Affective constructs in technology-mediated foreign language education: a bibliometric review (1999–2025)

Affective constructs encompass diverse emotions, motivational dispositions, self-related beliefs, and psychological states that are central to learners' experiences and development in foreign language education. With the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled and immersive technologies into language learning, research on these constructs has expanded, yet its collective development across technology-mediated environments remains insufficiently mapped. Using 814 English-language journal articles first published between 1999 and 2025 and indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, this study examined publication and citation patterns, leading contributors, intellectual foundations, and prominent themes. Records were screened through an adapted PRISMA 2020 procedure, and performance, reference co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence analyses were conducted using Microsoft Excel and VOSviewer. Articles published from 2023 to 2025 accounted for 81.3% of the included publications. Education and Information Technologies was the most productive journal, China (mainland) contributed 46.2% of the publications, and the Education University of Hong Kong led institutional output. Co-citation analysis identified three intellectual foundations centered on technology acceptance and learner agency, pedagogical mediation and classroom affect, and motivation and emotional experience. Co-word analysis revealed three prominent themes concerning immersive technology design and language-learning performance, the acceptance and affective use of generative AI, and the relationships among motivation, emotional experience, engagement, and achievement. These findings show that technological adoption, pedagogical mediation, and learner psychology have developed as closely connected areas of research. Further work should test integrated models linking technology design and instructional support to learners' emotions, motivation, engagement, and achievement across wider linguistic, cultural, and educational contexts.