Abstract The article touches upon the issue of the ways of expressing the emoticeme of surprise by migrants through the prism of gender linguistics. The authors focus on male and female preferences of emotive vocabulary using by migrants. On the basis of the associative experiment, the authors identify and classify the lexical units that represent the emoticeme of surprise, identify the gender factor in the speech characteristics of the respondents, which proves the presence of gender stereotypes and gender asymmetry in the speech behavior of the migrants. The analysis of the results of the associative experiment allows the authors to conclude that in the associations of male respondents, vocabulary is more common, marked by a certain accuracy of the nomination of the experienced emoticeme, clarification of the reasons for the explication of emoticemes. Male respondents actualize their own emotions by naming them directly. The female respondents express them implicitly. In the reactions of male respondents, lexical units with contextual emotiveness are often encountered. Summarizing the study, authors note that, in general, male and female preferences when using emotive vocabulary fully correspond to the stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, which imply the restraint of men and the greater emotionality of women migrants.