Department of Radio and Television College of ...

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Department of Radio and Television College of Communication

National Chengchi University

Master’s Thesis

Does Language Shape Thought? English and Mandarin Speakers’

Usage of Emoticons as Non-Verbal Cues in Communication

Yi-Ting Tan

Professor Ling-Yuan Lin

Professor Tsung-Jen Shih

4

July 2015

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ENGLISH AND MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ USAGE OF EMOTICONS

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Acknowledgement

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my advisors, Professor Ling-

Yuan Lin and Professor Tsung-Jen Shih who gave me the freedom to explore on my

own and at the same time, the guidance to recover when my steps faltered. They have

always been a source of support throughout this journey, with their immense

knowledge, enthusiasm and patience. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude

to my thesis committee member, Professor Jih-Hsuan Lin for her encouragement and

insightful comments that helped me focus on my ideas.

Most importantly, none of this would have been possible without the

unconditional love and support of my family, especially my parents who went to great

lengths to give me an education and gave me the freedom to pursue my own dreams. I

hope I have made them proud.

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Abstract

Existing literature on the cross-cultural use of emoticons often discuss how styles of

emoticons vary by comparing countries such as Japan or Korea with the United

States. However, these countries differ both in terms of their culture as well as the

language used in the country. Thus, there remains a dilemma in distinguishing

whether the effects of cultural background or language plays a greater role in

determining the style of emoticons a person uses. This research explores this issue by

comparing the use of emoticons between users from Singapore and Taiwan. Both

countries have similar cultural background but differ in terms of their first language.

By focusing on the difference of language and holding cultural background as a

constant, results indicated that users from both countries do have a difference in

preference for emoticons style. While the former predominantly use horizontal

emoticons, the latter prefer vertical emoticons instead. Such difference has also

resulted in different representation of the eyes and mouths of emoticons used by

Singaporean and Taiwanese users. In addition, it has also been found that language

background has an effect on a person’s ability to recognize and interpret emoticons

used by natives from the other culture. This situation was more prominent among

Singaporean participants as they were found to be less capable in recognizing and

interpreting emoticons commonly used by their Taiwanese counterparts. The

implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Keywords: computer-mediated communication, cross-culture, emoticons,

language, thought

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Table of Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 1

About Singapore and Taiwan……………………………………………………… 5

Location………………………………………………………………………. 5

Size…………………………………………………………………………… 5

Population……………………………………………………………………. 5

Culture………….…………….……….……………………………………… 6

Ethnic Groups………………………………………………………………… 6

Language…………….……………….…………….………………………… 7

Internet and Smartphone Penetration Rate…………………………………… 7

Internet Use……………………….………….…….………………………… 8

Summary………………….………………………….………………………. 8

Literature Review…………………………………………………….……………. 10

Defining Emoticons………………………………….……………………… 10

Horizontal style…………….………….……….…………………… 10

Vertical style…………….…………….………….………………… 11

Japanese style………………………………………………. 11

Korean style………………………………………………… 11

Chinese ideographic style….………….………….………… 12

Graphic icons…………………………………………….…………. 12

Differences between Emoticons and Emoji………………………………… 12

Role of Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication….……….…… 13

Emoticons function to affect interactions positively……….….……. 14

Emoticons function to influence message meanings…….….………. 15

Emoticons function to manage impressions………………………… 15

Emoticons function to regulate interaction…………….…………… 16

Culture and Emoticons……………………………………………………… 16

Factors shaping the style of emoticons.….……………….………… 17

Display rules……………….……………………….………. 17

Hofstede’s dimensions of culture…………………………… 18

Two different styles of emoticons….……….………………………. 19

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Language and Emoticons…………………………………………………… 22

Space and time in English…………………….……….……………. 24

Space and time in Mandarin Chinese…….…………………………. 25

Effects of Language Structure on Interpretation……………….…………… 29

Methodology…………………………………………………………….…………. 31

Pilot Study……………………………………………….………….………. 31

Survey Questionnaire………………………………………..……………… 33

Sample…………………………………………………….………… 34

Measures………………………………………………….………… 34

Usage rate…………………….……….……….…………… 34

Emoticons style……………………………………………… 35

Use of emoticons……………………………………………. 37

Frequency of emoticons use………………………………… 37

Commonly used language.………………………………….. 37

Proficiency in English………………………………………. 37

Proficiency in Mandarin Chinese………….…….…………. 38

Focus Group Discussions…………………………………………………… 39

Study population……………………………………………………. 39

Description of focus groups………………………………………… 40

Focus group questions………………………………………………. 40

Data analysis…………………………….……………….…………. 41

Results……………………………………………………………………………… 44

Habits and Attitude…………………………………………….…………… 50

Exposure to Characters and Accessibility to Emoticons……………………. 53

Discussion………………………………………………….………………….……. 58

Emoticons Style…………………………………………………….………. 58

Eyes and Mouths of Emoticons………………………….……….…………. 60

Number of keyboard characters…………………………….………. 61

External influences……………………………………….……….… 61

Variants……………………….……………….……………. 63

The Importance of Context…………………………………………………. 65

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Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Behavior……………………………… 66

The Effects of Language on Everyday Life………………………………… 68

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research….…….……….………… 69

Conclusion………………………………………………………………….………. 72

References……………………………………………………….……….………… 74

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………. 85

Appendix A – Survey on Emoticons (Pilot Test)..………….……….……… 85

Appendix B – ¾e©½>2Ç�è+�é……………………….………�86

Appendix C – Survey on Emoticons (Actual Questionnaire)………………. 87

Appendix D – ¾e©½>2Ç�è�^>2é……………………….…�93

Appendix E – Survey on Emotions.……………….…………………….… 100

Appendix F – e°>2Ç�………………………………………………�102

Appendix G – Focus Group Discussion Consent Form…………………… 104

Appendix H – �çBæÃÈ9fy…………………….…….……….…�105

Appendix I – Questions for Focus Groups………….…….……….………. 106

Appendix J – Results from Focus Groups………….……………………… 107

Appendix K – Table 8. Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six

Universal Emotions among Singaporean Users…….……… 116

Appendix L – Table 9. Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six

Universal Emotions among Taiwanese Users.…….………. 118

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List of Figures

Figure 1. Different Emoticon Usage by Countries………….………………………. 23

Figure 2. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of Front and Back Terms in

English………….…………….….…………..…………….…….………. 25

Figure 3. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of + (Front) anda (Back) in

Mandarin and their English Translations………….……….…….………. 26

Figure 4. Example Spatial and Temporal Uses of (Up) and (Down) in

Mandarin and their English Translations………………………………… 27

Figure 5. Average Usage Rate of Horizontal and Vertical Emoticons per User for

All 12 Situations……………………………………………….………… 44

Figure 6. A Built-In List of Emoticons Found on the Chinese Keyboard but Not

on the English Keyboard on Apple’s iPhone………….…………….…… 55

Figure 7. Japanese Manga “Oishinbo” and American Comic “Peanuts”.….…….…. 63

Figure 8. Anime Characters with a Sweat Drop and Angry Veins….……………… 65

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List of Tables

Table 1. Two Different Styles of Emoticons: Horizontal (Popular in Western

Countries) and Vertical (Popular in Eastern Countries).….………….…… 20

Table 2. Preliminary Results Showing the Bivariate Relationship between

Variables…………………………….…………….…………….………… 39

Table 3. Results of t-test on Emoticons Style (Horizontal and Vertical) by

Country……………………………………………….……….…………… 45

Table 4. Design of Eyes in Emoticons Used by Singaporean and Taiwanese

Users……………………………………………….…………….………… 48

Table 5. Design of Mouths in Emoticons Used by Singaporean and Taiwanese

Users…………………………………………….…………….…………… 48

Table 6. Factors to Predict the Type of Emoticons Style………….…….…….……. 57

Table 7. Results of t-test on Language Proficiency by Country……………………. 57

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Introduction

Emoticons in computer-mediated communication (CMC) are often

underexplored. With the emergence of CMC, it has helped to break down

geographical barriers by enabling communication over long distances. People have

the opportunity to communicate from opposite ends of the globe, expand their social

networks, and form close interpersonal relationships. The increasing number of

people adopting CMC as a mode of communication shows that the majority of people

today are comfortable enough to use these communicative tools on a daily basis,

particularly among younger generations (D’Costa, 2011). However, there are two

sides to every coin. Before the rise of CMC, people rely primarily on face-to-face

(FTF) interaction. Non-verbal cues such as body language and facial expressions both

play a significant role in FTF interaction as it tells more about what one is trying to

express and is critical to interpreting the emotional state of others. It is estimated that

such cues take up 93% of our everyday communication (Mehrabian, 1971). As CMC

tools replace some forms of FTF interaction, the nature of communication has been

altered (Walther, 1996).

One major difference between FTF communication and CMC is that

immediate physical presence is needed for the former while it is not in the latter

(Park, 2013). In terms of text-based CMC, such as emails, web postings, and

discussion forums, as one is unable to view the other person, there is a lack of non-

verbal cues such as body gestures and facial expressions. The absence of non-verbal

information means that “certain information cannot be fully transferred” (p. 4). As a

result, utilizing other ways of expressing intended emotions in CMC becomes

desirable.

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In order to solve the problem of the lack of non-verbal cues in CMC, the use

of icons to express emotions has become a substitute for non-verbal cues used in FTF

interactions (Walther & D’Addario, 2001). It has been assumed that until the advent

of the emoticons, individuals had limited ways to indicate the subtle mood change,

tell jokes, use irony, slip in a pun or become bitingly sarcastic (Godin, 1993).

Emoticons are “graphic representations of facial expressions” (Walther & D’Addario,

2001, p. 324) embedded in electronic messages.

The use of emoticons has been especially common in CMC as it is able to

enhance the exchange of information by “providing social cues beyond what is found

in the text of a message” (Derks, Bos, & Von Grumbkow, 2007, p. 843). Emoticons,

when incorporated into texts, serve as important functions during interactions as it

“adds nuance, shading, and depth of meaning” (Frank, Maroulis, & Griffin, 2013, p.

55) that words alone are hard to convey. They also help to clarify the tone of textual

messages and emotional intentions of the sender which is similar to non-verbal

displays in FTF interaction (Walther & D’Addario, 2001).

Even though emoticons have been described as a “universal symbolic

language” (Azuma, 2012, p. 61), which implies that it can be intelligible to people all

around the world, many studies have pointed out that the ways emoticons are

constructed in texts do in fact, differ from country to country (Park, Baek, & Cha,

2014; Park, Barash, Fink, & Cha, 2013). In particular, there have been mixed results

regarding how styles of emoticons differ according to a person’s cultural background

and language. There are two kinds of emoticon styles – horizontal (tilted 90 degrees

to the left) and vertical (not tilted sideways) (Park et al., 2013). In terms of cultural

background, some researchers have noted that styles of emoticons employed by users

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living in Western cultures differ from those living in Eastern cultures (Park et al.,

2014). For example, Westerners usually employ horizontal style emoticons whereas

Easterners employ vertical style emoticons. While some believed that geography

matters, other researchers have stated that language has a higher impact in

determining the style of emoticons (Park et al., 2013). That is, for countries where

English is in common usage along with local languages, users utilized horizontal style

emoticons as in predominantly English speaking countries.

