Emoticon Usage Research Articles

Pragmatic Functions of Emoticons in WeChat Messaging

With the development of social media and the updating of emoticons, people widely use emoticons to convey information and express emotions in instant messaging to achieve the purpose of communication. As a new research field, emoticons have attracted extensive attention of scholars in recent years. The previous studies mostly focus on motivation and influencing factors of emoticon usage from the perspective of communication. However, little research has been done on the study of linguistics. The author of this paper intends to explore the roles and pragmatic functions of emoticons in WeChat messaging through discourse analysis based on speech act theory. The study shows that emoticons compensate for the lack of information and eliminate ambiguity in online communication, and that different age groups have different understandings of emoticons. Hopefully the study on emoticons will help people systematically understand the roles and functions of emoticons, thus achieving interpersonal effective communication.

GRAPHIC AND ORTHOGRAPHIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH AND GEORGIAN-LANGUAGE INTERNET DISCOURSE (BASED ON YOUTUBE VIDEO COMMENTS)

The present paper is devoted to the investigation of the linguistic (mainly graphic and orthographic) features of Internet Discourse, as a new type of language. Graphic and orthographic features of Internet Discourse are investigated on the basis of English and Georgian YouTube video comments. The analysis showed that Internet Discourse is characterized by specific graphic and orthographic features: the usage of emoticons, unusual usage of punctuation marks, multiple punctuation, unconventional spelling, capitalization, etc.

MULTIMODAL MEANS OF BORIS JOHNSON’S REPRESENTATION AS A CHARISMATIC LEADER ON SOCIAL MEDIA

In the paper, on the basis of a multimodal critical discourse analysis of political posters and social media posts, the authors outline the complex interplay of multimodal means serving to convey a political leader’s charisma. The paper aims to advance a set of historically conventionalized features typical of the charismatic personality (such as intelligence, self-confidence, persistence, ability to inspire, sociability, dominance, narcissism, and vision), present the updated definition of this notion, and substantiate theoretical and methodological grounds for the study of the interplay of multimodal means portraying a charismatic political leader that assist in conveying a political speaker’s charisma creation through its graphical image, namely political posters and social media posts. The results of the study reveal that charisma is a complex communicative and cognitive phenomenon reflecting person’s beliefs about certain innate, obtained or promoted by media, internal or external subliminal traits of a leader. These beliefs are shaped in the recipients’ consciousness during interactive communication on the basis of the leader’s strategy, techniques, and methods used in oral or written communication, as well as a set of linguistic and extralinguistic means associated with the speaker’s ability to satisfy certain needs of the community. As a study material the authors opted for the images of Boris Johnson, a politician already acknowledged as a charismatic one by international audiences, who has been a prominent political figure for almost a decade and has recently come to the forefront of political and diplomatic support of Ukraine in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war. The carried out analysis proves the highly informative as well as subliminal potential of multimodal visual pictographic means aimed at creating a charismatic image of a public person. The authors outline a set of verbal (elliptical sentences, catchy slogans in imperative mood, assonance, alliteration, the use of first person plural pronoun “We”, the lexical unit together, etc.) and visual-graphical means (font of the message, symbolic colour scheme, clothes style, body posture, gestures, oculesic features, etc.), whose interaction is aimed at triggering cognitive processes in the recipient’s mind in perceiving a charismatic image of the politician. Boris Johnson’s charisma is confirmed by the survey conducted among British and Ukrainian respondents as well as by his subscribers’ reactions, comments and likes following his posts on social media. The carried out analysis allows summarising the markers of a politician’s charisma portrayed on social media as follows: the number of comments and likes for their posts; informality while addressing the Prime Minister by his first name “Boris” and presence of a “popular name” “BoJo”; high degree of the followers’ messages expressiveness actualised through verbal means (significant amount of exclamatory sentences, interjections, evaluative epithets and idiomatic expressions), as well as graphical-visual means, in particular through the usage of graphic emoticons (emojis), serving to intensify the overall expressiveness of a message. The conclusion is that social media graphical images are aimed at conveying charismatic political leaders’ vision, offering their followers support and promise of a better future, portraying them as approachable, down-to-earth, considerate but at the same time serious leaders, ready to work to endure a better future. The results of the performed study can provide grounds for interdisciplinary research of both oral and written charismatic communication within the cognitive approach framework considering verbal, nonverbal and paralingual means’ (physiological, psychological, social, etc.) interplay that allows the audience to perceive a speaker as a charismatic one.

