The literature data of this paper are derived from the CNKI database. The search topic is set as “fiction translation”, with a time span from January 1996 to December 2024. The literature type is limited to academic journals, and only A Guide to the Core Journal of China (GCJC) and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) source journals are selected to ensure the quality and representativeness of the literature, avoid the interference of low-quality and non-peer-reviewed literature with the bibliometric results. Excluding books, dissertations, and non-core journals may result in insufficient coverage of the overall research volume, niche areas and cutting-edge explorations, and may to some extent underestimate the reported trends, but it can more reliably reflect the mainstream academic trends. In the process of literature collection, irrelevant documents were excluded by quickly reviewing abstracts and keywords, and 316 articles were finally obtained as a valid data set.

The statistical tool adopted in this paper is CiteSpace 6.3.R1, a professional bibliometric analysis software for scientific knowledge mapping. This paper mainly sorts out the development and variation trends of domestic fiction translation research from the perspective of publication volume, conducts statistical and visual analysis on maps including keyword co-occurrence and keyword burst, and gains in-depth insights into the characteristics of current domestic fiction translation research ([1]).

After processing the literature data with CiteSpace, a line chart of the overall publication volume of fiction translation research in China was generated (Figure 1). In terms of publication volume, from January 1996 to December 2024, domestic fiction translation research witnessed obvious fluctuations with an overall upward trend, which can be divided into three phases: initial exploration (1996-2005), steady growth and fluctuation (2006-2016), and post-peak adjustment (2017-2024). In the initial exploration phase, the publication volume remained at a low level with significant fluctuations, with an average annual output of about 5 articles. At that time, domestic fiction translation research was still in its infancy, with scattered academic attention, lack of systematic research paradigms and limited academic output. Entering the steady growth and fluctuation phase, the publication volume showed a trend of continuous growth amid fluctuations, with the average annual volume rising to about 15 articles. The number of publications jumped to 17 in 2006, a key node breaking through 15 for the first time in this phase, and reached a peak of 24 in 2016. This may be closely related to the national strategy of “Going Global” of Chinese culture put forward in 2011, as well as the intervention of theories such as narratology and cultural studies, which stimulated the research demand for the translation of Chinese fictions, enriched research perspectives and raised academic enthusiasm. In the post-peak adjustment phase, after the peak of 24 articles in 2016, the publication volume entered a phase of fluctuating adjustment and reached a sub-peak of 22 articles in 2020. Although the publication volume declined slightly thereafter, research focused on cutting-edge issues such as translation ethics, intelligent translation technology and fiction translation, reflecting the transformation of the field from quantitative accumulation to qualitative breakthrough.

Figure 1. Trend of annual publications in fiction translation research.

On the whole, the variation in publication volume of domestic fiction translation research is highly consistent with national cultural strategies, the development logic of the translation discipline and emerging research fields. It not only reflects the growth track of this research field, but also indicates that future research will pay more attention to the integration of depth and diverse perspectives.

A co-occurrence map of collaborative authors was drawn through the collaborative network analysis module of CiteSpace (Figure 2). After importing the literature data into CiteSpace, the threshold of node type for collaborative authors was set as TopN = 10 with a time slice of 1 year, and then the analysis map was obtained after running. The size of nodes representing authors is positively correlated with the number of publications, and the connections between nodes represent cooperative relationships among authors.

Figure 2. Co-occurrence map of authors in fiction translation research.

Through the analysis of Figure 2, we can understand the prolific authors, publication volume and cooperation closeness in the field of fiction translation research in China. According to the content of analysis, Fang Kairui published the most articles (8), Song published 6, Tan, Hu and Sun published 4 each, and the rest published fewer than 4. From the distribution of connections, there are local cooperative clusters among authors, but overall, the density of node connections is low, reflecting that author cooperation in domestic fiction translation research is featured by local closeness and loose integration. For example, Shao and Zhou adopted Text-World Theory integrated with critical discourse analysis to compare the Chinese and English versions of Alai’s novels and examine translation fidelity. They further combined Text-World Theory with sociocognitive analysis theory to compare the source text and target text of the short story Akhu Tenpa, in an attempt to propose an alternative research paradigm for literary translation studies ([12]). In general, a small number of authors have formed small cooperative networks, which, together with independent researchers, have promoted the development of the field, but a unified core author group and a large-scale, cross-topic cooperative network have not yet been formed.