Previous cross-cultural studies on emoticons have discussed how styles of

emoticons vary by comparing countries such as Japan or Korea with the United States

(e.g. Park, 2013; Yuki, Maddux, & Masuda, 2007). However, these countries differ

both in terms of their culture as well as the status of English in the country. For

instance, Japan and Korea are representatives of the Eastern culture while the United

States is a representative of the Western culture. In addition, unlike the United States

which is an English-speaking country, both Japan and Korea are neither an English-

speaking country nor English being in common usage along with local languages.

Thus, there remains a dilemma in distinguishing whether the effects of cultural

background or language plays a greater role in affecting the style of emoticons a

person uses. In order to clarify this issue, this research will focus on language and

hold cultural background as a constant.

The purpose of this study is to explore the cross-cultural use of emoticons.

According to the theory of linguistic relativity, language influences its respective

speakers’ perception of their world, so that speakers of different languages may be

accustomed to a certain way of thinking and writing depending on the structure of

language they use (Hoijer, 1954). By comparing two Asian countries, Singapore and

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Taiwan, both with different status of English in the country, this research aims to

understand the effects of language on cognition; to see if a certain style of emoticon is

an attribute to the language a person uses and how well a person from another culture

is able to interpret emoticons used by the natives of a particular culture.

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About Singapore and Taiwan

This section aims to give some background information about Singapore and

Taiwan, the two countries that will be examined in this research.

Location

Singapore and Taiwan (formerly known as “Formosa”) are countries located

in the northern hemisphere. Singapore is located 137 kilometers north of the equator

and is situated at the end of the Malayan Peninsula between Malaysia and Indonesia

(Department of Statistics, 2014a). Singapore is separated from Malaysia by the Straits

of Johor and from Indonesia by the Singapore Strait. Taiwan is located 2,600

kilometers north of the equator and sits astride the Tropic of Cancer, off the

southeastern coast of mainland China and is separated by the Taiwan Strait

(“Geography”, n.d.).

Size

Singapore has a total land area of 718.3 square kilometers and measures 50

kilometers from east to west and 26 kilometers from north to south (Department of

Statistics, 2014a). Taiwan has a total land area of 35,980 square kilometers and is 160

kilometers wide at its narrowest point and 242 kilometers in length (“Geography”,

n.d.).

Population

In 2014, Singapore’s total population was 5.47 million with a population

density of 7,615 people per square kilometer (Department of Statistics, 2014a).

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Taiwan’s total population stands at 24.4 million and it’s average population density is

642 per square kilometer. In Taipei (capital of Taiwan), population density increases

to 9,600 people in every square kilometer (World Population Review, 2015).

Culture

The terms “Eastern culture” and Western culture” are used very broadly

(Choudhary, 2014). In terms of geography, Singapore and Taiwan are both Eastern

countries. Countries that belong to the Eastern world are those that are located east of

Europe (Khan, 2013). This includes East Asia (comprising of China, Hong Kong,

Macau, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia and Taiwan) South Asia

(comprising of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan

and Sri Lanka) and Southeast Asia (comprising of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor,

Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam)

(Khan, 2013). Although cultures of countries in the Eastern part of the world are quite

different from each other, they are relatively closer to each other than the countries

from the Western part of the world (Choudhary, 2014).

Ethnic Groups

The four ethnic groups of the Singaporean population include Chinese, Malay,

Indian, and others (Eurasians and Asians of different origins). They each take up

76.2%, 15%, 7.4%, and 1.4% of the whole population respectively (Department of

Statistics, 2014b). As for Taiwan, 98% of the population consists of Taiwanese

(including Hakka) and mainland Chinese, and the remaining 2% comprising of

indigenous people (UReach Toronto, 2014).

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Language

The Singapore government recognizes four official languages: English,

Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. The national language is Malay, while English is mainly

used as the business and working language. Chinese dialects used in Singapore

include Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese. On the other hand,

Mandarin Chinese is the only official language of Taiwan. Taiwanese Hokkien,

commonly known as “Taiwanese”, is a variant of Hokkien spoken by about 70% of

the population. Taiwanese is often seen as a dialect within a larger Chinese language.

Members of the Hakka Chinese subgroup speak the Hakka language and the

Formosan languages are the ethnic languages of the aboriginal tribes (“Visiting

Taiwan”, n.d.).

Internet and Smartphone Penetration Rate

According to the Internet Telecommunication Union (2013), the Internet

penetration rate in Singapore and Taiwan is estimated at 73% and 80% respectively.

Also, as of 2014, Singapore reports the highest smartphone penetration in the world at

85% (Mumbrella Asia, 2014). Taiwan, on the other hand, witnessed a smartphone

penetration rate of 65.4%, and it is expected to increase to 76.3% by the end of 2016

(Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, 2014).

Brown and Cantor (2000) coined the concept of “perpetual linkage” which

refers to the tendency of being constantly connected with each other through some

form of technology. What has made “perpetual linkage” possible is that, for example,

with a smartphone, users are able to connect to Wi-Fi or cellular data where they can

perform activities such as accessing email, text messaging and the use of social media

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(instant messaging (IM) and social networking sites (SNSs)) (Dimmick, Ramirez,

Wang, & Lin, 2007). Such media enable its users to ““extend society” beyond the

limitations of FTF interaction” (p. 796).

Internet Use

According to Statista (2014a, 2014b), 96% of the number of Internet users in

Singapore between the ages of 25 and 34 and 88% of the number of Internet users in

Taiwan between the ages of 25 and 34 were accessing the Internet everyday. People

within this age range in Singapore and Taiwan are the highest users of Internet as

compared to users from other age groups who use the Internet daily.

In terms of the amount of time spent using the Internet, Singaporean users

were found to spend an average of 316 minutes (5 hours and 16 minutes) on laptops

and desktops and 116 minutes (1 hour and 56 minutes) on mobile devices daily (Aziz,

2014). Internet users in Taipei spend an average of 213 minutes (3 hours and 33

minutes) online using their laptops and desktops and 197 minutes (3 hours and 17

minutes) on their smartphones per day, 55 minutes longer than the average of 142

minutes (2 hours and 22 minutes) used worldwide (Redfield, 2014).

Summary

To sum it all up, many similarities can be found between Singapore and

Taiwan. Firstly, both Singapore and Taiwan are Eastern countries and in terms of

ethnic groups, majority of the population in Singapore and Taiwan are ethnically

Chinese. Both countries also have high Internet and smartphone penetration rate,

meaning that people are constantly connected electronically with one another. In

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addition, the similar Internet usage pattern also suggests that young people in

Singapore and Taiwan are heavy technology users. However, one significant

difference between Singapore and Taiwan is the type of language used in the country.

While English is regarded as the first language for the former, Mandarin Chinese is

the only official language for the latter.

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Literature Review

Defining Emoticons

The word “emoticon” is derived from the words “emotion” and “icon”,

suggesting that by using a combination of symbols, punctuations and keyboard

characters, little icons are created and inserted into texts to convey a person’s emotion

or attitude (Unicode, 2014). Professor Scott E. Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon

University in Pittsburg created the first emoticon on September 19, 1982 when he sent

the following message to the school’s online bulletin board:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)

From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at CMU-20c>

I propose the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that

are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-( (Baron, 2009, p. 109)

In Fahlman’s post, the use of emoticons in texts would help distinguish serious

posts from jokes. It adds an emotional flavor by allowing people to express their

emotions in text-based communication. Emoticons appear in three different forms –

horizontal style, vertical style and graphic icons. The following paragraphs will

discuss more about the way each type differs from one another in greater detail.

Horizontal style. Horizontal emoticons are those whereby faces are turned 90

degrees to the left (e.g. :)). This emoticon in its normative form has a colon sign as the

eyes and one mouth (Park et al., 2013). In this case, the mouth is denoted with a

closed parenthesis and it represents a smiling face expressing joy or happiness. Such

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emoticons are typed using the American Standard Code for Information Interchange

(ASCII) keyboard characters. ASCII is a scheme that encodes “128 specified

characters – the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic punctuation

symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and a blank

space” (Shirey, 2007, p. 17).

Vertical style. The main thing that differentiates the vertical from the

horizontal type is the orientation of emoticons. In this case, emoticons are not rotated

and employ a vertical style. Emoticons under this criterion can be further broken

down into three categories – Japanese style, Korean style and Chinese ideographic

style (Roebuck, 2012).

Japanese style. Japanese emoticons come in two different forms. Firstly, basic

Japanese emoticons are also made up of ASCII characters (e.g. ^^) (Tomic, Martinez,

& Vrbanec, 2013). The normative form is defined by the shape of the eyes and by

default does not contain a mouth. However, in cases where the normative form

without a mouth has an ambiguous meaning (e.g. TT), a mouth is included in the

normative form (e.g. T_T) (Park et al., 2013). This emoticon represents a crying face

and is made using three characters, out of which one is repeated. The other form of

Japanese emoticons are often more complicated because they contain Cyrillic

alphabets and other foreign letters and symbols to create even more complicated

expressions, many of which cannot be reproduced in ASCII (e.g. ��) (Tomic et

al., 2013). This emoticon represents embarrassment.

Korean style. Korean emoticons have their own unique style as they are made

up of Korean letters called Jamo (Tomic et al., 2013). Countless number of emoticons

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can be formed with the combination of multiple Jamos (e.g. ㅠㅠ). In this case, the

emoticon shows a crying face where the vowel Jamo ㅠ is used to represent tears.

Chinese ideographic style. Chinese ideographic style emoticons usually

“represent a concept or idea rather than a particular word or speech sound” (Kelz &

Hodic, 2014, p. 251). For instance, the Chinese character @ which means bright, has

taken on a life on its own because the way the character is constructed looks like a

facial expression. It is often used to signify sadness, frustration, shock or amusement

(Chao, 2009). In addition, the character % which means convex, is often used on the

Internet as an emoticon to express a gesture of flipping someone off (Chao, 2009).

Graphic icons. The third type of emoticons are graphic icons that can be

found in IM programs such as Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype and Gtalk

(e.g. ). By typing in horizontal emoticons (e.g. :)), most programs will

automatically convert symbols into graphical emoticons (Hall, 2011). Although such

keyboard combination can be used across various IM applications, graphic icons

generally vary between platforms. For instance, the smiley graphic icons available on

Yahoo Messenger are not identical to the ones offered by MSN Messenger.

Differences between Emoticons and Emoji

Emoticons should not be confused with the term “emoji”. Although both terms

are often used interchangeably in our everyday conversations, there is a clear

distinction between them. Emoji are pictographs most frequently associated with

cellular phone usage and they include images other than faces, such as weather,

vehicles and buildings, food and drink, and animals and plants (e.g. ) (Unicode,

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2014). While emoticons represent a broad category of icons that are formed through

various combinations of keyboard characters, emoji only include specific icons

(Musa, 2014). On April 8, 2015, Apple added more than 300 new emoji characters to

its existing 845 miniature images on the emoji keyboard (Williams, 2015).

The emoji keyboard was first introduced into Apple’s iPhone since the

firmware 2.0 update in 2008 to be downloaded as an app and was only made available

for the Japanese market (Blagdon, 2013). However, with the release of iOS 5, the new

operating system in late 2011, the emoji keyboard made their real international debut

as the emoji keyboard no longer needs to be downloaded as an app but just needs to

be enabled instead (Blagdon, 2013). Millions of people now have access to this

standard set of emoji characters that can be inserted while typing text messages,

emails and on SNSs. However, it is important to note that Apple’s iOS, Google’s

Android, and Microsoft’s Windows software, along with SNSs such as Facebook and

Twitter each interpret the emoji characters with slight difference.

