Emotional vocabulary is an important element in daily conversations, and knowledge and teaching of this vocabulary in a second language (L2) should be a primary goal in migration contexts. This study aimed to identify the emotional words used in the written productions of 288 adult immigrants from different countries of origin who were beginner-level learners of Spanish and to analyse the affective dimensions of valence and arousal of these words. The study also investigated whether the linguistic distance between the first language (L1) of these immigrants and their L2 (Spanish) -- as assessed with the normalised and divided Levenshtein distance -- constituted a proxy for emotionality in L2 written discourse. Multiple regression models and mediation analysis revealed that the effect of linguistic distance on the number of high-arousal words was mediated by L2 proficiency level, and that L2 proficiency level had a positive influence on the number of emotional (positive/negative) words. The results also revealed that these immigrants used a greater number of positive words in their L2 written productions.