Emoticons and Punctuation Marks in English Communication through a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) Application

Jieun Hwang (황지은)

Emoticons and Punctuation Marks in English Communication through a Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) Application

Modern English Education
Abbr : MEESO
2023, 24(), pp.341-353
Publisher : The Modern English Education Society
Research Area : Humanities > English Language and Literature > English Language Teaching
Received : August 9, 2023
Accepted : December 12, 2023
Published : December 31, 2023

Jieun Hwang ¹

¹신구대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

As a result of the rapid advancement of mobile technology, individuals can now communicate and exchange information from anywhere at any time. Users of MIM applications like KakaoTalk, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and others can enrich their text messages by attaching pictures, videos, and other forms of media. Previous research has shown that the use of emoticons and punctuation marks enables people to convey their emotions and feelings in text-based communication. This study aimed to examine how Korean university students use emoticons and punctuation marks when communicating in English through the KakaoTalk MIM application, and to explore the role of these non-verbal elements in text-based MIM communication. The current study employed qualitative methods, including observing messages and conducting interviews to collect data from Korean university participants. The results showed that Korean participants made use of emoticons and punctuation marks provided by the KakaoTalk MIM application to support their English communication. Some positive functions of these features were demonstrated during conversations with their counterparts on the platform. The benefits of employing these features through a MIM application were discussed in terms of their ability to enhance the effectiveness of textbased English interactions.

KEYWORDS

MIM application, English communication, emoticons and punctuation marks

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.

[journal] Aldunate, N. / 2017 / An integrated review of emoticons in computer-mediated communication / Front. Psychol 7 : 2061~

[journal] Androutsopoulos, J. / 2021 / Digital punctuation as an interactional resource : The message-final period among German adolescents / Linguistics and Education 62

[journal] Archer, D. / 1977 / Words and everything else : Verbal and nonverbal cues in social interpretation / Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35(6) : 443~449

[journal] Bai, Q. / 2019 / A systematic review of emoji : Current research and future perspectives / Front. Psychol 10

[confproc] Barbieri, F. / 2016 / What does this emoji mean? A vector space skip-gram model for Twitter emojis / Paper presented at the International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation

[book] Burns, R. B. / 2000 / Introduction to research methods / Pearson Education

[journal] Busch, F. / 2017 / Informelle Interpunktion? Zeichensetzung im digitalen Schreiben von Jugendlichen / Themenheft Soziolinguistik. Der Deutschunterricht 4 : 87~91

[journal] Busch, F. / 2021 / The interactional principle in digital punctuation / Context & Media 40

[book] Creswell, J. W. / 2009 / Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches / Sage

[journal] Chairunnisa, S. / 2017 / Analysis of emoji and emoticon usage in interpersonal communication of Blackberry messenger and WhatsApp application user / International Journal of Social Sciences and Management 4(2) : 120~126

[book] Crystal, D. / 2001 / Language and the internet / Cambridge University Press

[journal] Derks, D. / 2007 / Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet : The importance of social context / Computers in Human Behavior 23 : 842~849

[journal] Darics, E. / 2010 / Politeness in computer-mediated discourse of a virtual team / Journal of Politeness Research Language Behaviour Culture 6(1) : 129~150

[journal] Dresner, E. / 2010 / Functions of the nonverbal in CMC : Emotions and Illocutionary force / Communication Theory 20 : 249~268

[journal] Dunlap, J. C. / 2016 / What sunshine is to flowers : A literature review on the use of emoticons to support online learning / Emotions Technology Design & Learning : 163~182

[journal] Georgakopoulou, A. / 2016 / From narrating the self to posting self(ies). A small stories approach to selfies / Open Linguistics 2(1) : 300~317

[journal] Gibson, W. / 2018 / Emoji and communicative action : The semiotics, sequence and gestural actions of ‘face covering hand’ / Discourse Context Media 26 : 91~99

[journal] Golato, A. / 2006 / Negotiation of face in web chats / Multilingua-Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication 25(3) : 293~321

[book] Gül¸sen, T. T. / 2016 / Computational and Cognitive Approaches to Narratology (IGI Global) : 354~375

[journal] Gunraj, D. N. / 2016 / Texting insincerely : The role of the period in text messaging / Computers in Human Behavior 55 : 1067~1075

[journal] Hall, J. A. / 2013 / Self-monitoring, honesty, and cue use on Facebook : The relationship with user extraversion and conscientiousness / Computers in Human Behavior 29 : 1556~1564

[journal] Harris, R. B. / 2007 / An investigation of the computer-mediated communication of emotions / Journal of Applied Sciences Research 3(12) : 2081~2090

[confproc] Herring, S. C. / 2018 / Receiver interpretations of emoji functions: A gender perspective / Paper Presented at the 1st International Workshop on Emoji Understanding and Applications in Social Media

[journal] Houghton, K. J. / 2018 / Punctuation in text messages may convey abruptness / Period. Computers in Human Behavior 80 : 112~121