By drawing the institutional co-occurrence map (Figure 3), it can be analyzed that many research institutions have published a large number of articles in the field of fiction translation research, and the scientific research cooperation between different institutions reflects their high research capacity and contribution. The number of nodes (N) represents the number of institutions and the connections between nodes (E) represent cooperative relationships among institutions. The 316 selected articles involve 290 relevant institutions with 67 connections. The analysis shows that institutions such as the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Fudan University, the School of Foreign Languages of Sun Yat-sen University, the School of Foreign Languages of Peking University, and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies have large nodes and labels with high publication volume. These core institutions are geographically scattered, mainly concentrated in cities with intensive university disciplinary resources such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, and are dominated by Chinese departments and foreign language schools of comprehensive universities. Therefore, these institutions can conduct fiction translation research relying on the superior disciplines of Chinese Language and Literature and Foreign Language and Literature, reflecting the characteristics of core institutional output driven by disciplinary resources, which leads to a high matching degree of research focus in this field. From the perspective of connection density, the connections between institutional nodes are generally sparse, and most institutions are in a state of weak connection or isolation, reflecting the loose cooperation among research institutions of fiction translation in China, which is also related to the relatively scattered research topics and lack of cohesive forces. On the whole, this research distribution pattern reflects the institutional ecology of the field of fiction translation research, and also suggests a huge space for future cooperation among institutions to integrate disciplinary resources and further promote the progress of fiction translation research.

Figure 3. Co-occurrence map of institutions in fiction translation research.

Based on CNKI visualization data and CiteSpace analysis, the common rules of journal distribution of fiction translation research in China are obtained. This paper statistically analyzes the top 10 journals sorted by publication volume (Table 1), which have published 123 articles, accounting for about 38.9 percent of the total. Among them, Chinese Translators Journal ranks first with 27 publications, and the rest publish fewer than 20 articles.

Table 1. Publication statistics of journals in fiction translation research.

It can be concluded that the journals cover three core carriers: translation, foreign languages and literature. The coordination of the three types of journals directly reflects the interdisciplinary nature of domestic fiction translation research. Among literary journals, Studies on Ming and Qing Fictions specializes in classical fictions, and Modern Chinese Literature Research focuses on modern fictions. These journals with field characteristics provide unique literary context support for fiction translation research in specific periods and different types, fully highlighting the unique research attribute of domestic fiction translation that integrates translation, literature and language.

Through CiteSpace visualization analysis technology, with keywords set as the main analysis item in functional parameters, a keyword co-occurrence map of fiction translation research literature was drawn (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Keyword co-occurrence map of fiction translation research.

The size of keyword nodes reflects their occurrence frequency, and the connections between nodes reflect the co-occurrence relationship among keywords. In this keyword co-occurrence map, the number of nodes is 300, the number of connections is 329, and the connection density is 0.0073. Among them, keywords such as “fiction translation”, “translated fiction”, “translation”, “late Qing and early Republican period”, “corpus” and “detective fiction” have large node sizes, representing high-frequency topics in domestic fiction translation research. “Fiction translation” is closely connected with keywords such as “character image”, “narrative perspective” and “ideology”, indicating that their research contents are closely related. Through map analysis, high-frequency keywords in fiction translation research can be divided into four categories: 1) Basic theories and methods of fiction translation, such as translation strategies and research tools; 2) Studies on modern translated fictions, such as case studies of the late Qing Dynasty and Zhou Zuoren; 3) Interdisciplinary perspectives on translation and fictions, including narratology and cultural communication; 4) Translation research on specific types of fictions, such as detective fiction and science fiction.

