@inproceedings{cho-etal-2025-language,
    title = "Language-based Valence and Arousal Expressions between the {U}nited {S}tates and {C}hina: a Cross-Cultural Examination",
    author = "Cho, Young Min  and
      Pang, Dandan  and
      Thapa, Stuti  and
      Sherman, Garrick  and
      Ungar, Lyle  and
      Tay, Louis  and
      Guntuku, Sharath Chandra",
    editor = "Chiruzzo, Luis  and
      Ritter, Alan  and
      Wang, Lu",
    booktitle = "Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: NAACL 2025",
    month = apr,
    year = "2025",
    address = "Albuquerque, New Mexico",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/fix-sig-urls/2025.findings-naacl.310/",
    pages = "5586--5600",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-195-7",
    abstract = "While affective expressions on social media have been extensively studied, most research has focused on the Western context. This paper explores cultural differences in affective expressions by comparing valence and arousal on Twitter/X (geolocated to the US) and Sina Weibo (in Mainland China). Using the NRC-VAD lexicon to measure valence and arousal, we identify distinct patterns of emotional expression across both platforms. Our analysis reveals a functional representation between valence and arousal, showing a negative offset in contrast to traditional lab-based findings which suggest a positive offset. Furthermore, we uncover significant cross-cultural differences in arousal, with US users displaying higher emotional intensity than Chinese users, regardless of the valence of the content. Finally, we conduct a comprehensive language analysis correlating n-grams and LDA topics with affective dimensions to deepen our understanding of how language and culture shape emotional expression. These findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of affective communication across cultural and linguistic contexts on social media."
}