However, studies with significantly more participants (80 and 226 participants, respectively) have found no gender differences in the use of emoticons (e.g., Hancock, 2004 Walther, & D'Addario, 2001). ( 2012) found a tendency for males to use a wider range of emoticons. In a study of 21 students, Tossell et al.
While the male dominated message board was about football, the topic of the female dominated message board was “eating disorder support,” an area unlikely to be associated with sarcasm or emoticon use in general.
However, these findings should be viewed very cautiously, since the effects are likely to have been heavily influenced by the topics of the message boards examined. Research by Huang, Yen, and Zhang ( 2008) suggests that the use of emoticons in general makes communication more enjoyable overall.īased on a study of online message boards, Wolf ( 2000) suggests that females use fewer emoticons than males, and use them in more varied contexts, with males mostly using them for sarcasm and teasing. Conversely, emoticons may also be used to soften the impact of potentially negative messages, such as rejections, requests, or complaints (Skovholt et al., 2014). Positive emoticons have been shown to increase positive feelings (Derks, Bos, & von Grumbkow, 2008 Luor et al., 2010) however, neutral emoticons seem to have very little effect (Luor et al., 2010). For example, if an emoticon has the same valence as a message, that valence is increased (Ip, 2002). In support of this, a study of 6,000 instant messages found that just 12% of emoticons were used in expressing emotion (Luor, Wu, Lu, and Tao, 2010).Įmoticons have, however, been shown to strengthen messages. Likewise, Skovholt, Grønning, and Kankaanranta ( 2014) claim that emoticons are pragmatic markers, their main purpose being to contextualise or modify an utterance, not to indicate emotion one such example is the use of “hedges”: terms that alter the speaker's degree of “commitment” to their statement. For example, Dresner and Herring ( 2010) note that emoticons tend to communicate pragmatic meaning, rather than emotion for example, the inclusion of certain emoticons may make a request less forceful. In fact, research suggests that signalling emotion is a rather minor function of emoticons. We investigate the use of emoticons in clarifying potentially ambiguous comments specifically the use of emoticons to make it clear that a message is either intended to be taken literally, or to be taken sarcastically.Īlthough the term “emoticon” was originally a blend of “emotion” and “icon,” emoticons now represent an ever growing set of symbols that go far beyond indicating emotion. In this paper we concentrate on those emoticons that can be produced using only the symbols on a standard keyboard, incorporating both “Western” emoticons and kaomoji (not to be confused with emoji - ready-made symbols, such as ). However, these other categories of emoticon are being used more and more frequently across various cultures and contexts. There are also a variety of other emoticon types, which Dresner and Herring ( 2010) claim are specific to certain cultural contexts, such as kaomoji (right way up emoticons ) being specific to Japan. The commonly-used sideways emoticons (e.g., ) originated in Western culture (Dresner & Herring, 2010). By using existing characters, emoticons can be easily produced on any keyboard or device, and can easily be altered or new ones created to suit a given context. They most frequently take the form of expressive faces, such as, ,, or, but can also include other symbols, like (heart). Emoticons are symbols produced by creatively repurposing and combining existing characters to represent something new: signifying something absent in written language, or something more effectively “said” through symbol.