Second language learners' academic emotions in grammar learning with explicit attention to grammatical complexity

Grammatical complexity, a hot topic in grammar research, poses great challenges for second language (L2) learners. This study aims to investigate L2 learners' emotional reactions to L2 grammar learning, and the epistemic emotional sources related to grammatical complexity. Thirty sophomore English majors aged between 19 and 20 from a natural class were recruited in the present study. Through qualitative research design, the data consisted of 30 written narrative reflections with each containing a self-report on emotional experiences and a recalled summary of learning strategies, along with 10 semi-structured interviews. A deductive content analysis approach and thematic analysis were used for the data analysis. The present study revealed five main findings. First, delight and anxiety are saliently representative achievement-related activity emotions; second, disappointment represents the typical retrospective outcome emotion; third, hope is the typical prospective outcome emotion; fourth, the social aspects of the present context elicit the emotion of gratitude, whereas the cognitive aspects of grammatical complexity cause a more complicated emotional state; fifth, epistemic emotions are mainly evoked by thinking-related factors, syntactic rules, and the practical application of syntactic rules. Pedagogical implications for L2 grammar teaching were discussed.