Emoticons :P

With the rise of the Internet, email and chatting programs, people have become dependent on the system. It is obviously an efficient means of communicating with others from all over the world. However, many people have no idea how to write, and many others have no idea how to interpret what they receive. The inability of people to interpret true feelings and emotions has resulted creation of various new communication features have surfaced that have to be analyzed; amongst those, emoticons.

American professor Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University invented the original emoticon made up of typing a colon, a hyphen and a parenthesis on 19th September 1982. (abc.net 2007)

(Source: Wikipedia.com)

With the rise of software it has turned these graphics into more 3D and animated form.

(Source: www.apexdc.net/image/screenshots/emoticons.png)

As stated by John Timmer (2007), different cultures interpret things differently, so emoticons cannot be recognized universally as they carry cultural baggage. Sometimes joking remarks which mistaken by the receiver as serious statement may cause big problems. (Adler & Rodman 2000, pg. 147) We may accidentally offend someone who misunderstands the meaning of the emoticon due to the cultural or gender differences. “Particular cultures provide particular trainings for readers”(Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1998, p.201). Readers employ their cultural backgrounds and knowledge in the process of making meaning of the emoticons. Emoticons sometimes might not help but worsen the situation, which is when it causes conflicts between cultures.

Schirato and Yell (1996) mentions that, “All texts, including jokes and riddles, carry elements, or traces, of context with them.” The elements carry by the texts help to interpret more accurately than emoticons can do. There is not only one set of meaning for an emoticon as people may interpret it differently. Personally, I do not use emoticon often. It somehow distracts me from reading the words and may also cause confusion of the sentence.

In conclusion, emoticons is indeed a phenomenon and a true complement to text in the internet field but it is still only half the process to achieving a guaranteed way of conveying a message without risking misunderstanding.

References:

Adler, RB & Rodman, G 2000, Understanding Human Communication, 7th edn. , Harcourt College Publishers, United States of America, pg. 147.

Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, ‘Front pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout’, in Bell, A & Garrett, P (eds) 1998, Approaches to media discourse, Blackwell, Oxford, chapter 7, pp. 186-219.

Schirato, T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: An introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards NSW, pp. 110.

ABC Radio National 2007, The Media Report: Emoticons and email etiquette, viewed 09 June 2009, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm

Timmer, J 2007, Emoticons carry cultural baggage, viewed 09 June 2009,
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070514-emoticons-carry-cultural-baggage.html