Usage
The words emotive and emotional share similarities but are not simply interchangeable. Emotive is used to mean ‘arousing intense feeling’, while emotional tends to mean ‘characterized by intense feeling’. Thus an emotive issue is one which is likely to arouse people’s passions, while an emotional response is one which is itself full of passion. In sentences such as we took our emotive farewells the word emotive has been used in a context where emotional would be more appropriate.
Emotive version: The government will slash interest rates.
Non-emotive version: Mr Smith was attacked by Mr Jones for two minutes.
Emotive version: For what seemed a lifetime, Mr Smith was subjected to a vicious, cowardly assault by the unemployed, steroid-pumped monster.
When writing emotive language, you get to be newsreader and judge at the same time.