Role of Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication

CMC is any form of communication between two or more individuals through

the Internet or a network connection. CMC comes in three different forms – video,

audio and text, and may occur either synchronously (in “real time”) or

asynchronously (delayed) (Roberts, Smith, & Pollock, 2005).

In terms of text-based CMC, since it lacks non-verbal elements such as the

ability to see a person’s facial expression and hear the tone of voice, the absence of

such cues would mean that it might lead to miscommunication. It has been found that

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facial expressions and the tone of voice are beneficial in that they assist in meaning

making of a message beyond the actual words being uttered (Park, 2013).

The social presence theory states that social presence is the sense of awareness

of the existence of an interaction partner (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Social

presence is a critical attribute by which man comes to know and think about other

persons, their characteristics, qualities, and inner states. Communication media differ

in their degree of social presence and that these differences play an important role in

the way people interact. The social presence theory posits that CMC has a low degree

of social presence and it is “disruptive for understanding the content and nature of

messages” (Tossell, Kortum, Shepard, Barg-Walkow, & Rahmati, 2012, p. 659) since

non-verbal cues, common in FTF interaction are filtered out of CMC.

Emoticons function to affect interactions positively. Byron and Baldridge

(2007) found that utilizing correct capitalization and including smiley-faced

emoticons in email messages was associated with more favorable impressions of

senders than those who did not capitalize or include emoticons. Yoo (2007) also

found similar results whereby participants reported that they liked the sender more,

believed the sender liked them more, and perceived significantly more immediacy,

affection, similarity, and depth when messages contained emoticons.

Apart from favorable impressions, the use of emoticons has also led to other

positive outcomes. For example, Kalyanaraman and Ivory (2006) found that when

participants read messages believed to be written by experts, messages with

emoticons enabled the participants to perceive the experts as friendlier and more

competent in his or her field of study. In the same report, the presence of emoticons

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also positively affected cognition, as participants’ memory scores were higher during

conditions with emoticons present.

Emoticons function to influence message meanings. Emoticons were

incorporated “as visual cues to augment the meaning of textual messages” (Rezabeck

& Cochenour, 1998, p. 201). Studies conducted on the roles of emoticons in textual

communication indicated that emoticons are capable of emphasizing the meaning,

enhancing people’s interpretation and simplifying electronic messages. An emoticon

without any text can convey a feeling (Adams, 2013). To illustrate, the emoticon :) is

a smiling face that represents happiness, it does not need any accompanying text.

Also, Lo (2008) has found that users reading text messages with emoticons are

significantly better at interpreting the precise meaning of the author than those

reading messages without emoticons. He asserted that “when emoticons are added in

the same context, the receiver’s perception of the message starts to significantly

change” (p. 597). Thus, emoticons may influence the meaning of messages in ways

that are critical to interpretation.

Emoticons function to manage impressions. Emoticons were introduced into

CMC to substitute the absence of non-verbal cues and as a way to manage

impressions in this cue-less environment. In a study conducted by Attan, Bolong, and

Hasan (2010), they found that CMC users managed their impressions by using

emoticons, as users believe that the use of emoticons in texts would make them seem

as a person with a pleasant disposition. Politeness can also be managed with the use

of emoticons. Since office employees have to “offer advice, use directives and

request, criticize, agree and disagree on a daily basis” (Darics, 2010, p. 131), the use

of emoticons was found to be able to maintain polite impressions and relationships

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with colleagues and thereby improving employee productivity at the workplace

(Darics, 2010).

Emoticons function to regulate interaction. In order to compensate for the

absence of an immediate physical presence of a conversational partner, the use of

emoticons in CMC enables a receiver to better understand the feeling or mood of the

sender (Wei, 2012). Emoticons carry out parallel functions the way non-verbal cues

do in FTF communication (Derks, Fischer, & Bos, 2008). In other words, emoticons

are seen as the paralanguage of CMC (Marvin, 1995).

Other researchers have also claimed that the emoticons functioned as more

than just non-verbal cues. Dresner and Herring (2014) noted that “emoticons are used

not as signs of emotion but rather as indications of the illocutionary force of the

textual utterances that they accompany” (p. 84). For example, the use of a winking

emoticon can be used to indicate that the writer is joking. Clearly, joking is not an

emotion but a type of illocutionary force of what has been textually said (Dresner &

Herring, 2014). As such, emoticons help to convey an important aspect of the

linguistic utterance they are attached to – what the user intends by what he or she

types (Dresner & Herring, 2014).

Culture and Emoticons

Knowing the importance of emoticons, people have adopted the use of

emoticons to facilitate their communication and it has gradually evolved to become

part of almost all forms of CMC. Utilizing emoticons in texts has become an everyday

practice for people throughout the world. Emoticons not only improve communication

but also “serve as non-verbal surrogates, suggestive of facial expression, and they

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may add a paralinguistic component to a message” (Derks et al., 2007). However,

researchers have found that styles of emoticons vary among people. Such difference

can be traced back to the way in which culture influences how a person expresses his

or her emotions. In this section, we will discuss how emoticons vary according to the

Western and Eastern culture. We would expect users from Singapore and Taiwan to

have the same emoticons style since previous literatures state that Easterners would

use vertical emotions, whereby there is an emphasis on the eyes of such emoticons

style. The research questions will address this issue by examining the users from

Singapore and Taiwan, to see if the style and representation of emoticons used in

CMC are similar in these two countries due to the influence of culture.

Factors shaping the style of emoticons.

Display rules. Display rules refer to “culture-specific rules that govern how,

when, and why expressions of emotions are appropriate” (Nevid, 2012, p. 286). In a

study of American and Japanese college students, participants watched graphic films

of surgical procedures, either by themselves or in the presence of an experimenter.

The students’ facial expressions were secretly videotaped as they viewed the films.

Results showed that when the students were by themselves, both Americans and

Japanese showed facial expressions of disgust, as expected (Nevid, 2012). However,

when the participants watched the films in the presence of the experimenter, the two

groups displayed different responses (Nevid, 2012). American students continued to

show disgust on their faces, but the Japanese students showed facial expressions that

were more neutral, even somewhat pleasant (Nevid, 2012). The reason for the change

in facial expression for the Japanese and not the American students lie in the different

display rules of the two cultures. As the Asian norm states that one should not openly

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express negative emotions toward the respected elders (in this case, the experimenter),

any negative emotions can only be expressed with subtle and implicit cues (Nevid,

2012). Americans typically do not honor this display rule; hence, they expressed their

true emotions whether they were alone or with someone else (Nevid, 2012).

Hofstede’s dimensions of culture. Dutch cultural anthropologist, Geert

Hofstede conducted a study to see how values in the workplace are influenced by

culture. He conducted detailed interviews with employees within a large multinational

corporation, IBM, in 53 countries (Hofstede, Hofstede, & Minkov 1991). Hofstede

identified five dimensions and rated the 53 countries with values of 0 to 100 for each

dimension. His five dimensions of culture include Power Distance, Uncertainty

Avoidance, Individualism-Collectivism, Masculinity-Femininity, and Confucian

Dynamism.

In terms of the Individualism-Collectivism dimension, using the above study

of Japanese and American college students watching graphic films of surgical

procedures as an example, America has scored 91 on the individualism scale while

Japan only has a score of 46. In Hofstede’s study, a low score on the dimension would

mean that the country is closer to a collectivist society (Hofstede et al., 1991).

Collectivistic cultures tend to be group-oriented, impose a large psychological

distance between ingroup and outgroup members, and ingroup members are expected

to have unquestioning loyalty to their group (Hofstede et al., 1991). In a conflict

situation, members of the collectivistic cultures are likely to use avoidance,

intermediaries, or other face-saving techniques (Hofstede et al., 1991). Collectivistic

cultures emphasize family and work group goals above individual needs or desires

(Hofstede et al., 1991). Conversely, members of individualistic cultures do not

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perceive a large psychological distance between ingroup and outgroup members

(Hofstede et al., 1991). They value self-expression, seek speaking out as a means of

resolving problems, and are likely to use confrontational strategies when dealing with

interpersonal problems (Hofstede et al., 1991). Individualistic cultures emphasize

personal achievement regardless of the expense of group goals, resulting in strong

sense of competition (Hofstede et al., 1991).

Two different styles of emoticons. Some cross-cultural psychologists have

noted that emoticon usage varies according to users’ cultural background, especially

in the individualism-collectivism dimension. For example, Westerners (people living

within individualistic cultures) favor a horizontal style as in :-), while Easterners

(people living within collectivistic cultures) employ a vertical style as in ^_^ (Yuki et

al., 2007). A study conducted by Park et al. (2013) examined cultural differences in

the style of emoticons on Twitter based on complete data of tweets from 2006 through

2009, which contained information from approximately 54 million users and all of

their public posts. Results showed that users from Western and Eastern countries

employed different emoticons style. Horizontal style emoticons are popular among

users in the Western countries whereby such emoticons “emphasize the mouth for

expressing emotion and commonly use the colon sign for the eyes” (p. 467). Different

mouth shapes are used to “express affect (e.g. positive, negative) and meaning (e.g.

happy, sad, surprise)” (p. 467). On the other hand, vertical style emoticons, popular

among users in the Eastern countries “emphasize the eyes for expressing emotion.

The underscore character is commonly used for the mouth, while various characters

are used for the eye shapes to capture affect and meaning” (p. 468). Table 1 shows the

results of their findings.

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Table 1

Two Different Styles of Emoticons: Horizontal (Popular in Western Countries) and Vertical

(Popular in Eastern Countries)

Horizontal

(expression based on the

mouth shape)

:) :( :o :P :D

:)) :))) :-) :-( :-[

;) :’( :*( ¿:( =:-)

Vertical

(expression based on the

eye shape)

^^ T_T @@ -_- ^___^

^.^ -_-;;; (^^) T.T T___T

^^; ^-^ -_-^ o.o

Note. Adapted from “Emoticon Style: Interpreting Diffrences in Emoticons Across Cultures”

by J. Park, V. Barash, C. Fink, and M. Cha, 2013, Seventh International Conference on

Weblogs and Social Media, p. 468. Copyright 2013 by Association for the Advancement of

Artificial Intelligence.

Studies have reported that people from individualistic cultures read a

conversation partner’s emotions by “focusing on the zygomatic major (a muscle

around the mouth)”, while those from collectivistic cultures infer their partner’s

emotions by “detecting movement of the orbicularis oculi (a muscle around the eyes)”

(Ekman, 1992, as cited in Park et al., 2014, p. 338). Based on these findings, cross-

cultural psychologists have emphasized two points. Firstly, as the mouth takes up a

larger area of the face than the eyes, this means that a change in mouth shape is more

easily noticeable as compared to a change in eye shape. Secondly, since the

zygomatic major is a larger muscle than the orbicularis oculi, it is easier to

consciously control the shape of the mouth than of the eyes (Ekman, 1992, as cited in

Park et al., 2014).

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In general, individualistic cultures emphasize the self, while collectivistic

cultures highlight shared values on a society (Hofstede et al., 1991). For this reason,

people from individualistic cultures are more likely to be trained to express their

feelings through explicit cues (Park et al., 2014), just like how the American students

reacted when they watched films of surgical procedures, whether they were alone or

with someone else. Facial expressions of emotion are more direct and less

constrained. In contrast, people within collectivistic cultures are taught to suppress

personal feelings and convey them indirectly through subtle cues (Park et al., 2014).