Keyword clustering analysis is a further deepening of keyword co-occurrence analysis, which can reflect the structural characteristics of the specific field. Therefore, based on the previously drawn keyword co-occurrence map, a keyword clustering map of domestic fiction translation research was further drawn (Figure 5). K-clustering was selected, and seven clusters were displayed: #0 translation, #1 fiction translation, #2 translated fiction, #3 late Qing and early Republican period, #4 corpus, #5 late Qing Dynasty, and #9 Zeng Zonggong. High-frequency keywords such as Lin Shu and detective fictions are not shown in Figure 5 due to low clustering cohesion, but this does not affect the analysis of the overall structural characteristics. In the clustering map, each category is distributed in clusters and overlaps with each other, indicating that the contents of each research sub-field are interrelated. The Q value (modularity) of this clustering map is 0.8772, and the S value (silhouette) is 0.9788. CiteSpace provides modularity and average silhouette values to reflect the clustering effect: a Q value greater than 0.3 indicates significant clustering, and an S value greater than 0.7 indicates efficient clustering results.

Figure 5. Keyword clustering map of fiction translation research.

Based on the results of keyword co-occurrence and clustering analysis, this paper categorizes and integrates high-frequency keywords and clustering modules according to research objects, theoretical perspectives, time periods, and text types. Keywords and clustering items with similar attributes and thematic relevance are merged and classified, and four thematic categories are ultimately extracted. This achieves a logical connection from bibliometric visualization results to substantive research conclusions, ensuring that the thematic classification is supported by both data and academic rationale.

Through clustering map analysis, domestic fiction translation research mainly focuses on four themes:

1) Theories, strategies and methods of fiction translation

Theories, strategies and methods of translation are the core foundation and practical guide for translation research. Scholars in the field of fiction translation in China have made great achievements in the strategies and methods of fiction translation. For example, based on the translated versions of the classical novel The Scholars and the contemporary novel To Live, Wang conducted a contrastive study on culture-loaded words from the perspective of ecological translation theory ([19]). Under the guidance of Skopos theory, Liu carried out a detailed analysis of the translation of China-specific cultural items in the Yang Hsien-yi & Gladys Yang version of Selected Short Stories of Lu Xun([8]). Tan explored the cognitive reconstruction strategies of temporal and spatial narration in sinologists’ English translations of Chinese novels ([15]). Wen compared the differences between foreignization and domestication in the translation of neologisms in The Lord of the Rings, and further probed into the functions and characteristics of the foreignization strategy ([21]). Based on a self-built diachronic composite corpus, Tian and Wang studied personal pronouns in translated vernacular novels from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1910s ([17]). Taking the original concepts in Mo Yan’s novel Bian and its English translation as research objects, Yuan and Ge established a Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpus, investigating the distribution and translation patterns of original concepts in the work and providing a cognitive interpretation of such translation patterns from the perspective of conceptual meaning ([23]).

2) Modern fiction translation research

Modern fictions are diverse in style, mostly closely connected with social reality and reflecting social thoughts, occupying an important position in the history of Chinese literature. Fictions of the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period are important objects of domestic fiction translation research, and scholars have explored and interpreted them from various research perspectives and methods. For example, taking the English versions of Lu Xun’s novels as a case study, Fang conducted an in-depth narrative and rhetorical analysis to explore how novel translators convey and construct the characteristics of the original text within the dimensions of time and style ([3]). Hong and Yang studied the translation styles, translator’s thoughts and philosophy of translation reflected in Lu Xun’s early scientific writings and science fiction ([5]). Tang and Zhu evaluated and analyzed the historical status of translators in the late Qing Dynasty and the 1910s, as well as their ideas and methods of liberal translation ([16]). Lu distinguished the concepts of “liberal translation” and “translation essence”, analyzing the phenomenon of “translation essence” in translated novels of the late Qing Dynasty ([9]). Qiu examined and discussed misreading, mistranslation and creative mistranslation in late Qing translated novels, clarifying the origin, characteristics and functions of creative mistranslation in Lin Shu’s translated fictions ([11]).

