in China: Based on the Analysis of CiteSpace Mapping Knowledge Domains

The present study endeavors to unveil the progression of research subjects within the realm of China’s ecotranslatology studies through the examination of journal papers in the CNKI database from 2001 to 2022, utilizing CiteSpace software for mapping and analyzing co-occurrences among authors, institutions, and keywords. The �ndings indicate that within ecotranslatology studies, a prominent theory-founding research group represented by Hu Gengshen has been established, yet no comparable clusters have been identi�ed among scholars engaged in debate or applied studies. Additionally, a lack of effective cooperation and diversity among research entities as well as inadequate responses to questions and concerns have been observed. Furthermore, research focuses have undergone a shift, progressing from theory founding studies (2001-2008) to con�rmation and veri�cation studies (2009-2014) and �nally to revision and applied studies (since 2015). Additionally, research topics have transitioned from grand, abstract theoretical foundations to subtle, speci�c theory revisions and applied translation studies, yet a dearth of quantitative research, comparative studies, or �eld studies have been conducted. In conclusion, it is suggested that future ecotranslatology studies should be more responsive to doubts and questions, cultivate diverse research entities, and place greater emphasis on �eld investigation within qualitative research.


Introduction
Western translation studies in the 20th century underwent successive shifts in perspective, including linguistic turn, cultural turn, and sociological turn, resulting in a broadening of research angles from a mere linguistic perspective to a more comprehensive cultural and social lens.In the east, ecotranslatology, which emerged at the beginning of the 21st century, has further expanded the scope of research to an ecological perspective.This has led to an enhancement in the breadth, depth, and scope of research in three dimensions.Its theoretical system not only incorporates Chinese and Western ecological thought but also conducts an all-encompassing ecological paradigm exploration of translation phenomena, translation processes, and translation essence.At present, "the study of ecotranslatology has gone through 21 years of self-creation, self-validation, self-development, and self-improvement....... has formed a unique ecological paradigm study, releasing its full explanatory power of understanding and application" (Hu & Luo, 2021: 11).The number of research articles and research hotspots have been increasing yearly; however, "there are still many things to be considered" (Wu & Zou, 2021: 5).Therefore, it is necessary to systematically and reasonably review the research on ecological translation in the past 21 years.