Semiotic Basis for the Use of Emoticons, Emojis and Stickers in Social Media Communication

Technological advancements and recent innovations and trends have affected virtually all aspects of human interactions to a great extent. An aspect of these innovations concerns the use of emoticons, emojis and stickers in instant messaging and other digital communication applications. The aim of this study is to examine the extent to which the usage of emoticons, emojis and stickers has influenced communication on social media platforms; how well students use emoticons, emojis and stickers on social media; whether there are problems associated with the usage and attachment of meaning to these devices on social media and how such problems can be addressed. Data for the study was sourced through the administration of a questionnaire on fifty very active users of the social media who were randomly selected from among undergraduate students of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Nigeria. The responses to the questionnaire were analysed and interpreted using simple percentage, and the results are presented in tables. The findings of the study show that emoticons and emojis are prominent tools that encourage social media communications and interactions, and aid comprehension of messages among active social media users. The study recommends that measures be put in place by the controllers and administrators of social media to prevent negative or illicit usage of emoticons, emojis and stickers given that these devices can sometimes be vulgar, unofficial, misapplied and/or misinterpreted.

Analisis Sentimen Berbasis Emoticon pada Komentar Instagram Bahasa Indonesia Menggunakan Naïve Bayes

The usage of social media growing rapidly, especially after the smartphone was invented. Because the number of social media users was quite a lot, companies prefer to promote their products through social media like Instagram. But, unlike TV or radio, social media is a two-way communication media, that makes users can respond directly to the content created by the company. Comments given by users have various types of sentiment, like positive or negative comments. In addition to using text, comments also often contain emoticons to support the message. This study tries to analyzing sentiment based on the usage of emoticons inside them using the Naïve Bayes algorithm. Based on the test results, the accuracy result is quite good, it is about 96.3% correct in sentiment classification.

Age and gender in language, emoji, and emoticon usage in instant messages

Text is one of the most prevalent types of digital data that people create as they go about their lives. Digital footprints of people's language usage in social media posts were found to allow for inferences of their age and gender. However, the even more prevalent and potentially more sensitive text from instant messaging services has remained largely uninvestigated. We analyze language variations in instant messages with regard to individual differences in age and gender by replicating and extending the methods used in prior research on social media posts. Using a dataset of 309,229 WhatsApp messages from 226 volunteers, we identify unique age- and gender-linked language variations. We use cross-validated machine learning algorithms to predict volunteers' age (MAEMd = 3.95, rMd = 0.81, R2Md = 0.49) and gender (AccuracyMd = 85.7%, F1Md = 0.67, AUCMd = .82) significantly above baseline-levels and identify the most predictive language features. We discuss implications for psycholinguistic theory, present opportunities for application in author profiling, and suggest methodological approaches for making predictions from small text data sets. Given the recent trend towards the dominant use of private messaging and increasingly weaker user data protection, we highlight rising threats to individual privacy rights in instant messaging.

Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emoticons Across Cultures

Emoticons are a key aspect of text-based communication, and are the equivalent of nonverbal cues to the medium of online chat, forums, and social media like Twitter. As emoticons become more widespread in computer mediated communication, a vocabulary of different symbols with subtle emotional distinctions emerges especially across different cultures. In this paper, we investigate the semantic, cultural, and social aspects of emoticon usage on Twitter and show that emoticons are not limited to conveying a specific emotion or used as jokes, but rather are socio-cultural norms, whose meaning can vary depending on the identity of the speaker. We also demonstrate how these norms propagate through the Twitter @-reply network. We confirm our results on a large-scale dataset of over one billion Tweets from different time periods and countries.