3) Translation research on specific types of fictions

Genre fictions are rich in types, including science fiction, detective, crime, martial arts and other fictions, which have strong adaptability, flexibility and self-renewal ability in different cultural contexts. Genre fictions are closely related to the social environment, and their contents carry specific cultural backgrounds, historical traditions and values, which can stimulate readers to think and observe the world. Guo and Feng took crime fiction, online novels and science fiction as examples to study the global translation of genre fiction ([4]). Yuan and Xue took the English translation of the online novel The Founder of Diabolism as an example to analyze the interaction between readers and translators and its influence in the translation process, providing solutions for improving the quality of fiction translation ([22]). Wang and Liu outlined the climaxes in the translation of Chinese science fiction over the past century and their impact on the creation of science fiction, summarized its characteristics and trends, retrospected and prospected the translation and introduction of Chinese science fiction over the past century ([18]). Song and Sun summarized the relations between the early translation of Chinese classical novels and modern English periodicals, discussing its positive role in sinological studies ([14]).

4) Interdisciplinary fiction translation research

As a literary carrier, the translation research of fictions is an important practical field of literary research. Through interdisciplinary perspectives, such as linguistics, history, sociology, philosophy, etc., translators can better understand the cultural connotation of the original work and accurately convey it in their translations, thereby helping readers understand and enhance readability and acceptance. Fang studied the new developments in narratology and stylistics, as well as the methods and significance of their application to fictional translation studies ([2]). Taking the discrepancy between the horizon of the translated version of Lu Xun’s The True Story of Ah Q by the American native translator Lyell and that of the source text as an example, Mi adopted the philosophical theory of fusion of horizons between subjects to discuss how Lyell integrated his own horizon into the translation ([10]). Starting from value philosophy, Liu and Zhu took the translation of colloquial couplets in popular novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties by the sinologist Hanan as their research object, probing into the relations between the translator’s value choices and the national attributes of the target text ([7]). On account of the theoretical framework of the General Theory of Verbal Humor in linguistics, Yuan and Ge took Lao She’s novel Mr. Ma & Son and its English translation as corpus to establish a Chinese-English bilingual parallel corpus, to study the generation mechanism of verbal humor and its translational transformation patterns ([24]).

Keyword burst analysis can be used to reveal keywords that suddenly appear or receive significantly increased attention in a research field within a specific period, which can reflect the emerging trends, hot issues and development trends of the research field. Therefore, a keyword burst map of domestic fiction translation research was drawn (Figure 6).

Figure 6. Keyword burst map of fiction translation research (Top 18).

Figure 6 shows the top 18 keyword burst terms emerging in the field of fiction translation research from 1996 to 2024, such as paratext, corpus, detective fiction. Among them, the burst strength of terms is positively correlated with research hotspots; the higher the burst strength, the greater the potential to become a research hotspot. According to the map, the research focus and topics vary in each period, which is analyzed in combination with the three phases divided in the variation trend of publication volume above: initial exploration (1996-2005), steady growth and fluctuation (2006-2016), and post-peak adjustment (2017-2024).

1) Initial exploration phase

Scholarly research on fiction translation was in its infancy. The burst strength of “fiction” is 1.84, “Lin Shu” 0.94, “foreignization” 1.19, and “narrative perspective” 0.97, highlighting that classic translators in modern times such as Lin Shu and foreignization translation strategies were the core research topics in this phase. The research scope was relatively limited, focusing on classic individual translators of fiction translation, laying a foundation for subsequent research.

2) Steady growth phase

New keywords emerged in this research phase, with “creation” at 0.99, “character image” at 1.61, “paratext” at 1.14, and “late Qing and early Republican period” at 1.8. The research dimension became significantly diversified with rich content, mainly focusing on translation theories, literary elements, text types, etc. Scholars showed strong research momentum, promoting the development of fiction translation research.

