Positive emotion as a dynamic organizer in low-intermediate French learners' language learning: A qualitative CDST perspective.

Drawing on a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST) perspective and the PERMA framework, this qualitative multiple-case study investigates the evolution of positive emotion experienced by undergraduate French majors in China who had completed six years of intensive French learning before entering university. In the Chinese context, where non-English foreign languages are typically introduced only at the tertiary level, such learners represent an atypical and underexplored subgroup. The study focuses on how positive emotion changed in a mixed-proficiency university context and how these changes were shaped by the interaction between contextual conditions and learners' interpretations. Data were collected primarily through narrative qualitative questionnaires and follow-up interviews, supplemented by personal documents. The findings show that positive emotion initially emerged from learners' strong prior foundations, perceived advantage, and positive expectations, but gradually weakened when they encountered different learning requirements and educational pathways. It was partially restored when learners developed new ways of interpreting progress and adjusting their learning. More specifically, the findings suggest that the evolution of positive emotion was shaped not only by contextual differences between earlier and later educational arrangements, but also by the ways learners interpreted these differences through previously formed expectations, beliefs, and evaluative standards. The study therefore contributes to research on multilingual learner emotion by deepening current understanding of how contextual conditions shape emotional manifestations from a psychological perspective, particularly in the emergence, weakening, and partial restoration of positive emotion in multilingual learning.