The Language That Stays: A Longitudinal Inquiry Into Emotion, Motivation, and Identity Negotiation Among Learners of Chinese

The present study explores the role of emotions in Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learners’ motivation and identity negotiation. Using a longitudinal qualitative design, we followed six US‐based university students over two academic years, collecting data through semesterly interviews, observation notes, and email correspondence. To capture the dynamic and idiosyncratic nature of participants’ emotional experiences, we analyzed the data both across participants and within individual cases over multiple time points. Findings suggest that emotion was an active dimension of identity negotiation, as participants’ emotional experiences constantly interacted with their language learning identities. Emotions of different valences often coexisted and worked together over time, contributing to learners’ continued engagement with Chinese. In this CFL learning context, where instrumental incentives were not always salient, the emotions participants experienced and the attachments they developed through learning helped sustain their investment in Chinese learning even when their learning goals were not clearly articulated. This study contributes to existing research by exploring the emotional dimension and proposing a more process‐oriented understanding of emotional experience in language learning.