3) Post-peak adjustment phase

The burst strength of “corpus” is 1.7, and this keyword continues to appear with a burst span from 2019 to 2024, reflecting the positive role of quantitative corpus tools in promoting research in this field. The burst strength of “detective fiction” is 0.99, lasting from 2022 to 2024, indicating that scholars pay high attention to the translation research of genre fictions. Although there are not many new keywords in this phase, research has become more refined, which is closely related to technological development and social attention to special text types in daily life, promoting a more diversified and forward-looking development of this field.

The main research conclusions are as follows: First, domestic fiction translation research has gone through three phases: initial exploration, steady development and post-peak adjustment, showing the characteristics of development from foundation to diversified expansion and then to refined breakthrough, which is highly consistent with the phased characteristics of the publication volume trend in this field. Second, there are many research scholars with outstanding achievements from individuals, but the degree of cooperation is low, and a unified understanding of the present has not been formed. Third, cooperation among research institutions is loose; there are some geographically clustered cooperative institutions, but most are still in weak cooperation or isolation. Fourth, the hotspot topics in each research phase have discussed theoretical aspects, including translation theories, strategies, methods and interdisciplinary theories related to literature, while focusing on case studies of translators.

Although domestic fiction translation research has achieved excellent results, existing studies still have shortcomings: First, lack of collaborative research: the density of scholar cooperation networks and institutional cooperation is isolated and loose. Second, relatively single research objects: research is overly concentrated on fictions in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period, while translation research on modern and contemporary fictions is extremely weak; translator research is dominated by classic figures, lacking systematic research on niche translators. Third, Inadequate interdisciplinary integration: most studies still stay at the superficial combination of translation and literature, and only scratch the surface of disciplines such as philosophy and sociology.

1) Strengthen Collaborative Research

Scholars should strengthen academic exchanges, hold regular seminars on specific topics, promote ideological exchanges among scholars with diverse backgrounds in literature, translation, foreign languages and computer science in order to achieve complementary advantages, produce research results with interdisciplinary depth and form a stable cross-field cooperation network. Meanwhile, research institutions should strengthen cooperation and linkage, conduct exchanges on different topics, establishing cooperation with overseas universities, introducing overseas academic resources to enhance the international vision and comparative dimension of research, and build a cross-university and cross-regional resource-sharing cooperation network.

2) Expand Research Objects

Future research should be expanded in terms of text types, translator groups and languages. Scholars should break through the research on classic texts and increase the exploration of emerging texts such as modern and contemporary online fictions and science fictions, deepening the research on niche translators besides mainstream translators, analyzing and supplementing the translation motives, strategies and influences of different translators. Meanwhile, they can broaden language research, carry out bilingual and multilingual parallel translation, reveal the differences in translation strategies and communication effects of fiction translation in different linguistic and cultural contexts through multilingual comparison, providing targeted references for fiction translation and introduction.

3) Deepen Interdisciplinary Research

Scholars should Break through the single research dimension dominated by translation studies and avoid the simple borrowing of concepts from other disciplines, deeply studying relevant research methods of other disciplines, building a systematic interdisciplinary research system, and enabling fiction translation research to cover broader horizons such as culture, society and cognition. In addition, with the development of science and technology and the increasing influence of artificial intelligence translation technology, fiction translation research should break through traditional humanities research and attempt, to a certain extent, to be closely integrated with digital humanities such as technical tools and computer science to break down disciplinary barriers in fiction translation research.

4) Expand International Communication Research

Fiction translation research is not only a carrier of exploration within literature, but also an important way to enhance national cultural influence. Perspectives such as the translation of Chinese fictions abroad, the translation of foreign fictions into Chinese, and Sino-foreign comparative studies need to be further explored. Future research should target different cultural contexts, connotations, needs and reader expectations, explore common cultural grounds to improve the translation quality and promotion of domestic fictions, promote cultural exchanges and mutual learning, enhance the international status of Chinese culture and strengthen national cultural soft power.