Literature Review
As cultural consciousness continues to rise, Oriental translation studies are no longer content with being mere followers or subordinates of Western translation studies.Gradually, Chinese translation studies have progressed from borrowing, learning, and imitating from the West to an attempt at the domestic substitution of translation theories.It has resulted in a shift that has "transformed from followers of foreign translation studies to peers and are innovating their own translation systems and academic discourses (Fan, 2021: 30)".The creation of the system of ecotranslatology demonstrates its academic, cultural, historical, and social values, breaking free from the limitations of translation research in terms of language and culture (Luo, 2021b: 60).Undoubtedly, it is the most in uential theory in the effort to construct the discourse system of Chinese translation studies.
Tracing the origins of ecotranslatology studies reveals that they can be attributed to the paper entitled "An introduction of translation as adaptation and selection theory" presented by Shen-geng Hu at an international academic conference in Hong Kong in 2001, as well as his monograph "Translation as adaptation and selection theory" that was published in 2004.As the eld continues to evolve, theoretical research in ecotranslatology has centered on key concepts and terminology (Zeng & Huang: 2018;Wei & Liu: 2022), such as translation as adaptation and selection theory (Hu: 2004), translator-centeredness (Hu: 2011, Luo: 2019& 2020;Yue: 2019), translational eco-environment (Han: 2013 & Fang: 2020), ecological paradigm (Hu: 2019) and green translation (Feng & Zhang: 2014).These studies have established the relationship between conceptual boundaries and the theoretical logical framework, de ned the scope of academic research, and improved the precision and scienti c nature of ecotranslatology studies.In this paper, terms such as adaptation, selection, and ecotranslatology were chosen as literature search terms due to their signi cance and universality.
However, ecotranslatology studies do not go without challenges and criticisms.Wang Hong ( 2011) posited that the central concept of ecotranslatology and the formation of its system are derived from an understanding of the tripartite relationship concerning the de nition of translation and thus still require ongoing revision.Leng Yuhong (2011) has raised concerns that Darwin's theory of adaptive selection is not capable of logically deriving "translator-centeredness" and that translators must continually adapt to their ecological environment.Moreover, Meng Fanjun (2019) and Fang Mengzhi (2020) offered insightful re ections and discussions on the core concept of ecotranslatology.Despite these challenges, ecotranslatology has been applied to various areas of study, such as literary translation (Tong & Huo: 2010;Liu & Wang: 2012), subtitle translation (Xiu & Jiang: 2018), cultural translation (Sun & Han: 2021), and political text translation (Yuan: 2021), thereby a rming its interpretive and applicative scope.However, there may be issues of "imposed interpretation" (Wei & Liu: 2022), "theoretical a liation" (He: 2022), and theoretical "impropriety" in the aforementioned studies (Mu &Yang: 2020), among others.As it stands, current research in ecotranslatology encompasses theoretical establishment, questioning debates and practical application studies.
In the past 21 years, ecotranslatology studies have seen a signi cant number of developments, yet the review of such research has been conducted by a limited number of scholars.Sichon Harges (2011) reviewed the ten major achievements of ecotranslatology in the rst decade in terms of journal papers, dissertations, national projects, academic seminars, and overseas dissemination.Additionally, he summarized the progress of the "internationalization" of ecotranslatology studies and proposed feasible directions for ecotranslatology (2013).Huang Zhonglian & Wang Shichao (2021) reviewed the growth trajectory of ecotranslatology research in the past 20 years, sorted out the literature on it from the perspectives of theoretical construction, theocratic enrichment and transformation, responded to the ecotranslatology reviews, and foresaw the future trends of this eld.
However, these literature reviews mainly adopt qualitative research methods and rely on the authors' own research framework to organize the literature, which is comprehensive and profound, but it is di cult to avoid the constraints of subjectivity.On the other hand, the quantitative literature review on ecotranslatology studies is evidently inadequate (Chen: 2017;Teng & Zhou: 2019;Wang, Zhou and Jiang: 2019).These studies depict the changes and characteristics of the overall literature publication but do not have a thorough understanding of the stage characteristics and the evolution of the disciplinary history and do not su ciently explore, describe, and interpret the deeper information implied by the data.This paper employs literary visualization software to objectively depict the progression of ecotranslatology, gain insight into vital scholarly groups of ecotranslatology and their salient perspectives, visually depict the phase characteristics and metamorphosis of ecotranslatology's focal points, and clarify the areas of de ciency and lacunae within its examination, which holds considerable referential value and pragmatic signi cance for ameliorating translation theory with Chinese characteristics and augmenting the scholarly prestige of ecotranslatology.

Literature Retrieval
The data for this manuscript were procured from scholarly periodicals on the subject of ecotranslatology within the database of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI).In accordance with a prior literature review of ecotranslatology, "adaptation" and "selection" have been acknowledged as the seminal keywords of this inquiry.Consequently, in this paper, "adaptation" and "selection" were selected as the literature search terms, and an "advanced search mode" was employed utilizing "AND" and "OR" Boolean logic searches with the subject terms "adaptation", "selection", "translation" and "ecotranslatology", respectively.
Given the temporal limitation, this paper encompasses the inception of the ecotranslatology study until the composition of the paper; the inception date for the literature search was established as January 1, 2001, and the conclusion date as February 1, 2022.The speci c procedures of the literature search were as follows: rst, utilizing advanced search mode with "adaptation" and "selection" and subsequently conducting a secondary search with "translation" as the keyword from the prior results; second, proceeding with advanced search mode again with "ecotranslatology" as the keyword; third, eliminating non-research literature such as conference announcements, appointments, columns, research updates, catalogs and book reviews; 4) utilizing CiteSpace to convert the format of the two searches into Web of Science (WoS) format for de-duplication, and ultimately obtaining 2721 valid documents.