This explains the change in facial expression for the Japanese students when the

experimenter was present. Facial expressions of emotion are more indirect and less

explicit. After understanding how people from different cultures usually express their

feelings, we can infer why eye-oriented expressions are emphasized in collectivistic

cultures. Since the eyes take up a smaller area of the face, a change in eye shape

would not be as obvious. On the other hand, as people from individualistic cultures

are taught to express their feelings more directly, a change in mouth shape and the

movement of the zygomatic major would be an easier cue to allow for the reading of

emotions.

Emotions displayed by American and Japanese students with the presence of

the experimenter, correspond to the way emoticons are formed with the emphasis on

the mouth or eyes, depending on whether these people belong to an individualistic or

collectivistic society. People from individualistic cultures use horizontal emoticons;

those that emphasize the shape of the mouth while people from collectivistic cultures

use vertical emoticons; those that highlight the shape of the eyes in CMC.

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Since this research aims to examine the style of emoticons used by

Singaporean and Taiwanese users, the following research questions are posed:

RQ1: What is the usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons in general? Is

there a significant difference in the usage rate of horizontal and vertical

emoticons by Singaporean and Taiwanese users?

RQ2: What kinds of designs are used to represent the eyes and mouths of

emoticons?

a. How are eyes represented in general? Is there a significant

difference regarding the design of eyes used by Singaporean and

Taiwanese users?

b. How are mouths represented in general? Is there a significant

difference regarding the design of mouths used by Singaporean

and Taiwanese users?

Language and Emoticons

While geography may be one of the factors that determine the style of

emoticons, other researchers have noted that language has a higher impact. In a study

done by Park et al. (2013), they have found that people who live in English-speaking

countries and countries where English is in common usage with local languages tend

to utilize horizontal style emoticons. Figure 1 shows the extent to which countries

differ in their rates of adopting horizontal and vertical emoticons. The yellow portion

in each pie chart represents the percentage of the horizontal style, and the green

portion represents that of the vertical style. Countries including the United Kingdom,

Australia, Canada, United States, Netherlands, Singapore, Philippines, Mexico, Spain,

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Italy, Indonesia, Germany and France all favor horizontal style emoticons.

Interestingly, although Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia are located in Asia, they

showed similar usage patterns to other English-speaking countries and countries

where English is in common usage with local languages studied in the research. On

the contrary, since both Japan and South Korea are neither English-speaking countries

nor English is in common usage with local languages, people from these two

countries prefer using vertical style emoticons instead. In addition, it is also important

to note that horizontal style emoticons do take up a substantial portion on the pie chart

for Japan and South Korea too.

UK Australia Canada US Netherlands

Singapore Philippines Mexico Spain Italy

Indonesia Germany France Japan South Korea

Figure 1. Different emoticon usage by countries. Adapted from “Emoticon Style: Interpreting

Differences in Emotions Across Cultures” by J. Park, V. Barash, C. Fink, and M. Cha, 2013,

Seventh International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, p. 470. Copyright 2013 by

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas; it

fundamentally shapes our perception. Benjamin Lee Whorf, an American linguist

who developed the theory of linguistic relativity proposed that the structure of a

!!Style

!

Horizontal Vertical

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language affects the ways in which its speakers conceptualize their world, or

otherwise influences their cognitive processes (Lutz, 1987). Insofar as languages

differ, speakers too differ in how they perceive and act in objectively similar

situations (Whorf, 1956, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). Linguist, philosophers,

anthropologist, and psychologists have long been interested in whether the languages

we speak shape the way we understand the world. This interest has been fueled in

large part by the observation that different languages talk about the world differently.

For instance, Hopi, a tribe of Native American people of the Southwestern United

States has only two nouns in their language for everything that flies. One noun refers

to birds while the other is used for everything else, including aeroplanes, kites, and

bees (Train, 2007). Thus, the Hopi people will interpret all flying things in terms of

either of these two nouns – either a bird or a non-bird. Yet on the other hand, English-

speaking people will perceive aeroplanes differently to the Hopi. When English-

speaking people think about an aeroplane, they will view it with greater complexity of

thought since they have more cognitive categories for aeroplanes than do the Hopi,

for example jumbo jet, concorde, biplane, and bomber (Train, 2007).

Boroditsky (2001) examined how different ways of talking about physical

space and time in English and Mandarin Chinese shape people’s thoughts. This may

be useful in explaining the differences in style of emoticons among users due to the

influence of language.

Space and time in English. In English, we predominantly use front and back

terms to talk about time (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). Examples in

Figure 2 show how front and back terms are used in sentences. On the whole, English

mostly talks about space and time as if it were on a horizontal plane.

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SPACE

Take three steps forward

The dumpster is located behind the store

TIME

Good times ahead

Put the hardships behind us

Shift meetings forward

Push deadlines back

Eat desserts after we are done with our meal

Submit the application before the deadline

Figure 2. Example spatial and temporal uses of front and back terms in English.

Space and time in Mandarin Chinese. In Mandarin, front and back terms for

space and time are also common (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001).

Mandarin speakers use the terms� (front) and � (back) to talk about space and time.

Examples in Figure 3 show how � and � are used in Mandarin sentences with

English translation underneath each sentence.

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SPACE

� � O�IØ+}Ù±^å\�

There is an American restaurant in front of the school’s main gate

� � ³Z¨C�Maà�

The teacher is standing behind the desk

TIME

gjªIO�� a�É£§i�

I plan to apply for graduate school after completing my undergraduate degree

gbãC1�ç +��

I have to submit my assignment before five in the evening

Figure 3. Example spatial and temporal uses of + (front) anda (back) in Mandarin and

their English translations.

In addition to front and back terms, Mandarin speakers also use vertical

metaphors to talk about space and time (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001).

Examples in Figure 4 show how �(up) and � (down) are used in Mandarin

sentences to describe space and time with English translation underneath each

sentence.

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SPACE

oà�ÖÏ��J��

The wall is covered with her photos

� � »�ÞkÕÑ®F��

The falling snow envelops the road

TIME

� � �|�

Last (or previous) month

� � �|�

Next (or following) month

Figure 4. Example spatial and temporal uses of (up) and (down) in Mandarin and their

English translations.

Although in English, vertical terms can also be used to talk about space and

time, for example “the meeting is coming up” or “hand down knowledge from

generation to generation”, these uses are not nearly as common as it is the use of � or

� in Mandarin (Chun, 1997a, 1997b; Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). In

summary, both English and Mandarin speakers use horizontal terms to talk about

space and time. Additionally, Mandarin speakers commonly use the vertical terms �

and�.

Apart from the way physical space and time is described in English and

Mandarin, another example to illustrate how language has a greater impact in

determining the style of emoticons among users could be due to the difference in

orthography between languages. Traditionally, Mandarin is written vertically in

columns going from top to bottom and ordered from right to left, with each new

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column starting to the left of the preceding one. In modern times, it has become

increasingly common for Mandarin to be written horizontally, from left to right, with

successive rows going from top to bottom, under the influence of European languages

such as English (Dong, 2009). On the other hand, unlike Mandarin which can be

written and understood both in horizontal and vertical ways, English can only be

written horizontally.

Referring back to Figure 1, people living in English-speaking countries and

countries where English is in common usage with local languages predominantly

utilized horizontal style emoticons. This could be due to the way physical space and

time is described in English and the way the language is written. English mainly uses

horizontal relations (front and back terms) to explain space and time and the language

can only be written horizontally, therefore influencing the style of emoticons used. In

comparison, the use of vertical and horizontal emoticons takes up a substantial portion

on the pie chart for Japan and South Korea (Figure 1). Both countries, similar to

Taiwan, are neither English-speaking countries nor countries where English is in

common usage with local languages. Although we do not have statistics regarding

Mandarin speakers’ usage of emoticons in CMC at the moment, in the case where the

language is similar to Japanese and Korean, whereby they were traditionally

languages written vertically, and then evolved to being written horizontally in modern

times, and as well as Mandarin uses both horizontal relations (front and back terms)

and vertical relations (up and down) to explain physical space and time, there could

be a possibility that the patterns of emoticons usage by Taiwanese users might be

similar to the users from Japan and South Korea.

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Effects of Language Structure on Interpretation

Current literature does not mention the effects of language structure on

people’s interpretation of emoticons. On a similar note, there was a research that

discussed the effects of language structure on human experience of direction. Suppose

you want to give someone directions for getting to your house. You might say: “After

the traffic lights, take the first left, then the second right, and then you’ll see a white

house in front of you. Our door is on the right.” In theory, you could also say: “After

the traffic lights, drive north, and then on the second crossing drive east, and you’ll

see a white house directly to the east. Ours is the southern door.” These two sets of

directions may describe the same route, but they rely on different systems of

coordinates. The first uses “egocentric coordinates”, which depend on our own

bodies: a left-right axis and a front-back axis orthogonal to it (Deutscher, 2010, para.

14). The second system uses fixed “geographic directions”, which do not rotate with

us wherever we turn (para. 14). Even though geographic directions are useful when it

comes to hiking, egocentric coordinates “completely dominate our speech” (para. 15),

as it feels so much easier and more natural. Instead of using a map or a compass to

work the directions out, egocentric coordinates are based on our own bodies and our

immediate visual fields (Deutscher, 2010).

However, it has been found that not all languages conform to what we have

always taken as simply “natural”. A remote Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu

Yimithirr, from north Queensland does not use egocentric coordinates (such as left,

right, in front of, or behind) to describe the position of objects at all but relies on

cardinal directions instead (Deutscher, 2010). If people from the aboriginal tribe want

you to move over on the car seat to make room, they would say, “Move a bit to the

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east” (Deutscher, 2010). To tell you where exactly they left something in your house,

they would say, “I left it on the southern edge of the western table” (Deutscher, 2010).

Even when shown a film on television, they gave descriptions of it based on the

orientation of the screen. If the television was facing north, and a man on the screen

was approaching, they would say that he was “coming northward” (Deutscher, 2010).!

Any form of direction in terms of egocentric coordinates would leave then disoriented

and confused.!Hence, this shows that speakers of different languages tend to think and

talk about the world differently depending on the structure of language they use.!

Using the above example and applying it to the study of emoticons, since

English, unlike Mandarin, does not describe physical space and time in vertical terms

and that the language cannot be written vertically, the following research questions

are posed:

RQ3: How does language background affect Singaporean users’ interpretation

of Taiwanese users’ commonly used emoticons?

RQ4: How does language background affect Taiwanese users’ interpretation

of Singaporean users’ commonly used emoticons?

RQ5: What are the factors that can be used to predict the style of emoticons in

CMC?

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Methodology

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used in this research.

Quantitative research method was in the form of a self-administered online survey

questionnaire whereas qualitative research method was in the form of a focus group

discussion. The purpose of this research is twofold: firstly, to gain an overall

understanding about the usage rate and representation of emoticons between

Singaporean and Taiwanese users. Secondly, to understand the factors leading to the

similarities and/or differences in usage rate and representation of emoticons, as well

as the influence of language on the recognition and interpretation of emoticons

between Singaporean and Taiwanese users.

Pilot Study

A pilot study was conducted in October 2014 to look at how users from

Singapore and Taiwan constructed emoticons. 10 respondents from each country were

selected to do a survey. Respondents had to list down the kind of emoticons they

would type in their texts if they were to express the following emotions of disgust,

sadness, happiness, anger, surprise, and fear (Appendix A and Appendix B).