The impact of belongingness and graphic-based emoticon usage motives on emoticon purchase intentions for MIM: an analysis of Korean KakaoTalk users

PurposeAlthough graphic-based emoticons in mobile instant messenger (MIM) services became an important revenue source for their service provider, empirical research investigating factors influencing graphic-based emoticon purchase from the consumer's perspective is insufficient. The authors explore how user's achieved belongingness (acceptance or rejection) affects graphic based emoticon usage motivations and its purchase intentions.Design/methodology/approachA structural model is used to examine the relationship among individual's overall achieved belongingness, motivation factors of graphic-based emoticon usage in MIM such as perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived enjoyment for others, social norm and emoticon purchase intentions. The authors collected and analyzed survey data of 279 Korean KakaoTalk users.FindingsThe analysis shows that perceived acceptance/inclusion positively impacts perceived usefulness, enjoyment and enjoyment of others in graphic-based emoticon usage. Meanwhile, perceived rejection/exclusion positively impacts perceived enjoyment and enjoyment of others but negatively influences perceived social norms. Moreover, social norms and perceived enjoyment directly affect graphic-based emoticon purchase intentions. The authors also find that perceived enjoyment of others and perceived social norms in a serial causal order mediate the relationship between perceived acceptance/inclusion (and rejection/exclusion) and emoticon purchase intentions.Research limitations/implicationsAdditional research including users from other demographic groups, such as other age groups, is required to generalize our findings and to increase external validity.Originality/valueUnique implications related to the role of user's achieved belongingness and perceived enjoyment of others in graphic-based emoticon usage in purchase intentions are found.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/ 10.1108/OIR-02-2020-0036

Emoticons and non-verbal communications across Arabic, English, and Korean Tweets

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how tweeters drawn from three different languages and cultural boundaries manage the lack of contextual cues through an analysis of Arabic, English and Korean tweets. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study is drawn from a corpus of tweets (n = 1,200) streamed using Python through Twitter API. Using the language information, the authors limited the number of tweets to 400 randomly selected tweets from each language, totaling 1,200 tweets. Final coding taxonomy was derived through interactive processes preceded by literature and a preliminary analysis based on a small subset (n = 150) by isolating nonverbal communication devices and emoticons. Findings The results of the study present that there is great commonality across these tweets in terms of strategies and creativity in compensating for the constraints imposed by the tweet platform. The language-specific characteristics are also shown in the form of different usage of devices. Research limitations/implications Emoticon usage indicates that the communication mode influences online social interaction; the restriction of 140 maximum characters seems to engender a frequent usage of emoticons across tweets regardless of language differences. The results of the study bring forth implications into the design of social media technologies that reflect affective aspects of communication and language-/culture-specific traits and characteristics. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no qualitative studies examining paralinguistic nonverbal communication cues in the Twitter platform across language boundaries.

Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change

AbstractThis study posits that graphicon use follows an evolutionary trajectory characterized by stages. Drawing on evidence that the uses and functions of emoticons have changed over time and that the introduction of emoji affected the popularity and usage of emoticons, we examine the uses of the newer types, emoji and stickers, and consider the relationship of stickers to emoji. Adapting the apparent-time method from the sociolinguistic study of language change, we compare sticker and emoji use by English-speaking Facebook Messenger users, exploring how they are used and under what conditions using semi-structured interviews and a large-scale survey. Stickers are argued to be more pragmatically marked for emotional intensity, positivity, and intimacy, characteristic of a more recent stage of evolution, while emoji use exhibits signs of conventionalization and pragmatic unmarking. The identification of patterns that characterize evolutionary stages has implications for future graphicon use.

A Study of Semiotic and Linguistic Gap Between the Meaning and the Usage of Emoticons in Pakistani Society

Current research deals with the semiotic and linguistics gap between the actual meaning and the usage of Emoticons in Pakistani society. This study aimed to find out the gap between the meaning and the use of Emoticon and to examine the use and place of Emoticons as a form of language. This research also aimed to identify whether men or women tend to use Emoticons more frequently. To analyze the gap, a survey questionnaire was used having 45 questions as tool for collecting data from mobile phone users and 05 conversations have been analyzed using content analysis technique. According to the results, mobile phone users use Emoticons in their conversations without knowing what they mean, whether they have any referential or literal meaning or which conceptual categories they denote, they do not know the answers to all these questions. This research tried to give valuable suggestions in order to solve the problems of using Emoticons without proper understandings. On the basis of findings, it is suggested that Emoticons must not give false and fake expressions rather these Emoticons should prevent misapprehension and confusion and should be aligned with the receiver.

On the Popularity of Emoticons

Emoticons are now ubiquitous in people’s daily communication in China. The popularity of this new kind of expression is attributed to complex interplay of environment, culture, economy and life style. The functions of emoticons in communication center on the social aspect, to both the sender and the receiver. The aim of the study is to describe, analyze and summarize the usage of emoticons and the social functions in communication.

