二○○一年以來，張錯、王德威、史書美等美國學者在思考描述與詮釋中國以外的各個「海外」中文文化社群及其文學生產時，以英文的Anglophone、Francophone的概念為參照，提出「華文文學區域」、「華語圈文學」、「華語語系文學」等論述關鍵詞，以取代過去的「世界華文文學」與「海外華文文學」等用語，頗引起一番思辯。透過上述學者的學術建制努力，「華語語系文學」已成為學界的新興論述概念，成為檢視尤其是現當代中文文學的重要視野。本篇論文即概述「華語語系文學」作為一學科概念的形成，上述學者的相關核心理念，及華語語系文學論述在美國、台灣、中國、馬來西亞與新加坡的接受（reception）與播散情形。

The aim of this paper is to describe the emergence of the Sinophone as an academic discipline, its dissemination and reception in various academic areas. Since 2001, the term "Sinophone literature" has been used by Dominic Cheung, David Der-wei Wang, Shu-mei Shih and other American scholars to describe the "overseas" Chinese cultural communities in various places outside China and their literary products. The term is used to express a concept equivalent to terms such as Anglophon and Francophone and to substitute the rather chinacentric terms like "World Chinese literature" and "Overseas Chinese literature." "Sinophone literature" has now become an emergent concept in the field of global modern and contemporary Chinese-language literature, providing new and diverse perspectives in examining Sinophone articulations.