These six emotions came from a research done by an American psychologist,

Paul Ekman, who showed pictures of many different facial expressions to observers

from different cultures (Brazil, Borneo, Japan, New Guinea and the United States),

who were asked to judge which emotion was portrayed on the face (Ekman, Sorenson,

& Friesen, 1969). Thirty photographs with various facial expressions, each with a

pure display of a single emotion was presented to the observers. If emotional

expressions were universal, there would be high agreement within and across cultures

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in judgments. If emotional expressions were culture-specific, there might be an

agreement within a culture, but disagreement across cultures. Results revealed

agreement both within and across cultures for these six emotional expressions –

disgust, sadness, happiness, anger, surprise, and fear. These data were the first

systematic evidence for the universality of emotions and their expressions (Ekman et

al., 1969).

According to the results from Hofstede’s individualism scale, Singapore has a

score of 20 whereas Taiwan has a score of 17 (Hofstede et al., 1991). As mentioned

previously, a low score on the individualism scale would signify that a country

belongs to a collectivist society. Based on the scores, we would expect users from

Singapore and Taiwan to use vertical style emoticons. However, scores from the

individualism scale did not correspond to the style of emoticons Singaporean and

Taiwanese users were expected to use in the pilot test even though both countries are

collectivist societies. Results from the pilot test showed that in terms of the

orientation of emoticons, Singaporean users tend to use horizontal style emoticons

while Taiwanese users would prefer using vertical style emoticons to express each of

the six emotions.

Emoticons gathered from the pilot test were subsequently used as answer

choices for the actual survey questionnaire where respondents were given a list of 30

answer choices to choose from (Appendix C and Appendix D). These 30 emoticons

were a combination of the most commonly used emoticons for each of the six

universal emotions, as indicated by participants from the pilot test, and it included

both horizontal and vertical emoticons. Respondents were asked to choose the

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emoticon they think was most appropriate for each question on the survey

questionnaire.

Twelve questions based on the six universal emotions were formed and there

were two questions for each emotion (i.e. two questions on disgust, two questions on

sadness, etc.). Questions were based on situations taken from postings of Facebook

users during December 2014 and January 2015. “Situations” in this context refers to

original status updates by Facebook users. The researcher classified each situation

that appeared on her “most recent” news feed during the stipulated time frame under

one of the six universal emotions. Each situation had to be exclusive whereby it

should only express a pure display of a single emotion. As such, situations that did not

fit into any of the six emotions, or situations that expressed more than one emotion

were omitted. In order to avoid researcher bias, with the list of situations the

researcher has collected, 10 natives from each country were asked to identify the kind

of emotion each situation was trying to express by selecting a word from a list of the

six universal emotions. Questions were revised until all participants were able to

identify the same emotion for each situation. The final 12 situations (Appendix E and

Appendix F) that were able to achieve agreement within and across cultures and were

subsequently included into the survey questionnaire. The 30 answer choices from the

pilot test were used for these 12 situations.

Survey Questionnaire

The survey questionnaire was presented to respondents from Singapore and

Taiwan in their country’s official language, the primary language used for teaching in

the classroom, which are English and Mandarin respectively.

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Sample. The target respondents for the survey questionnaire were adults aged

between 18 and 34. According to Statista (2014a, 2014b), people between the ages of

25 and 34 in Singapore and Taiwan were the highest daily Internet users with 96%

and 88% respectively. In addition, the second highest daily Internet users for

Singapore and Taiwan were those between the ages of 16 and 24 and they accounted

for 93% and 85% of the age range respectively. Anyone below the age of 18 was

excluded from the research because they were considered juveniles.

Three hundred and twenty-six adults from Singapore and Taiwan participated

in the survey questionnaire. The survey was conducted during the first two weeks of

May 2015 and participants were selected via convenience sampling (23.9% males;

Mage = 23.75, SD = 3.47). Out of the 326 respondents, 172 respondents were

Singaporeans (25.0% males; Mage = 23.90, SD = 3.57) and the remaining 154

respondents were Taiwanese (22.7% males; Mage = 23.58, SD = 3.36). The reason for

convenience sampling was to reach out to people who are heavy users of CMC,

especially in terms of text-based CMC who use emoticons in their texts. This was the

most effective way to reach out to people with the desired traits. Data collection was

in the form of a self-administered online survey questionnaire.

Measures.

Usage rate. Usage rate is a variable created by combining all 12 situations of

various emotions. This variable ranges from 1 to 0, whereby horizontal emoticons

were coded as 1 and vertical emoticons were coded as 0 (M = 7.04; SD = 4.33). Usage

rate can also be divided in terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 10.82; SD = 1.62)

and Taiwanese sample (M = 2.81; SD = 1.70).

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Emoticons style. Likewise, horizontal emoticons were also coded as 1 and

vertical emoticons were coded as 0.

The two situations under disgust were summed up (M = 1.17; SD = 0.94; r =

0.82, p < 0.01), and this include (a) “Accidentally drank a mouthful of spoilt milk,

ewww” (M = 0.61; SD = 0.49), and (b) “The awful smell of garbage drifted through

the air as I walked along the corridor” (M = 0.56; SD = 0.50). Results can be divided

in terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 1.95; SD = 0.25; r = 0.22, p < 0.01), with a

sum of (a) (M = 0.98; SD = 0.13) and (b) (M = 0.97; SD = 0.18), and the Taiwanese

sample (M = 0.29; SD = 0.59; r = 0.45, p < 0.01), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.19; SD =

0.40) and (b) (M = 0.10; SD = 0.30).

The two situations under sadness were summed up (M = 1.48; SD = 0.69; r =

0.28, p < 0.01) and this include (a) “My cat got hit by a car and passed away this

morning” (M = 0.66; SD = 0.48), and (b) “Thoughts and prayers to all those affected

by the unfortunate accident” (M = 0.83; SD = 0.38). Results can be divided in terms

of the Singaporean sample (M = 1.88; SD = 0.36; r = 0.18, p < 0.05), with a sum of

(a) (M = 0.92; SD = 0.27) and (b) (M = 0.97; SD = 0.18), and the Taiwanese sample

(M = 1.03; SD = 0.69; r = 0.04, p > 0.05), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.36; SD = 0.48) and

(b) (M = 0.67; SD = 0.47).

The two situations under happiness were summed up (M = 1.43; SD = 0.70; r

= 0.22, p < 0.01) and this include (a) “Officially graduated from university, finally”

(M = 0.65; SD = 0.48), and (b) “Can’t wait for the short getaway in two weeks time”

(M = 0.78; SD = 0.42). Results can be divided in terms of the Singaporean sample (M

= 1.76; SD = 0.48; r = 0.09, p > 0.05), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.88; SD = 0.32) and (b)

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(M = 0.88; SD = 0.33), and the Taiwanese sample (M = 1.05; SD = 0.72; r = 0.12, p >

0.05), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.39; SD = 0.49) and (b) (M = 0.66; SD = 0.47).

The two situations under anger were summed up (M = 1.00; SD = 0.99; r =

0.95, p < 0.01) and this include (a) “The waiter accidentally spilt coffee onto my

blouse and didn’t even bother to apologize” (M = 0.50; SD = 0.50), and (b) “The taxi

driver in front cut into my lane without signaling” (M = 0.49; SD = 0.50). Results can

be divided in terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 1.88; SD = 0.42; r = 0.59, p <

0.01), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.95; SD = 0.21) and (b) (M = 0.93; SD = 0.26), and the

Taiwanese sample (M = 0.01; SD = 0.08), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.00; SD = 0.00)

and (b) (M = 0.01; SD = 0.08).

The two situations under surprise were summed up (M = 0.86; SD = 0.83; r =

0.41, p < 0.01) and this include (a) “Amazing voice, even all the judges were

shocked” (M = 0.45; SD = 0.50), and (b) “The announcement of my best friend’s

wedding caught me off guard, didn’t expect it to be this fast” (M = 0.41; SD = 0.49).

Results can be divided in terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 1.43; SD = 0.64; r =

0.06, p > 0.05), with a sum of (a) (M = 0.82; SD = 0.39) and (b) (M = 0.61; SD =

0.49), and the Taiwanese sample (M = 0.21; SD = 0.47; r = 0.29, p < 0.01), with a

sum of (a) (M = 0.03; SD = 0.18) and (b) (M = 0.18; SD = 0.39).

The two situations under fear were summed up (M = 1.11; SD = 0.98; r = 0.93,

p < 0.01) and this include (a) “Surgery in two hours, pray for me” (M = 0.56; SD =

0.50), and (b) “Just the thought of making a speech in front of the whole school

makes me break out in a cold sweat” (M = 0.56; SD = 0.50). Results can be divided in

terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 1.91; SD = 0.34; r = 0.37, p < 0.01), with a

sum of (a) (M = 0.96; SD = 0.20) and (b) (M = 0.95; SD = 0.21), and the Taiwanese

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0.31) and (b) (M = 0.11; SD = 0.31).

Use of emoticons. The question, “Do you use emoticons” with the choices of

(1) “Yes”, and (2) “No” was used as a filter question. All respondents answered “yes”

and proceeded with the rest of the questionnaire.

Frequency of emoticons use. This research measured frequency of emoticons

use by asking respondents, “How frequent do you use emoticons”, with the choices of

(1) “Rarely”, (2) “Sometimes”, (3) “Often”, and (4) “Always” (M = 3.38; SD = 0.79).

Frequency of emoticons use can also be divided in terms of the Singaporean sample

(M = 3.37; SD = 0.78) and Taiwanese sample (M = 3.38; SD = 0.79172).

Commonly used language. Respondents were asked about their commonly

used language with the question, “Which of the following is your most commonly

used language”, with the choices of (1) “English”, and (0) “Mandarin Chinese”

(52.8% English). Respondents commonly used language can also be divided in terms

of the Singaporean sample (100% English) and Taiwanese sample (100% Mandarin

Chinese).

Proficiency in English. Proficiency in English was formed by adding up two

variables, (a) “How would you rate your proficiency in English” measured on a five-

point scale ranging from (1) “Poor”, (2) “Fair”, (3) “Average”, (4) “Good”, and (5)

“Excellent” (M = 3.37; SD = 1.64), and (b) “On an average day, how many hours do

you spend using English and/or spend in contact with an/another English-speaking

country” measured on a five-point scale ranging from (1) “Less than 1 hour”, (2)

More than 1 hour but less than 2 hours”, (3) “More than 2 hours but less than 3 hours”,

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(4) “More than 3 hours but less than 4 hours”, and (5) “More than 4 hours” (M = 3.41;

SD = 1.80). A correlation analysis between these two variables showed a significant

positive relationship (M = 6.78; SD = 3.40; r = 0.95, p < 0.01). Results can be divided

in terms of the Singaporean sample (M = 9.80; SD = 0.40), with a sum of (a) (M =

4.80; SD = 0.40) and (b) (M = 5.00; SD = 0.00), and the Taiwanese sample (M = 3.40;

SD = 1.57; r = 0.73, p < 0.01), with a sum of (a) (M = 1.77; SD = 0.80) and (b) (M =

1.63; SD = 0.89).

Proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. Proficiency in Mandarin Chinese was

formed by adding up two variables, (a) “How would you rate your proficiency in

Mandarin Chinese” measured on a five-point scale ranging from (1) “Poor”, (2)

“Fair”, (3) “Average”, (4) “Good”, and (5) “Excellent” (M = 3.31; SD = 1.53), and (b)

“On an average day, how many hours do you spend using Mandarin and/or spend in

contact with a/another Mandarin-speaking country” measured on a five-point scale

ranging from (1) “Less than 1 hour”, (2) More than 1 hour but less than 2 hours”, (3)

“More than 2 hours but less than 3 hours”, (4) “More than 3 hours but less than 4

hours”, and (5) “More than 4 hours” (M = 3.00; SD = 1.93). A correlation analysis

between these two variables also showed a significant positive relationship (M = 6.32;

SD = 3.39; r = 0.92, p < 0.01). Results can be divided in terms of the Singaporean


0.87) and (b) (M = 1.24; SD = 0.65), and the Taiwanese sample (M = 9.73; SD = 0.48;

r = 0.10, p > 0.05), with a sum of (a) (M = 4.75; SD = 0.43) and (b) (M = 4.97; SD =

0.16).

Table 2 presents the preliminary results showing the bivariate relationship

between the variables in general.

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Table 2

Preliminary Results Showing the Bivariate Relationship between Variables

Measures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Frequency

2. Age 0.039

3. Gender

(1=Male,

0=Female)

0.042 -0.014

4. Language

(1=English,

0=Mandarin)

-0.007 0.046 0.027

5. English

Proficiency

-0.009 0.056 0.022 0.944**

6. Mandarin

Proficiency

0.001 - 0.020 -0.052 -0.953** -0.898**

7. Emoticons

Style

(1=Horizontal,

0=Vertical)

0.015 0.014 0.030 0.924** 0.897** -0.920**

Note. n = 326. ** p < .01.

Focus Group Discussions

Study population. Six focus groups were conducted with a total of 24

participants (29.2% males; Mage = 24.42, SD = 1.32). Participants were segmented on

the basis of their nationality. This included three focus groups for Singaporean

participants (33.3% males; Mage = 24.83, SD = 1.34) and another three focus groups

for Taiwanese participants (25.0% males; Mage = 24.00, SD = 1.21). Each group had

four participants. Krueger and Casey (2000) suggested that a minimum of three focus

groups (in this case, for each country) were needed in order to identify patterns and

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trends, and to make sure that no new insights and information are revealed. Since the

objective of this research is to focus on language and hold cultural background as a

constant, in the case of Singaporean participants, only Singaporean Chinese were

recruited as people from other ethnic groups, such as Malays and Indians may have a

different cultural background.

Participants who shared some common characteristics, such as those between

the ages of 18 and 34, are active users of CMC, especially in terms of text-based

CMC who use emoticons in their texts were recruited online. The goal of

implementing the focus groups was to obtain in-depth information, understanding,

and insight regarding the topic of research.

Description of focus groups. Focus groups were conducted either within

National Chengchi University campus or at a Starbucks Café, during the afternoon or

evening period. At the beginning of each discussion, participants were given a

consent form describing the purpose and procedure of research (Appendix G and

Appendix H). Focus groups were audiotaped and each discussion ran for

approximately an hour and a half, and was facilitated by a moderator. The moderator

is the researcher herself. Every participant was also given a copy of the 30 answer

choices from the survey questionnaire since one of the discussion questions involved

participants’ interpretation of the emoticons.

Focus group questions. The primary method used to promote conversation in

the focus group was open-ended questions. Approximately 20 open-ended questions

were asked (Appendix I). According to Kruger and Casey (2000), questions asked in

focus groups should consist of opening, introductory, transition, key and ending

questions to assist with the flow of discussion.

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Opening questions were designed to be simple and quick to answer. These

questions helped participants to become comfortable with one another and

encouraged participants to converse early in the discussion. Kruger and Casey (2000)

suggested that it is important to get all participants to talk early in the discussion so

that they can feel comfortable and a part of the group in order to continue to talk

further on in the group session. Introductory questions introduced the topic of

discussion and allowed participants to think about their connection to the topic. Such

questions encouraged more discussion among the participants and gave the moderator

a chance to understand participants’ views. Transition questions were questions that

transitioned the discussion into the key questions and allowed for more depth than the

introductory questions. Key questions were the important questions that helped

answer the topic of research. These questions took more time to answer and required

the greatest attention during data analysis. There were more questions in this category

as compared to the other categories. Questions developed from the results of the

survey questionnaire were placed under key questions. Lastly, ending questions

helped to bring closure to the discussion and allowed participants to think about their

answers to previous questions asked. These questions helped to summarize

participants’ thoughts and ideas and clarify their perspectives on the topic of interest.

Although a set of questions was prepared beforehand, questions were revised

or added according to the flow of discussion.

Data analysis. Data from the focus groups were analyzed using a tape-based

analysis wherein the researcher listened to the recorded discussion and then created an

abridged transcript. Transcripts were entered into the computer using a Microsoft

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Word document. Although focus groups with the Taiwanese participants were

conducted in Mandarin, responses have been translated into English for easy analysis.

Data analysis began as early as in the first focus group. The analysis was done

concurrently with data collection. Each subsequent group was analyzed and compared

to earlier groups. An initial coding was done whereby each quote on the transcript

was labeled with a category it belonged to. The numerous categories with quotes

underneath were then gathered on a working document so that quotes from

subsequent focus groups could be placed under each relevant category. Each quote

from each subsequent transcript was examined to see how it added to the picture.

Each quote was read to see if it fit into one of the existing categories or deserved

consideration for a new category. If a quote fit an existing category, the researcher

decided whether to transfer the quote from the transcript into the working document.

Early in the analysis, almost any quote that illustrated a category went into the

working document. As the researcher worked through additional transcripts, the

process of transferring quotes to the working document became more selective. For

example, quotes were added if they illustrated the category better than other quotes

already in the working document, illustrated a facet of the category that was not

captured in the quotes already in the working document, or was particularly well said.

The purpose was to see how the quote could add to the explanation of the category. If

the quote deserved consideration for a new category, the quote was transferred to the

working document and the category was given a working name. Toward the end of

the analysis of all transcripts, the categories were reviewed to see how they fit

together. The researcher eliminated, combined, and rearranged quotes and categories

as needed (Appendix J).

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All participants in the focus groups were given a pseudonym. Each

pseudonym has an alphabet, either “E” or “M” and a number attached to it.

Pseudonyms with the alphabet “E” would indicate that the participants are from an

English-speaking background (Singapore) while those with the alphabet “M” would

signify that the participants are from a Mandarin-speaking background (Taiwan).

Since there were a total of 12 Singaporean and 12 Taiwanese participants, participants

from each country were given a number from 1 to 12. As such, participants were

referred to as participant E1, participant M1, etc. in the results section.

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Results

Firstly, RQ1 asked about the usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons in

general and if there was a significant difference in the usage rate of horizontal and

vertical emoticons by Singaporean and Taiwanese users. This research analyzed the

326 responses gathered from the survey questionnaire. Figure 5 describes the average

usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons per user for all 12 situations (M = 7.04;

SD = 4.33). To see if there was a significant difference in the usage rate of horizontal

and vertical emoticons by Singaporean and Taiwanese users, an independent-samples

t-test was conducted. Table 3 illustrates the results from the independent-samples t-

test analysis. According to the results, there is a statistically significant mean

difference in the style of emotions used between Singaporean users (M = 10.82; SD =

1.62) and Taiwanese users (M = 2.81; SD = 1.70); t(324) = 43.63, p < 0.01. Results

show that Singaporean users prefer using horizontal style emoticons while Taiwanese

users are in favor of vertical style emoticons instead.

Figure 5. Average usage rate of horizontal and vertical emoticons per user for all 12

situations

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

All Singapore Taiwan

Mea

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Table 3

Results of t-test on Emoticons Style (Horizontal and Vertical) by Country

Country 99% CI for

Mean

Difference Singapore Taiwan

M SD n M SD n t df

Emoticons Style 10.82 1.62 172 2.81 1.70 154 7.53, 8.48 43.63** 324

Note. ** p < 0.01.

RQ2 examined the kinds of designs used to represent the eyes and mouths of

emoticons. Table 4 and Table 5 exemplify the different designs of eyes and mouths in

emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users.

To answer RQ2a, the eyes of emoticons in general are represented using a

variety of characters ranging from punctuation, symbols, to alphabets. Designs

include “:” (colon), “>” and “<” (angle brackets), “–” (dash), “�” (misoriented

parenthesis), “/” (slash), “\” (backslash), “°” (degree symbol), “′” (prime symbol), “`”

(backtick), “=” (equal sign), “^” (carat), “�” (circled dot), “@” (at sign), and “o” and

“T” (English alphabets). A comparison was done to see if there was a difference in

the design of eyes used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users. Findings show that

Singaporean users mainly prefer using the colon sign for the eyes. Emoticons with

colon sign as the eyes accounted for 90.2% (n = 1861) of all emoticons used among

Singaporean users. On the other hand, Taiwanese users prefer eyes that are more

emphasized. The angle bracket is the most commonly used design for the eyes and

emoticons with such design of the eyes accounted for 33.7% (n = 623) of the total

number of emoticons used among Taiwanese users.

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As for RQ2b, mouths of emoticons in general are also usually depicted with

characters ranging from punctuation, symbols, to alphabets. Designs include “.” (full

stop), “(” and “)” (parenthesis), “<” (angle bracket), “_” (underscore), “�” (wavy

underline), “/” (slash), “^” (caret), “@” (at sign), “π” and “ω” (Greek alphabets), “Ж”

and “Д” (Cyrillic alphabets), “�”�(Chinese character), and “O”, “X”, “D”, “S”, and

“m” (English alphabets). Emoticons were also compared across cultures to see if there

was a difference regarding the design of mouths used by Singaporean and Taiwanese

users. From Table 5, the open parenthesis is the most commonly used design of

mouth used by Singaporean users. This design accounted for 16.2% (n = 334) out of

the other designs of mouths used among Singaporean users. Other commonly used

designs include slash (15.5%; n = 319), the English alphabet “X” (13.5%; n = 278),

closed parenthesis (12.0%; n = 247), and the English alphabet “O” (11.7%; n = 242).

As for Taiwanese users, the English alphabet “O” is the most commonly used design

of mouth by and it accounted for 16.5% (n = 304) out of the other designs of mouths

used among Taiwanese users. Other commonly used designs of mouths for Taiwanese

users include open parenthesis (10.4%; n = 193), the Cyrillic alphabet “ж” (9.3%; n =

171), and closed parenthesis (8.1%; n = 150).

Findings show no significant difference regarding the design of mouths used

between Singaporean and Taiwanese users as mouths of emoticons are often

emphasized. However, in terms of its complexity of design of mouths used in the

emoticons, mouths of emoticons used by Singaporean users are typically those that

can be reproduced in ASCII (e.g. parenthesis, slash, and English alphabets). However,

apart from ASCII characters, Taiwanese users also commonly use other foreign

alphabets and symbols to represent the mouths of emoticons. This shows that

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Taiwanese users use more complicated characters to depict the mouths of emoticons

when compared to the ones used by Singaporean users.

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Tabl

e 4

Des

ign

of E

yes

in E

mot

icon

s U

sed

by S

inga

pore

an a

nd T

aiw

anes

e U

sers

Des

ign

of E

yes

!C

ount

ry

: >

<°

°!´ `

/\!

= =

^ ^

!

@@

T

T!o

O!

Tota

l

Sing

apor

e 18

61

(90.

