Cooooooooooooooollllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Using Word Lengthening to Detect Sentiment in Microblogs

We present an automatic method which leverages word lengthening to adapt a sentiment lexicon specifically for Twitter and similar social messaging networks. The contributions of the paper are as follows. First, we call attention to lengthening as a widespread phenomenon in microblogs and social messaging, and demonstrate the importance of handling it correctly. We then show that lengthening is strongly associated with subjectivity and sentiment. Finally, we present an automatic method which leverages this association to detect domain-specific sentiment- and emotion-bearing words. We evaluate our method by comparison to human judgments, and analyze its strengths and weaknesses. Our results are of interest to anyone analyzing sentiment in microblogs and social networks, whether for research or commercial purposes.