Stage division
In this paper, the 2721 valid documents were divided into stages and designated the "general research literature database".Furthermore, based on the classi cation of academic journals' literature sources in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), 217 core journals and papers in the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) were ltered through a literature search and designated the "core literature database".This served as the primary database for this study, and subsequent data analysis was predicated upon this database.This manuscript computed the number of articles published in the two literature bases by year and produced a year-wise distribution of the general literature volume of ecotranslatology studies (Figure 1) and a year-wise distribution of core ecotranslatology literature (Figure 2).This paper utilizes CiteSpace to convert ecological translation literature data sourced from CNKI into WoS format and subsequently undertakes visual analysis.The steps of the process are as follows: 1) Import the converted data into CiteSpace V, 5.8.R3 and establish a project; 2) generate corresponding scienti c knowledge maps by modifying parameters such as Time Slicing, Years Per Slice, Threshold, Top N and Pruning, which enables the visualization of different node types, such as authors, keywords, and institutions, separately; 3) cluster the node types, and initially analyze the Silhouette and Modularity Q of the clustering results (usually, a Q value greater than 0.3 and an S value greater than 0.7 and approaching 1 indicate that the clustering effect is superior and the con dence is high), and select the most representative and credible ecological translation knowledge map for data analysis and summation.

Data Analysis
The data analysis in this paper primarily relies on the mapping knowledge domain analysis of CiteSpace V, 5.8.R3 (64-bit).In Section 3, the co-occurrence relationship of notable academic groups is analyzed.
"Author" is chosen as the node type, the node threshold is set to 5, and the color and size of each node (font size) are adjusted.The node size and connection density re ect the publication volume and cooperative network status of prominent scholars in ecotranslatology and culminate in the generation of the co-occurrence cooperation mapping knowledge domain of leading scholars in ecotranslatology (Figure 3).Generally, the larger nodes in the gure symbolize scholars with more publications, which reveals their value and in uence in the research eld.The thicker the line between the nodes, the closer the collaborative relationship between scholars, which represents the coordinating role of scholars among the nodes and measures their ability as intermediaries.
Subsequently, the data of "article volume", "article author" and "article issuing institution" were analyzed and summarized on the basis of visual analysis and the Python language to obtain an overview of article authors and issuing institutions (See Tables 1 and 2).The larger the node-to-frequency ratio, the more dispersed the authors and institutions are, the more diverse the researchers are, and the more varied the composition of research institutions.This is because CiteSpace utilizes a relationship-based network visualization approach to present coword relationship networks in a clear and succinct manner (J.Li & Chen, 2017).The co-word relationship network in word frequency studies not only enables the analysis of hotspots, topic distributions, and disciplinary structures within a eld but also allows for the measurement of keyword a nities through the number of co-occurrences.As such, in Section 4, CiteSpace's Path nder Network Scaling was employed to analyze the "core literature database" by means of a co-occurrence method, resulting in the derivation of a keyword co-occurrence mapping knowledge domain (Figure 4).The circles in the gure represent a keyword node, with the size of the node indicating the frequency of occurrence, while the lines between the nodes indicate the co-occurrence relationship, and the thickness of the lines re ects the cooccurrence intensity.Additionally, the centrality of the nodes is re ected in the thickness of the purple highlighted outer ring of the nodes (revealed when the centrality is ≥0.1), with the more prominent the purple outer ring of the nodes, the stronger the centrality, and the more it can indicate that the keyword is a research hotspot or turning point.Thus, the evolution of research hotspots in ecotranslatology studies can be obtained.

Representative Academic Groups
The preeminent scholarly collectives of ecotranslatology comprise distinguished research collectives and emblematic research organizations.This paper delves into the aggregation dynamics of scholarly groups within ecotranslatology by analyzing the conjoint occurrence examination of scholars and scholarly institutions to gain a deeper understanding of the makeup of the principal forces driving ecotranslatology research and to assist investigators in more lucidly and e ciently recognizing scholarly groups with substantial impact and diverse research collaborative entities in this domain.Table 1 illustrates the statistics of the authors involved in ecotranslatology studies in the aforementioned three developmental phases.The analysis of the data reveals a trend of an increasing author-tofrequency ratio for ecotranslatology studies, from 0.57 in the nascent stage of the theory to 0.86 and then a slight decrease to 0.81.This trend further indicates that a greater number of research scholars engaged in ecotranslatology studies during the second stage.Additionally, the standard deviation of frequency remained consistent at 1.5 and 1.55 in both the rst and third stages but signi cantly decreased to 0.61 in the second stage, re ecting a reduction in the gap between authors' contributions and a diversi cation in the distribution of frequency.Notably, despite a marked increase in the number of authors co-occurring, the co-occurrence-to-node ratio demonstrates a gradual decline, suggesting that effective collaboration within the ecotranslatology studies community remains relatively scarce.