2%)

23

(1.1

%)

0

(0.0

%)

8

(0.4

%)

1

(0.0

%)

11

(0.5

%)

31

(1.5

%)

10

(0.5

%)

4

(0.2

%)

14

(0.7

%)

95

(4.6

%)

6

(0.3

%)

2064

(100

%)

Taiw

an

433

(23.

4%)

623

(33.

7%)

45

(2.4

%)

221

(12.

0%)

83

(4.5

%)

46

(2.5

%)

109

(5.9

%)

57

(3.1

%)

98

(5.3

%)

70

(3.8

%)

5

(0.3

%)

58

(3.1

%)

1848

(100

%)

Tabl

e 5

Des

ign

of M

outh

s in

Em

otic

ons

Use

d by

Sin

gapo

rean

and

Tai

wan

ese

Use

rs

Des

ign

of M

outh

s

Cou

ntry

/

O

ж

_ @

X

�

Д

�

D

(

) S

^ .

m

π

< N

one

Tota

l

Sing

apor

e 31

9

(15.

5

%)

10

(0.5 %)

242

(11.

7

%)

6 (0.3 %)

2 (0.1 %)

149

(7.2 %)

278

(13.

5

%)

16

(0.8 %)

0 (0.0 %)

4 (0.2 %)

62

(3.0 %)

334

(16.

2

%)

247

(12.

0

%)

87

(4.2 %)

20

(1.0 %)

95

(4.6 %)

5 (0.2 %)

2 (0.1 %)

145

(7.0 %)

41

(2.0 %)

2064

(100

%)

Taiw

an

4 (0.2 %)

59

(3.2 %)

304

(16.

5

%)

171

(9.3 %)

102

(5.5 %)

4 (0.2 %)

18

(1.0 %)

54

(3.0 %)

133

(7.2 %)

30

(1.6 %)

17

(0.9 %)

193

(10.

4

%)

150

(8.1 %)

22

(1.2 %)

128

(6.9 %)

5 (0.3 %)

117

(6.3 %)

50

(2.7 %)

1 (0.0 %)

286

(15.

5

%)

1848

(100

%)

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RQ3 and RQ4 asked if language has an impact on Singaporean users’

interpretation of Taiwanese users’ commonly used emoticons and Taiwanese users’

interpretation of Singaporean users’ commonly used emoticons. During the course of

discussion, many participants admitted that they encountered difficulties while

interpreting those emoticons. This situation was particularly evident among

Singaporean participants.

For example, when Singaporean participants were asked to interpret the

vertical emoticon >m<, some of the answers provided include “sleepy”, “anxiety”,

and “excited”. These answers ranged over a wide range of emotions, from positive

(i.e. excited) to negative (i.e. anxiety). Many even replied with “no idea” or “don’t

know”, displaying the struggles they had while trying to recognize and interpret

vertical style emoticons. According to results received from the pilot test, >m< was

listed as fear in the eyes of the Taiwanese respondents. Singaporean participants from

the focus groups were neither able to get the meaning right nor were their answers

close or somewhat similar to the actual meaning. On the other hand, when Taiwanese

participants were given the horizontal expression of :S, the answers given were close

to the actual meaning of disgust. Most answers given by Taiwanese participants

include “vomiting”, “nausea”, or “feeling sick”.

In the next section, we sought to understand the reason behind the preference

for a particular style of emoticons for users of a certain culture. This is essential in

order to allow us understand the effects it has on the way people are able or are unable

to interpret the emoticons used by natives from the other culture.

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Habits and Attitude

Often, the first response participants from both Singapore and Taiwan gave

when they were asked why they preferred using a certain style of emoticons was

“People around me are using the same style, so I naturally picked them up” or

“Symbols that can be found readily on my keyboard.” These responses were frequent,

but brief, as if they were tip-of-the-tongue responses. Apart from social influence and

how convenient characters can be found, another important reason for the preference

for a certain style of emoticons had to do with the upbringing of a person.

Singaporean participants deemed reading and using emoticons that are constructed

horizontally as something “natural” to them, as participant E6 commented:

You read sentences from left to right, same for emoticons, like it’s part of the

sentence. It just comes very natural… And it’s not as though I need to tilt my

head or turn the paper [in order to read the emoticons], I can read it as it is.

The way a language is constructed seemed to have an effect on a person’s

cognition. Since English describes physical space and time on a horizontal plane, as

well as English can only be written horizontally, the fact that Singaporeans have been

trained and are familiar with such orientation since young confirmed their preference

for horizontal style emoticons. Many even commented that horizontal emoticons were

more straightforward as compared to vertical emoticons as they were able to

“understand them easily and way faster than those that are not rotated (vertical

emoticons).”

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Since Singaporean participants were found to use horizontal emoticons

practically most of the time, wherein 90.2% (n = 1861) of the total emoticons used by

Singaporeans were horizontal emoticons, this explained why they had difficulties

interpreting the actual emotion behind vertical emoticons – the style of emoticons that

they were less familiar with. When asked the reason for not being able to recognize

vertical emoticons, participant E10 noted that it was due to the design of emoticons:

For horizontal emoticons, the eyes are simple, usually with two dots (colon

sign), so we only look at the mouth [to infer the emotion]. For vertical

emoticons, everything seems so emphasized and complicated, I don’t know

where should I focus.

On the contrary, research findings have found that vertical emoticons were the

preferred style of emoticons among Taiwanese users. However, it is also important to

note that horizontal emoticons also took up a substantial portion of the usage rate too.

This was reflected in the findings from the survey questionnaire wherein horizontal

emoticons accounted for 23.4% (n = 433) of the total number of emoticons used by

Taiwanese users. Taiwanese users least preferred emoticons style (horizontal

emoticons) had more than twice the usage rate as compared to the least preferred style

of emoticons (vertical emoticons) among Singaporean users (9.8%; n = 203). When

compared to Singaporean users, Taiwanese users seem to be more receptive toward

the use of both styles of emoticons, although with a higher preference for vertical

emoticons. This evidence is supported with participant M3’s statement:

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We actually use both kinds of emoticons, but vertical emoticons are usually

the more commonly used ones. We pay attention to the eyes… Vertical

emoticons are more vivid and realistic and they help us express ourselves

better. There is a saying, “Eyes are the windows to the soul.”

Since Taiwanese users do use both horizontal and vertical emoticons is their

texts, the fact that Taiwanese participants were able to guess what the horizontal

emoticon meant with an answer close to the exact meaning explained why they

encountered lesser difficulties than Singaporean participants when interpreting

emoticons commonly used by natives from the other culture. However, even though

Taiwanese participants were able to correctly interpret the emotion behind the given

horizontal emoticon, horizontal emoticons were neither the top nor preferred choice of

emoticons among Taiwanese users. The main reason for the preference for vertical

emoticons lies in the design of eyes as well as the design of the emoticon as a whole

since vertical emoticons come in “more variety” and are “more emphasized” when

compared to horizontal emoticons. Participant M4 explained her point of view:

The whole (horizontal) emoticon just looks simple and I don’t think I can

fully express myself [with it]… As for vertical emoticons, there is more to it.

We have the shape of the face, and even the hands. It seems as though we are

using our whole body to express our emotions.

While Taiwanese participants often describe vertical emoticons as

“expressive”, “cute”, and that it “helps to improve the mood of the conversation

partner”, Singaporean participants brought up the point that horizontal emoticons

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were “simple” and “sufficient to express what I (the user) want.” Clearly, there shows

a difference in attitude regarding the preferred style of emoticons as participants from

both countries have seemingly opposite opinions. Singaporean participants favor

horizontal emoticons for the very reason Taiwanese users bear dislike for horizontal

emoticons – the simplicity. Taiwanese participants prefer vertical emoticons for the

very reason Singaporean users bear dislike for vertical emoticons – the complexity.

Exposure to Characters and Accessibility to Emoticons

Apart from the way a language is constructed as well as the way emoticons are

designed, which has an effect on participants’ interpretation of emoticons, an

exposure to the characters found in emoticons seemed to have an apparent effect as

well. Some Singaporean participants said that they could not recognize vertical

emoticons mainly because they were unfamiliar with the kind of characters found in

it. While horizontal emoticons are usually formed by combining various ASCII

keyboard characters, vertical emoticons frequently used by Taiwanese users are in the

form of a Japanese style wherein such emoticons are not only made up of ASCII

characters but also contain Chinese characters and other foreign letters and symbols.

As such, the lack of exposure to other characters, letters, and symbols other than those

available on the ASCII keyboard could probably explain why Singaporean

participants had difficulties recognizing and interpreting vertical emoticons while

Taiwanese participants, even though they prefer using vertical emoticons,

encountered less difficulties when it comes to reading horizontal emoticons since

ASCII characters are already found in Japanese style emoticons.

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Another issue that was brought up during the course of discussion was the

limitations found between the English and Mandarin Chinese keyboard on

smartphones. Participant M6 elaborated on the kind of limitation Apple’s iPhone

users face when they are on the English keyboard:

The English keyboard doesn’t have them (a list of emoticons), but it’s built-in

for us (Taiwanese users). You can choose one of the default ones or create

new ones yourself, so there are unlimited possibilities. You don’t have to

download or enable them. It’s already inside (built-in).

For participant M6, the main reason that may affect the recognition and

interpretation of emoticons would be how much access a person has to the various

kinds of emoticons. Using iPhone as an example, the English keyboard does not

provide its users with a list of emoticons to choose from. This means that users have

to create emoticons from scratch, or off the top of their head, by combining the

available characters on the ASCII keyboard. However, in addition to creating their

own emoticons with the available characters, users of the Chinese keyboard on the

iPhone may be exposed to far more characters than what is available on the keyboard

itself leading to a wider knowledge of emoticons since a built-in list of emoticons can

be readily found on the Chinese keyboard on the iPhone. There are currently 272

emoticons, including 12 horizontal emoticons on the list (Figure 6). Hence, this also

suggests that there has already been an innate limitation on the availability of

emoticons in which users from an English or Mandarin-speaking background can

have access to. The lack of exposure to Chinese characters and other foreign letters

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and symbols as well as lack of accessibility to emoticons could have resulted in a

smaller emoticons vocabulary size among Singaporean users, thus not being able to

recognize as many emoticons as compared to Taiwanese users.

Figure 6. A built-in list of emoticons found on the Chinese keyboard but not on the English

keyboard on Apple’s iPhone.

Finally, RQ5 examined the kinds of factors that can be used to predict the

style of emoticons in CMC. Table 6 presents the results from a correlation and

regression analysis, which looked at the relationship between the listed variables and

the use of horizontal and vertical emoticons. 87.7% of the variance was measured.

From Table 6, English proficiency, Mandarin proficiency, and commonly used

language all showed a significant relationship with the type of emoticons style used.

Firstly, English proficiency is positively related to the style of emoticons (r = 0.90, p

< 0.01; β = 0.23, p < 0.01). The better a person’s proficiency in English, the more he

or she will use horizontal emoticons. Secondly, Mandarin proficiency is negatively

related to the style of emoticons (r = -0.92, p < 0.01; β = -0.42, p < 0.01). The better a

person’s proficiency in Mandarin Chinese, the more he or she will use vertical

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emoticons. Table 7 presents an independent-samples t-test analysis regarding

language proficiency among respondents. While Singaporean respondents (M = 9.80;

SD = 0.40) have a higher proficiency in English than Taiwanese respondents (M =

3.40; SD = 1.57); t(324) = 51.58, p < 0.01, Taiwanese respondents (M = 9.73; SD =

0.48) have a higher proficiency in Mandarin Chinese than Singaporean respondents

(M = 3.26; SD = 1.34); t(324) = -56.91, p < 0.01. Finally, language is positively

related to the style of emoticons (r = 0.92, p < 0.01; β = 0.30, p < 0.01). This shows

that if a person’s most commonly used language is English, he or she will be more

likely to use horizontal emoticons. While all Singaporean respondents selected

English as their most commonly used language (M = 1.00; SD = 0.00), all Taiwanese

respondents indicated Mandarin Chinese as their most commonly used language (M =

2.00; SD = 0.00). Therefore, the above results all suggest that language does in fact,

have an impact on the orientation of emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese

users.

