Aided with the visualization software CiteSpace, the paper conducts a scientometric analysis of the academic research on motion events, respectively sourced from CNKI and Web of Science during two time periods, namely 2001—2011 and 2012—2022. The results revealed that ever since the beginning of the 21st century, the motion event research had yielded fruitful achievements abroad within the fields of cognitive science and psychology; although domestic interdisciplinary studies started relatively late, explorations into the lexicalization patterns of motion events in Chinese had not only effectively supplemented the linguistic typology system but also stimulated international interest in the Chinese language. The results also indicated that compared to the previous period, the latter period (2012—2022) saw significant growth both at home and abroad, with a noticeable shift from theoretical discussions to empirical studies. Besides, interdisciplinary investigations from the perspective of cognitive linguistics developed prominently, and studies related to second language acquisition and processing also increased remarkably during the second period. In the foreseeable future, it will remain key research hotspots to investigate the relationship between language and thinking, as well as the neural and brain mechanisms involved in the perception and understanding of motion events using eye movement, ERP, and fMRI. Moreover, research findings of motion events can be applied to other disciplines, such as cognitive impairment rehabilitation training, natural language processing, etc., thereby bridging significant methodological gap and promoting dialogue and collaboration.