Key Research Teams
The identi cation and analysis of key research teams within a particular subject area can prove to be a valuable tool in gaining a comprehensive understanding of the eld and forming connections with likeminded academic teams.An established theory or discipline necessitates the presence of one or more preeminent research teams to constitute an academic community that catalyzes research progress.The application of author co-occurrence analysis can uncover in uential gures within a particular research eld and unveil the collaborative connections within their academic groups.
As depicted in Figure 3, an analysis of the N and E values reveals that 216 notable scholars specialize in ecotranslatology studies, and the frequency of collaborative network connections among these scholars is 77.Among them, the most productive authors in the eld of ecotranslatology are Hu Gengshen, Luo Dijiang, and Guo Xiaofei.As the originator of ecotranslatology, Hu Gengshen holds a preeminent position in terms of the quantity of publications, citation rate, and caliber of journals in which they are published, which "evidence his resolve to cultivate local academic resources and the capability to initiate and innovate" (Xu: 2013).
Figure 3 also illustrates that the collaborative network among scholars in the realm of ecotranslatology, though relatively loose and disconnected, clearly re ects a low degree of cooperation among authors and inadequate academic connections, indicating a more pronounced independent research status, which is consistent with the results revealed by the co-occurrence/frequency ratio in Table 1.Nevertheless, there are discernible links between Hu Gengshen, Meng Fanjun, Song Zhiping, and Luo Dijiang as highcentrality authors in Figure 3.This indicates that the team collaborated closely in the eld of ecotranslatology and eventually formed an academic group with Hu Gengshen as the leading gure, which possesses the characteristics of the founding school of ecotranslatology.This also corroborates that "ecotranslatology has the most school characteristics in China, with its own leading gures, academic groups, research paradigms, discourse systems, and academic positions, and has published a large number of academic results, with strong space for subsequent research and a continuously expanding international in uence, providing a reference for other translation research schools" (Feng: 2019).
It is necessary to acknowledge that the driving forces behind the continuous enhancement of the ecotranslatology system, speci cally the school of discernment and questioning and the school of testing and practice, have yet to establish a distinct academic community.As depicted in Figure 3, the individual contributions of "Fang Mengzhi" (2017, 2020, 2021) to ecotranslatology studies have been noteworthy; however, other scholars, such as Leng Yuhong (2011), Mu Lei (2020), Wang Hong (2011), Deng Ke (2017), Huang Chunfang (2021), Du Shihong (2021) and Wang Jian (2021), have not emerged as signi cant contributors.This also exempli es that scholars belonging to the schools of discernment and questioning and testing and practice mostly conduct independent research, thereby lacking continuity, coherence, and cooperation.

The situation of publishing institutions
This study conducts an analysis of the node "institution" within the self-constructed core literature database, and the ndings indicate that among the institutions that are prominent in the eld of ecotranslatology in China, Tsinghua University, Zhengzhou University, Macao Polytechnic Institute, Guangxi University of Science and Technology, and Southwest University possess the highest centrality.The institutions that are ranked at the top are those where the originator of ecotranslatology, Hu Gengshen, and his pupils have worked, which further accentuates that ecotranslatology has established an academic group with a signi cant impact, represented by Hu Gengshen.Table 2 further illustrates the uctuation of institutions that publish ecotranslatology research in the three stages of development.As observed in Table 2, the ratio of node/frequency increased from 0.33 in the rst stage to 0.44 in the second stage before slightly decreasing to 0.42, indicating that the number of institutions involved in ecotranslatology studies was on the rise, with the highest number appearing between 2009 and 2014.Simultaneously, the overall standard deviation of frequencies demonstrated a decreasing trend from 2.0 in the rst stage to 1.48 in the second stage and then rose to 1.82, indicating that the situation of disparity in manpower among ecotranslatology research institutions is improving, and opportunities for discourse expression are emerging, showing a more contending trend.The cooccurrence/node ratio also increased and reached its highest value of 0.38 in the second stage, indicating an increase in interinstitutional collaboration.However, it is noteworthy that institutions with high publication frequency are primarily universities, research from diverse institutions such as research centers and related industry companies is still lacking, and the distribution of ecotranslatology studies among diverse institutions is not equitable.

