Abstract. Introduction. The article is concerned with the emotional factor of English media discourse in its British and American versions. Particular emphasis is placed on the national factor in its broadest sense which also affects speech composition areas. The issue under study seems relevant as it has been stated in many sources that in spite of modern globalization there is an increasing interest in all national aspects. Purpose: to study the specifics of emotional speech as a national feature. Materials and methods. This study is based on Russian-language media discourse, news media texts of British and American mainstream press for 2020 (namely The Independent and The Guardian; The Washington Post and The New York Times). The descriptive and contrastive methods used in the article revealed a variety of lexical means expressing the emotional factor. Results, discussion. A steady trend of using different linguistic and stylistic expressive means was established in two national types of discourse. Conclusion. It is concluded that the emotional sphere of media discourse is caused by national types of mentality which have a stable effect on the specific lexical and stylistic means of expressing emotionality.