Emotions in tweets: From instantaneity to preconstruction

Abstract

This article deals with the expression of emotions in tweets. The aim is to observe the way users formulate their feelings in a technologically constrained yet expressively free communicative environment, in a context of written instantaneity which leaves place for the selection of context-adapted linguistic formulae. Comparison between emotional expressions involved in hashtags and the emotional lexicon used in the body of the messages shows some topical discrepancies and, more particularly, different degrees of denotational power. It also reveals a constructivist dimension of emotional expressions.