Evolution Of Research Hotspots
The illustration of general research focal points can outline the progression of ecotranslatology and provide a comprehensive, static, and outcome-oriented overall comprehension of the eld.Conversely, the examination of research focal points in stages can further concentrate and exhibit the advancements and re nements of ecotranslatology's focal points, thereby forming a speci c, dynamic, and developmental understanding of the discipline at each stage.This study employs a combination of these two analyses to address the inadequacies of previous studies in terms of an insu cient recognition of the characteristics of stage-speci c research and to comprehend the research hotspots of ecotranslatology in a more systematic, detailed, and holistic way.

Overall of research hotspots
Figure 4 shows that the keywords with purple highlighted outer rings in the keyword co-occurrence knowledge domain map are "translation", "adaptation", "selection", "translator", "ecotranslatology", "adapt and select", "subtitle translation", "translation research," and "three-dimensional transformation".Most of these high-centrality keywords are the most unique conceptual categories and theoretical concepts of ecotranslatology, displaying multiple facets of the pivotal concepts of ecotranslatology and pointing towards its core ideas.They are the key conceptual terms of ecotranslatology, which present both the horizontal dynamics and vertical stages of this eld, indicating that in uential academic groups are currently primarily focused on the theoretical construction of ecotranslatology.Nevertheless, despite the abundant literature on the keyword "three-dimensional translation", its purple highlighted outer ring is relatively weak, revealing that its centrality is not robust enough, and the in uential and signi cant literature is inadequate.On the other hand, despite the limited literature on the keyword "subtitle translation", it also shows a more obvious purple highlighted outer ring, highlighting that the applied research of ecotranslatology has gradually surfaced.
As depicted in Figure 4, various keywords associated with empirical investigations and case studies, such as "metaphorical idioms," "Chinese medicine," "science ction works," and "Pound," are present, albeit in a sporadic and dispersed manner.This indicates that the application of ecotranslatology in research has not yet attained a signi cant level of academic in uence or appeal.However, it raises the question of whether certain key words with high centrality in ecotranslatology pertain to this discipline and serve as its research objects.This is a matter of sensitivity that warrants attention."In terms of practical application, the existing application-oriented research results of ecotranslatology, although the words 'Eco-translatological perspective' or 'Eco-translatological horizon' are indicated in the title, but from the content, many of the results of the proclaimed 'ecotranslatology', 'ecotranslatology perspective' or 'ecotranslatology horizon' still needs rethinking......at least, we cannot simply use ecotranslatology and its related concepts as labels" (Du & Wang: 2021).

