python TypeError: expected string or buffer when parsing JSON from a file - typeerror

Question

I realize this problem has been answered for other folks but none of the threads are helping me solve it. I'm trying to parse a JSON structure and add all values in the sent_file when the keys match with the tweet_file. The error I'm getting
import sys
import json
def main():
sent_file = open(sys.argv[1])
tweet_file = open(sys.argv[2])
scores = {}
#tweet = {}
#tweet_text = {}
#hw()
#lines(sent_file)
#lines(tweet_file)
for line in sent_file:
term,score = line.split("\t")
scores[term] = int(score)
#print scores.items()
for tweets in tweet_file:
current_sent_value = 0
tweet = {} #this is a dict
#print type(tweets) str
tweet = json.loads(tweets)#[0] #this assignment changes tweet to a list. Why?
if 'text' in tweet:
tweet_text = {}
unicode_string = tweet['text']
encoded_string = unicode_string.encode('utf-8')
tweet_text = encoded_string.split()
for key in tweet_text:
for key in scores:
#print type(tweet_text) -- list
#print type(scores) --dict
if tweet_text.get(key) == scores.get(key): # get() does not work on a list. tweet_text is a list.
current_sent_value += scores(value)
print current_sent_value
if name == 'main':
main()
The error is here \assignment1\tweet_sentiment2.py", line 42, in main
if tweet_text.get(key) == scores.get(key): # get() does not work on a list. tweet_text is a list.
AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'get'