Pragmatic Play? Some Possible Functions of English Emoticons and Japanese Kaomoji in Computer-Mediated Discourse

This study compares emoticon usage in English with thetext-based Japanese version, kaomoji ("face-marks"). We analyze a corpus of CMD drawn from English andJapanese sources at the micro-level using an approach modeled on Conversation Analysis. Japanese kaomoji were chosen because they are an understudied phenomenon in the CMD research and because they vary quite dramatically from English emoticons, in both their construction and in their variety (Katsuno & Yano, 2002; Nishimura, 2003). Overall, we found that emoticons and kaomoji serve primarily as punctuating devices within text-based conversations. As such, they clarify the structure of messages, generally by appearing at the close of phrases, sentences, or messages.