Do Chinese Speaking Korean Learners Experience the Same Emotions When Reading the Korean Literature Story in Korean and in Chinese?

The purpose of this study was to examine emotional reactions of Chinese learners of Korean when reading Korean literature in Korean as a second language (L2) and their mother tongue (L1), Chinese. To this end, a total of 10 intermediate and 13 advanced Chinese learners of Korean participated in an emotional rating task after reading Korean literary texts adopted from Ahn et al. (2021a, 2021b) bidirectionally in both Korean and Chinese. Additionally, their Galvanic Skin Responses (GSRs) were recorded and analyzed, with comparisons made to L1 Korean users. Results of emotional ratings indicated that Chinese learners of Korean demonstrated a similar understanding of emotions embedded in Korean literary texts as L1 Korean users, aligning with previous findings (Ahn et al., 2021a, 2021b). However, in contrast to L1 Korean users, Chinese learners’ GSRs showed significant changes according to emotional types in their L1 but not in L2. Such distinctive patterns in emotional responses to Korean literary texts observed in Chinese learners of Korean compared to L1 Korean users suggest cultural differences in perceiving emotions via literary texts rather than language differences.