We present experiments on modifying the semantic orientation of the near-synonyms in a text. We analyze a text into an interlingual representation and a set of attitudinal nuances, with particular focus on its near-synonyms. Then we use our text generator to produce a text with the same meaning but changed semantic orientation (more positive or more negative) by replacing, wherever possible, words with near-synonyms that differ in their expressed attitude.

This is joint work with Olga Feiguina and Graeme Hirst from the University of Toronto, presented at the AAAI 2004 Spring Symposium, Workshop on Exploring Attitude and Affect in Text.