Not All Emoticons Are Created Equal

Text deformation and emoticon use have become pervasive in today's computer-mediated communication. In this article, emoticons are analysed from a pragmatic, relevance-theoretic perspective, which entails determining the extent to which emoticons contribute to the eventual relevance of the information communicated by the text typed on the keyboard. Eight pragmatic functions are proposed, which correspond to the different ways in which emoticons satisfy the user's search for relevance. The analysis will also address how emoticons contribute to a more fine-grained identification of the user's attitudes, feelings and emotions, which are often difficult to pin down in text-based communication.