Stages of research hotspot evolution
In accordance with the three phases of ecotranslatology outlined previously, information from the primary literature database in CiteSpace was imported and segregated into three distinct time frames: 2001-2008, 2009-2014, and 2015-2022.By selecting the "keyword" node and adjusting the node threshold to 2, keyword co-occurrence comparison maps were generated through sorting and visualization for each time period (Figure 5).
As is evident in Figure 5, the period between 2001 and 2008 marks the inception phase of the theory of ecotranslatology.During this phase, research efforts were primarily directed towards the establishment of the theory and the gradual formation of three main research hotspots: "translation theory," "adaptation," and "selection."However, the number of overall keyword nodes is relatively low, the network is sparse, and the pivotal term "ecotranslatology" has yet to become a research hotspot.The period between 2009 and 2014, on the other hand, represents a phase of theoretical development.Keywords such as "ecotranslation" and "translation ecology" began to converge with "adaptation" and "selection," thereby leading to the emergence of the theoretical framework of ecotranslatology.Simultaneously, keywords such as "translation," "translator," "three-dimensional transformation," "translation ecology," and "translator-centerness" also emerged, signaling a high degree of research enthusiasm.It is noteworthy that the emergence of high-centrality keywords such as "ecological ethics" and "ecological balance" re ects the return of ecotranslatology research to the ontology of the discipline.Additionally, certain key words, such as " lm translation," "Lin Yutang," "Zhang Ailing" and "international publicity translation," exhibit strong centrality, indicating that the study of ecotranslatology has progressed from the initial stage of theoretical systematization to a phase of theoretical con rmation.Scholars endeavor to ascertain the explanatory force and vitality of the theory through the incessant enhancement of the theory of ecotranslatology and further amalgamate ecology and translation.The co-word relationship network in this phase from 2015 to 2022 possesses more plentiful nodes and more proximate node connections than the preceding two stages, which reveals that ecotranslatology research has entered a more advanced and expeditious development era.At this phase, "ecotranslatology" has become the most pivotal high-centrality keyword, and its frequency surpasses words such as "adaptation" and "selection".To a certain extent, the concept of ecotranslatology has been acknowledged by the scholarly community.Since the emergence of high-centrality keywords such as "ecological paradigm", "green translation", "ecological orientations", "ecocriticism" and "school awareness", ecotranslatology has begun to selfevaluate, self-correct and self-improve from the perspective of philosophical speculation.Furthermore, as can be observed from the color shades of the connecting lines between the keywords in Figure 5 (the lighter the color, the later the emergence), "green translation", "ethnic classics", "traditional medicine" and "public language" are the current keywords from 2015 to 2022, which illustrates that the research focal points at this stage also encompass the examination of English translation of literary works and lm and television culture, augmenting the profundity of the theoretical discourse of ecotranslatology and broadening the scope of its practical application.Despite the fact that the research focal points at this stage evidently exhibit a diversi ed development trend, the keywords "empirical evidence" or "survey" and other keywords for eld investigation and quantitative research still do not appear in the keyword co-occurrence map.Consequently, even at the stage of expeditious development of eco-translationology research, the research is still con ned to qualitative research and lacks e cacious quantitative research.

Conclusion And Implication
After 21 years of progression, ecotranslatology studies have already manifested a discernible disciplinary logic and pragmatic approach.By consolidating the various academic groups engaged in ecotranslatology studies and their research focal points, this paper endeavors to furnish a certain reference value for the future research and development of ecotranslatology studies.For the ongoing research and profound development of ecotranslatology, rst, it is necessary to strengthen the formation of research teams in ecotranslatology to create stable, diversi ed and heterogeneous research entities in this eld and thus effectively augment cooperation and communication among various academic groups.Second, researchers in ecotranslatology should also focus on addressing the questions, discernment, and controversies of the academic community on theoretical research, with a view to further revising and re ning the construction of ecotranslatology in a multilevel and multidimensional manner.In addition, the existing research methods of ecotranslatology are mainly qualitative research, literature research and case studies and lack su cient quantitative and empirical research, which leads to the de ciency of reliable data and objective research ndings to support the research results.Consequently, to enhance the scienti city, objectivity, and rationality of ecotranslatology studies, it is necessary that future investigations take into account the dialectical relationship that exists between qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

Figures 1
Figures 1 and 2 reveal that the development of ecotranslatology research has progressed through three stages, and its literature volume has exhibited a trend of balanced expansion.The rst stage is the theoretical formative period from 2001 to 2008, during which ecotranslatology is still in the nascent stage of theoretical establishment, from the original "translation as adaptation and selection theory" to continuous elaboration and augmentation, and the overall number of studies in this stage is relatively diminutive; the second stage is the theoretical development period from 2009 to 2014, and the volume of literature displays a trend of expeditious growth year by year, with the total volume and core literature peaking at 292 in 2014.The third stage is from 2015 to 2022, with the total volume of literature uctuating around 260 articles per year, while the volume of core literature does not exceed 20 articles in all years except 2021.In this paper, we dynamically map the research characteristics and hotspots of ecotranslatology in three stages, divided by these time periods.