Mind Your Manners Online. :-)

In a radio show by the ABC Radio National hosted by Antony Funnell, Emoticons an Email Etiquette, Funnell and his guest speakers discussed about the misinterpretation when reading e-mails, globalization of the smiley and emoticons, the case of vague e-mailing, coward misuse of e-mails, the over-casualness or formality in e-mail language, and bacns- spam from people we know.

Emails are often misinterpreted due to the absence of non-verbal cues- the tone, pitch and volume of a spoken voice, body language and facial expressions to name a few. These prosodic elements, according to Kress and van Leeuwen (1998) create meaning alongside of words. For example, capitalizing the words or phrases usually give the impression to the readers that you’re shouting (Hughes 2007). Instead of capitalizing, the asterisk is encouraged to be used for important points in your email (Yale University Library 2007).

Scott Fahlman’s invention of the first emoticon in 1982 (Muller-Godschalk 2008) –the smiley face- was considered to overcome the problem of misinterpretation. Multimodality is very much incorporated in producing today’s emoticons- combining various modes like sound, animation, text and images (Kress et al. 1998).

Scott Fahlman and his invention, the smiley.

Personally, I do use emoticons but not too much. It is annoying to chat with friends whose nine out of ten words are made up of emoticons. It is even harder to comprehend whatever the other party is talking about. Emoticons are supposed to substitute non-verbal cues online- to further elaborate or substitute meaning words cannot carry (Lo 2008).

too many emoticons can be irritating.

References

1. Best Impressions are Lasting Impressions 2005, Yale University Library, viewed 10 October 2008, http://www.library.yale.edu/training/netiquette/form.html.

2. Hughes, SW 2007, Email Etiquette, The Owl at Purdue, viewed 10 October 2008, http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/636/01.

3. Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 1998, Front Pages: (the critical) analysis of newspaper layout, viewed 1 September 2008, http://blackboard7.taylors.edu.my/courses/1/0807COMM1043TML0017/content/_1340675_1/Kress_gunther.pdf?bsession=211003&bsession_str=session_id=211003,user_id_pk1=225689,user_id_sos_id_pk2=1,one_time_token=.

4. Lo, SK 2008, The Nonverbal Communication Functions of Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication, Mary Ann Liebert Inc. Publishers, viewed 10 October 2008, http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/cpb.2007.0132.

5. Muller & Godschalk 2008, A Brief History of Emoticons, Emoticons and Smilies, viewed 10 October 2008, http://www.muller-godschalk.com/history.html.