Emotional Perceptions and Linguistic Expressions Toward Companion Plants Across Generations: A Text Mining Analysis of Creative Works from a Poetry and Art Contest

Background and objective: While companion plant (also referred to as pet plants) culture has expanded rapidly in South Korea, understanding of the emotional and cultural significance of companion plants remains limited. This study aimed to promote emotional engagement with plants and foster the development of companion plant culture through the “2025 Companion Plant Poetry and Art Contest.” Using text mining techniques, it analyzed participants’ emotional perception patterns and linguistic expressions toward companion plants based on their contest submissionsMethods: Participant characteristics and contest entries were analyzed according to participation category (Younger Adult Division and Middle-Aged/Older Adult Division) and literary genre (poetry and prose). For text mining analysis, the collected texts were processed using the Okt morphological analyzer in the KoNLPy library. After filtering out non-informative words, key nouns and adjectives were extracted and analyzed according to participation category and literary genre. Additionally, log₂ ratio analysis was performed to identify distinctive word usage patterns across participation categories, and the results were visualized using word clouds.Results: Participants perceived a total of 126 plant species as companion plants, with indoor plants accounting for the largest proportion. Text mining analysis showed that participants in both divisions perceived companion plants as “small beings that share emotions.”. In terms of noun use, the Younger Adult Division was characterized by expressions related to growth and daily life, while the Middle-Aged/Older Adult Division showed more retrospective and place-oriented linguistic tendencies. Regarding adjective use, the Younger Adult Division tended to describe using direct sensory expressions, while the Middle-Aged/Older Adult Division more frequently employed expressions evoking visual and spatial imagery.Conclusion: These results suggest that distinct linguistic characteristics emerged across participation categories. The Younger Adult Division tended to perceive companion plants through themes of growth, care, and daily life, whereas the Middle-Aged/Older Adult Division expressed companion plants through memories, spaces, and seasonal reflection. These findings provide insights into generation-specific characteristics of emotional perception and expression toward companion plants, contributing to a broader understanding of companion plant culture.