A scientometric study of computer-assisted pronunciation training in second language acquisition: technological affordances and research trends

The advancement of information and communication technologies has catalyzed the development of computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) as an active research domain with evolving focal points. To facilitate a comprehensive understanding of how technology has been employed to aid in the teaching and learning of pronunciation, as well as to identify pressing research issues in this domain, the present paper aims to synthesize existing studies on computer-assisted pronunciation. The present study employed a corpus comprised of 403 article abstracts. These abstracts were sourced from a total of 153 peer-reviewed journals, drawing data from both Scopus and Dimensions databases. The corpus was subsequently subjected to rigorous analysis to uncover various trends, patterns, and themes pertinent to the research objectives. Various structural and temporal metrics were also scrutinized. The findings reveal that 14 clusters represent the most concentrated areas of research within the CAPT landscape. Themes associated with technology-assisted pronunciation—such as visual strategies, segmental production, and pedagogical approaches to mastering pronunciation—emerged as dominant foci. Additionally, the results spotlighted several influential articles characterized by a high burst in citations, as well as leading journals in the fields of language learning, educational technology,and speech recognition that frequently co-cited these articles.