By Staff Writer | Last Updated August 4, 2015
Examples of emotive language include adjectives such as crazy, dangerous and jocular, nouns such as thug, aristocrat and crone, and verbs such as manipulate, thrust and abscond. Emotive language uses emotionally-charged words to create an emotional subtext that is stronger than and potentially different from the literal meaning of the words. Emotive language intends to manipulate the reader or listener to adopt a certain feeling or to act as desired.
Emotive language is used in newspapers, political speeches, advertising copy, literature and conversations to create a desired emotional response in the listener or reader.
An example of using emotive language is using the emotionally charged words “svelte” or “gaunt” instead of the neutral term “thin.” Another example is using a word such as “scholarly” or “nerdy” instead of “studious.”
An example of a non-emotive sentence is “Buy clothes from our winter collection.” This sentence is non-emotive because it states what it means. An emotive version of this sentiment would be “Make your wardrobe shine with cutting-edge designs from our new winter collection.” The emotive version uses words like shine, cutting edge and new to create an emotional effect.
Descriptive nouns are useful in creating emotive text. For example, “Thugs taunt a victim after a brutal mugging” is a more emotive statement than “People yell at a woman after her purse was allegedly stolen.”
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