English for Specific Purposes Research and Practice in the Past 20 Years (2001-2020) in China: A Literature Review

This paper reviews the literature on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) research in 15 CSSCI foreign language journals China’s CNKI database over last two decades. The data have been quantified and visualized with Citespace. analyzes advances themes, then puts forward suggestions based current situation of college teaching China. findings reveal that: 1) ESP publications shown a rising trend during past 20 years; 2) study academic dissertations is mainly at MA level; 3) focuses such issues as relationships between English, corpus modes; 4) dominant method China non-empirical while more empirical studies emerged since 2011. also critically limitations recommendations study.