[web] Hsieh, H / 2015 / The effects of emoticons and text-messaging on social interaction: Playfulness in mobile instant messaging / PACIS 2015 Proceedings / https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2015/220

[thesis] Hwang, J. E / 2018 / The use of a mobile instant messaging (MIM) application for English interaction in the Korean EFL context / doctor / University of Technology Sydney

[journal] Jaeger, S. R. / 2019 / Valence, arousal and sentiment meanings of 33 facial emoji : Insights for the use of emoji in consumer research / Food Research International 119 : 895~907

[journal] Jibril, T. / 2013 / Relevance of emoticons in computer-mediated communication contexts : An overview / Asian Social Science 9(4) : 201~207

[journal] Juhasz, A. / 2016 / Mobile phone use in romantic relationships / Marriage & Family Review 52(8) : 707~721

[book] Krueger, R / 1994 / Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research / SAGE

[journal] 권연희 / 2014 / An analysis and evaluation of storybook applications for effective mobile-assisted language learning / 현대영어교육 / 현대영어교육학회 15(1) : 217~239

[book] Larsen-Freeman, D. / 1991 / An introduction to second language acquisition research / Longman

[journal] Lee, V. / 2002 / The effect of social presence on the facial and verbal expression of emotion and the interrelationships among emotion components / Journal of Nonverbal Behavior 26(1) : 3~25

[journal] Lo, S. K. / 2008 / The nonverbal communication functions of emoticons in computer-mediated communication / CyberPsychology &Behavior 11 : 595~597

[confproc] López, R. P. / 2017 / Did you ever read about frogs drinking coffee? Investigating the compositionality of multi-emoji expressions / Paper Presented at the 8th Workshop on Computational Approaches to Subjectivity, Sentiment and Social Media Analysis

[journal] Luor, T. / 2010 / The effect of emoticons in simplex and complex task-oriented communication : An empirical study of instant messaging / Computers in Human Behavior 26(5) : 889~895

[confproc] Mahajan, K. / 2019 / Emoji usage across platforms: A case study for the Charlottesville event / Paper Presented at the Proceedings of the 2019 Workshop on Widening NLP

[journal] Maíz-Arévalo, C. / 2015 / Typographic alteration in formal computer-mediated communication / Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 212 : 140~145

[journal] Mitchell, A. A. / 1986 / The effect of verbal and visual components of advertisements on brand attitudes and attitude toward the ad / Journal of Consumer Research 13 : 12~24

[book] Ng, W / 2016 / Sustaining mobile learning: Theory, research and practice / Routledge : 85~107

[journal] Ong’onda, N. A. / 2010 / Punctuation as a sociolinguistic variable in text messages / Sino-US English Teaching 7(9) : 42~47

[book] Park, Tae Woong / 2014 / A study of emoticon use in instant messaging from smartphone / Springer International Publishing : 155~165

[journal] Perry, M. S. / 2011 / Couples and computer-mediated communication : A closer look at the affordances and use of the channel / Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal 40(2) : 120~134

[journal] Plester, B. / 2008 / Txt Msg n school literacy: Does mobile phone use adversely affect children’s literacy attainment? / Literacy 42 : 137~144

[journal] Plester, B. / 2009 / Exploring relationships between traditional and new media literacies : Pre-teen texters at school / Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14 : 1108~1129

[journal] Riordan, M. A. / 2010 / Emotion encoding and interpretation in computer-mediated communication : Reasons for use / Computers in Human Behavior 26 : 1667~1673

[journal] Rosen, L. D. / 2010 / The relationship between ‘‘textisms’’ and formal and informal writing among young adults / Communication Research 37 : 420~440

[journal] Sánchez-Moya, A. / 2015 / "Hey there! I am using WhatsApp" : A preliminary study of recurrent discursive realisations in a corpus of WhatsApp statuses / Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 212 : 52~60

[book] Tannen, D. / 2013 / Discourse 2.0. Language and New Media / Georgetown University : 99~117

[journal] The New London Group. / 1996 / A pedagogy of multiliteracies : Designing social futures / Harvard Educational Review 66(1) : 60~93

[journal] Thompson, D. / 2016 / Sarcasm in written communication : Emoticons / Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 21 : 105~120

[journal] Tossell, C. C. / 2012 / A longitudinal study of emoticon use in text messaging from smartphones / Computers in Human Behavior 28(2) : 659~663

[journal] Vandergriff, I. / 2013 / Emotive communication online : A contextual analysis of computer-mediated communication(CMC)cues / Journal of Pragmatics 51 : 1~12

[journal] Wall, H. J. / 2016 / An exploration of psychological factors on emoticon usage and implications for judgement accuracy / Computers in Human Behavior 62 : 70~78

[journal] Walther, J. B. / 2001 / The Impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication / Social Science Computer Review 19(3) : 324~347

[confproc] Zhou, R. / 2017 / Goodbye text, hello emoji: Mobile communication on wechat in China / Paper Presented at the Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

KJCKorea
Journal Central

Modern English Education 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 1.55