A method for automatic estimation of meaning ambiguity of emoticons based on their linguistic expressibility

The ways of how people communicate on the Internet have adapted to the limited communication channel. Since the most meaning-rich while also concise and compressible mean of communication is still represented by textual information, Internet communication has adapted to support it with other information required for natural communication, while retaining the consistency of the medium. One of the means widely used by many generations of Internet users are the emoticons, used to express information that cannot be fully transmitted only by text, such as emotions or feelings. However, not all emoticons developed and widely used everyday are easily understandable to all users. Emoticon usage proficiency differs among specific persons, as well as between more general user groups. Moreover, the meaning of emoticons themselves can also be ambiguous, especially, when used without other information. In this research, we aimed to determine a correspondence between emoticons and linguistic expressions corresponding to them, such as onomatopoeia, etc., to estimate the general level of meaning ambiguity of emoticons. In the research, we first performed a survey in which we asked users about which emoticon conveys which meaning. Then we applied the results of the survey to quantify the understandability, or meaning ambiguity, of the emoticons. Based on the quantification, we propsed a method for specifying the emoticon’s meaning ambiguity, in which we applied the aility of the emotion to be expressed in everyday vocabulary, or its linguistic expressibility. Three versions of the proposed method showed that it is possible to estimate emoticon meaning ambiguity, although future experiments and additional data collection is required to maximize the performance. The method could help users apply more meaningful and understandable emoticons in their everyday communication.

Engaging consumers in mobile instant messaging: the role of cute branded emoticons

PurposeWith the rapid surge of mobile marketing, an increasing number of brands have launched branded emoticons in an attempt to build brand relationships with consumers. Despite the apparent promise of branded emoticon usage, there is only limited academic research on branded emoticons. This paper aims to build on impression management theory and the conceptualization of cuteness to investigate how the effect of cuteness in branded emoticon design influences perceived playfulness in mobile instant messaging (MIM) interaction and the creation of brand engagement in self-concept.Design/methodology/approachConsumers with usage experience of branded emoticons in MIM apps were recruited to complete an online survey. Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyze the data.FindingsTwo facets of cuteness – kindchenschema cuteness and whimsical cuteness – can project a favourable social image to consumers that facilitates playfulness in social interaction and enhances brand engagement in self-concept, which leads to their willingness to purchase the brand and stickiness to the MIM apps.Originality/valueThe popularity of branded emoticons represents a new form of social interaction and an innovative way to build brand relationships. The present study is the first to examine the design aspects of branded emoticons and highlights that the cuteness of a branded emoticon may be a crucial factor in engaging consumers in MIM.

EXPLORING THE LANGUAGE USE IN WHATSAPP AS STUDY PRAGMATICS

The present study investigated the structural classification analysis of conversation andpreference structure in WhatsApp emoticon usage. Yule (1996) illustrated that there aretypes of structural classification in the first part of conversation such as proposal, offering,requesting, and giving assessment. On the other hand, the second part of conversation wasthe response utterances either preffered or dispreffered that were also occurred inadjacency pair in several expressions such as questioning sequence, insertion sequence,thanking expression, and parting expression. The present study applied a quantitativemethod to obtain data by distributing a set of questionnaires to 36 users of WhatsApp. Theresults showed that variables suggested by Yule (1996) were found in 11 data resources ofchatting which were also accompanied by the use of WhatsApp emoticon. Thus, it is arguedthat WhatsApp emoticons are becoming the important tools as an online facilitator forcommunication because emoticons can enhance the messages and can help to expressemotions or feelings.

Smile(y) – and your students will smile with you? the effects of emoticons on impressions, evaluations, and behaviour in staff-to-student communication

ABSTRACT Emoticon usage in computer-mediated communication (CMC) by university staff is potentially a double-edged sword in forming desired impressions in the minds of students, increasing perceived warmth but also decreasing perceived competence of the sender. Existing studies in higher education have provided little understanding of this trade-off. No work has examined effects of, first, emoticon usage on important educational outcomes (student evaluations, task behaviour), and second, potential moderators relevant within education (i.e. job title, institutional prestige, age of sender, assessment level). We contribute to this area of knowledge through three controlled experiments across different educational CMC settings (total n = 848). Generally, we find that emoticon use increases perceived warmth, which outweighs decrease in perceived competence of university staff, in that perceived warmth – but not competence – affects student evaluation and task behaviour positively. These findings hold largely irrespective of the moderators explored. Implications for higher education practitioners are provided.

