Ways of communicating emotional stance in online disagreements

Online disagreements constitute a particularly interesting and relevant testing ground to explore different ways of communicating emotional stance (Mateosian, 2005). Our qualitative and quantitative analysis of 120 English postings from the MailOnline has revealed the notable presence of emotional stance through conceptual implication, explicit expression, and emotional description. While this quantitative survey can neither be regarded as comprehensive nor conclusive, we consider it as a first step towards detecting and categorizing different ways of expressing emotion in online and offline linguistic data. We suggest that a quantitative survey is complemented with a qualitative discussion to account for the complex and dynamic interaction between conceptual, relational and affective meaning. This speaks for a discursive approach for studying emotional stance in conflict and disagreements.