INTERNET MEMES AND THEIR SOCIO-LINGUISTIC FEATURES

Social networks’ users as well as Internet portals, forums, web-pages, blogs etc. have developed their own unique communicational system that might seem incomprehensible to people above a certain age, with little to no internet presence. These systems enables them to communicate freely their ideas, thoughts, jokes, funny anecdotes as well as their critiques towards their societies and political leaders in a much more creative way than the traditional. This Internet-communicational system mostly relies on the usage of emoticons, GIFs and memes. This paper will focus on the memes as one of the internet communication phenomena and their specific socio-linguistic features that make them vastly interesting to both linguists and sociologists. Memes, as defined, are part of the online culture; mostly jokes, that are presented through mediums such as image+text or GIF+text combinations or just plain text and are spread virally on all Internet-based platforms, changing along the way. This paper will only focus on memes that are a blend of a certain image and a piece of written text, as they are the most popular category. Apart from the references, they contain and the age-group they usually target, in their textual part, memes contain many features that are extremely interesting from linguistics’ point of view. Memes use vernacular English, phrases from specific English dialects, puns and punning riddles, jargon, slang, shortenings and neologisms as well as patterned way of incorrect spelling and multiple, intentional or unintentional grammar and syntax mistakes. Nowadays, memes are also created in Macedonian. Memes in Macedonian, for the most part, share the linguistic and sociological skills as the memes originally created in English, though they contain other language features characteristic for the Macedonian language only. All of these features make memes a very complex, yet very useful and creative internet communicational tool that, in the recent years, has grabbed the intention of many scholars. Article visualizations:

Determinants of emoticon usage in mobile instant messaging: a construal level theory perspective

ABSTRACTMobile instant messaging is experiencing immense growth, and using emoticons has become a prevalent and highly popular means of communication. The small digital images are ubiquitous, from smartphone applications to social media, and people delight in sending them. Drawing from construal level theory, the aim of this research is to examine the underlying mechanism that drives the usage of emoticons and its usage enjoyment. People with experience using mobile instant messaging were recruited to participate in an online survey, resulting in 202 usable questionnaires. The research model was tested empirically. Covariance-based structural equation modelling was used to analyze the data. The findings highlight that the determinants of individual’s emoticon usage are driven by a dual-route path. One is the self-concept route, where self-image congruity between emoticons and individuals drives psychological ownership, which in turn influences word of mouth (WOM) intention and perceived enjoyment of emoticon use. The other is the utility route, driven by emoticons’ familiarity and perceived synchronicity. The findings reveal the importance of emoticon usage through a contextual lens that shows that a dual-route path has a prominent impact upon these digital-based communication behaviours, which provides important managerial implications.

Analysis of Difference between Pictorial and Animated Emoticon Usage in Western and Eastern Culture

Analysis of Difference between Pictorial and Animated Emoticon Usage in Western and Eastern Culture

The Linguistic Features Uniqueness of the Students’ Written Discourse in Online Learning

This research aimed at finding and describing the types and the uniqueness of linguistic features used by the students in their written discourse in BritishEnglishClass.com. The researcher applied a descriptive qualitative method. The data collection was done using document analysis in form of chat history in Whatsapp and taking ten students as the participants of this study. The result of the analysis showed that the students used six types of linguistic features namely (1) Lexical features in terms of the use of interjection, abbreviation, word letter replacement, word combination, code switching, code mixing and diction, (2) Orthographic features in terms of word spelling and capitalization, (3) Grammatical features in terms of ellipsis, passive voice, verb use, and personal pronoun, (4) Discourse features in terms of the use of interactional features and the stream of consciousness, (5) Paralinguistic and Graphic in terms of emoticon usage and excessive punctuation and, (6) other features in terms of written out laughter . These features are unique because they are different from the standard form of the language. It can be seen also from the use of abbreviation and ellipsis that shorten the students’ sentence, the use of emoticon representing the emotions and psychical activity, the use of lower and upper case to represent the sound and the intonation of the student’ sentence, the abandonment of convention of capitalization of proper nouns and the first words of sentences, and the creative orthography of some words. The linguistic features used by the students were different from the standard form and their function that allowed the student to express and emphasize their intention, meaning and emotion in the chat room make the students’ written discourse in online learning is uniqueKeywords: uniqueness, linguistic features