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Table 6

Factors to Predict the Type of Emoticons Style

Zero Order Correlation Regression Coefficient

Age 0.014 -0.022

Gender

(1=Male, 0=Female)

0.030 -0.006

English Proficiency 0.897** 0.234**

Mandarin Proficiency -0.920** -0.422**

Language

(1=English, 0=Mandarin)

0.924** 0.302**

Frequency 0.015 0.021

R Square 0.877

Note. n = 326. ** p < 0.01.

Table 7

Results of t-test on Language Proficiency by Country

Country 99% CI for

Mean

Difference Singapore Taiwan

M SD n M SD n t df

English 9.80 0.40 172 3.40 1.57 154 6.08, 6.73 51.58** 324

Mandarin 3.26 1.34 172 9.73 0.48 154 -6.76, -6.17 -56.91** 324

Note. ** p < 0.01.

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Discussion

This research used both quantitative and qualitative research methods to

examine the relationship between language and emoticons, by comparing English and

Mandarin speakers’ usage of emoticons in CMC.

Emoticons Style

Research findings show that Singaporean and Taiwanese users have a

difference in preference for emoticons style. Singaporean users favor horizontal

emoticons and predominantly use such style in CMC. Taiwanese users, on the other

hand, prefer using vertical style emoticons but are also receptive toward the use of

horizontal style emoticons. Approximately one-fifth of the total number of emoticons

used by Taiwanese users are horizontal emoticons. Even though Singapore and

Taiwan both belong to the Eastern culture, current research findings differ from

previous literatures whereby some researchers have stated that styles of emoticons

vary according to culture, wherein Westerners employ horizontal style emoticons and

Easterners employ vertical style emoticons (Yuki et al., 2007). As such, language

could have a greater impact in determining the style of emoticons.

The theory of linguistic relativity states that our experiences are largely

determined by the language we speak; speakers of different languages may be

accustomed to a certain way of thinking and writing depending on the structure of

language they use (Hoijer, 1954). Previous literatures on the effects of language on

emoticons style found that people who live in English-speaking countries and

countries where English is in common usage with local languages tend to utilize

horizontal style emoticons (Park et al., 2013). This was the case for Singapore in this

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research. In comparison, since Taiwan is neither an English-speaking country nor a

country where English is in common usage with local languages, Taiwanese users

prefer using vertical emoticons instead. Such usage style is similar to countries such

as Japan and South Korea where users from these countries also commonly use

vertical emoticons in CMC (Park et al., 2013). Japan and South Korea are neither

English-speaking countries nor countries where English is in common usage with

local languages as well.

Other evidence to support the effects of language on the style of emoticons a

person uses include the ways of describing physical space and time as well as the

orthography of a language. Both English and Mandarin use horizontal terms (front

and back) to talk about space and time, but unlike English speakers, Mandarin

speakers also systematically and frequently use vertical metaphors (up and down) to

talk about space and time (Scott, 1989, as cited in Boroditsky, 2001). In terms of

orthography, while English can only be written horizontally, from left to right,

Mandarin was traditionally written in vertical columns arranged from right to left and

there has been a switch to writing in horizontal rows from left to right (same as in

English) within the last century (Dong, 2009). As such, this explains the results

gathered from this research. Users from an English-speaking background (Singapore)

predominantly use horizontal emoticons while users from a Mandarin-speaking

background (Taiwan) seem to be more receptive toward using both styles of

emoticons, although with a higher preference for vertical emoticons in CMC.

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Eyes and Mouths of Emoticons

The kinds of designs used to represent the eyes and mouths of emoticons were

analyzed. Previous literatures on the cross-cultural use of emoticons state that

emoticons style varies according to users’ cultural background wherein Westerners

favor horizontal style emotions and Easterners employ vertical emoticons in CMC.

This has to do with display rules, such as what kinds of expressions of emotions are

appropriate in a particular culture. Hence, while horizontal emoticons emphasize the

mouth, vertical emoticons focus on the eyes instead. If culture has an effect on the

style of emoticons a person uses, we would expect users from both countries to use

the same emoticons style with an emphasis on the eyes. However, results obtained

from this research did not correspond to previous literatures on culture and style of

emoticons since it has been found that Singaporean users predominantly use

horizontal emoticons while Taiwanese users prefer using vertical emoticons, but are

also receptive toward the use of horizontal emoticons in CMC. This suggests that

styles of emoticons are shaped by the structure of our language. In terms of the

emphasis on eyes or mouths of emoticons, research findings show that while

horizontal emoticons commonly use the colon sign to represent the eyes, the design of

eyes of vertical emoticons comes in more variety and are more emphasized, such as

the use of angle brackets and the carat sign. As for the mouths of emoticons, findings

show no significant difference between the design of mouths used by Singaporean and

Taiwanese users as mouths are often emphasized. However, in terms of the

complexity of the design of mouths, Taiwanese users were found to use more

complicated designs than those used by Singaporean users.

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Number of keyboard characters. An explanation for such difference in the

design of eyes and mouths of emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users

could be attributed to the number of keyboard characters a person has access to. For

example, horizontal emoticons that are predominantly used by Singaporean users are

formed using the ASCII keyboard characters. ASCII is a scheme that only encodes

“128 specific characters – the numbers 0-9, the letters a-z and A-Z, some basic

punctuation symbols, some control codes that originated with Teletype machines, and

a blank space” (Shirley, 2007, p. 17). On the other hand, Japanese style emoticons

commonly used by Taiwanese users are represented with a combination of ASCII

characters, Chinese characters, and other foreign alphabets and symbols (e.g. Greek

and Cyrillic alphabets). Apart from the 128 ASCII characters, Chinese characters can

amount up to tens of thousands, not to mention the number of characters found in

other foreign alphabets and symbols as well. As a result, Taiwanese users tend to have

more selection of characters and thus, are able to form more varied and complicated

designs when forming emoticons.

External influences. Another possible reason for the difference in design of

eyes of emoticons used by Singaporean and Taiwanese users could be due to external

influences, such as the influence of comics from America and Japan.

Taiwanese people are “heavily influenced by Japanese culture” (Garver, 2011,

p. 6). Taiwanese people building Japanese-style homes, learning to speak Japanese,

adopting Japanese names and customs (e.g. removing shoes inside one’s home,

favoring Japanese music and movies, and eating sashimi) are examples to show the

influence of Japanese culture on Taiwanese people (Garver, 2011). On the other hand,

Singapore came under the influence of Western influence as the British had colonized

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Singapore in the earlier times (Lim, 2008). Singapore has also adopted English as the

country’s first language. Thus, while Taiwanese may be more exposed to Japanese

comics (manga), Singaporeans are more exposed to English comics.

One important difference between Japanese manga and English comics is the

type of visual style used. While big eyes, big bosoms, very young-looking female

characters and a cute quality are styles not native to the American-style works, such

characteristics are commonly found in Japanese manga (Schodt, 2013). Figure 7

exemplifies the differences between Japanese manga and English comics. The main

difference as shown in the figure is the way in which the eyes are represented.

Characters in Japanese manga usually have big and detailed eyes, and are sometimes

exaggerated. In comparison, the eyes of the characters in English comics can be very

simple, as they are commonly denoted with only two dots, showing that eyes are not

usually emphasized in English comics. The eyes of comic characters seem to have an

impact on the way eyes are denoted in emoticons. This could explain why the eyes of

emoticons used by Taiwanese users are often more varied and emphasized than the

ones used by Singaporean users.

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Figure 7. (Left) Japanese manga “Oishinbo”. Adapted from Netatama website, by T. Kariya

and A. Hanasaki, n.d., retrieved from http://netatama.net/archives/6502073.html. Copyright

2010 by Netatama; (Right) American comic “Peanuts”. Adapted from Peanuts Comic Strips

website, by C. M. Schulz, n.d., retrieved from

http://www.peanuts.com/comics/#.VVBhCxeVH_4. Copyright 2014 by Peanuts Worldwide

LLC.

Although, there is no significant difference in the design of mouths used by

Singaporean and Taiwanese users as mouths of emoticons are often stressed, one

noteworthy phenomenon regarding vertical emoticons is that in many situations,

vertical emoticons can do without the mouths. As stated earlier, the normative form of

vertical style emoticons is defined by the shape of the eyes and by default does not

contain a mouth (e.g. @@) (Park et al., 2013). This means that on many occasions, a

receiver would be able to understand the meaning of a vertical emoticon even without

the presence of a mouth. Eyes alone are capable of carrying the meaning of the

emoticon itself. However, since horizontal emoticons usually emphasize the mouth

more than the eyes (where eyes are predominantly denoted with a colon sign) (Park et

al., 2013), mouths of horizontal emoticons are vital in meaning making of emoticons.

Variants. Another interesting finding is the use of variants in emoticons.

Variants are a common feature to the normative forms of emoticons (Park et al.,

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2013). Variants of the normative forms “depict features such as nose, tears, hair,

chins, and eyebrows” (p. 469). According to Park et al. (2013), a common variant for

both horizontal and vertical styles is the lengthening of mouth such as :)) and T__T.

This may be related to the phenomenon where people lengthen words to emphasize

their sentiment, as in “coooooooooooooolllll” (Brody & Diakopoulos, 2011).

Emoticons may have evolved to incorporate this convention, where people repeat the

mouth to “indicate a stronger affect while denoting the same meaning” (Park et al.,

2013, p. 469).

Variants are particularly notable among Japanese style emoticons; this could

also be due to the influence of Japanese manga and animation (anime). Figure 8

shows how the sweat drop variant and angry veins variant are commonly found on

manga and anime characters. The sweat drop and angry veins are often found on

characters’ heads or beside their eyes as shown in the figure. The sweat drop variant,

when accompanied with different design of eyes can be used to express feelings of

shyness, embarrassment, confusion, or shock (Park et al., 2013). In this research, the

use of the sweat drop variant is used to express the feeling of disgust, as in (´ж�;)

and fear, as in ((( � Д ��))). Other kinds of variants found in this research include the

use of parenthesis, as in (^o^) to indicate the chin or the shape of the face, the use of a

slash and backslash, as in /( to indicate the arms, the use of a carat symbol, as

in T^T to indicate the nose, and the use of quotation marks, as in >"< to indicate the

knitting of one’s eyebrows. Variants in horizontal emoticons are less common. For

horizontal emoticons, the apostrophe in the emoticon :'( is used to represent a

teardrop, indicating sadness.

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Figure 8. Anime characters with a sweat drop and angry veins. Adapted from Anime &

Manga website, by Anime & Manga, 2013, retrieved from http://anime.stackexchange.com.

Copyright 2015 by Stack Exchange.

The Importance of Context

While every emoticon was assumed to have its own specific emotion at the

beginning of the study, results obtained from the survey questionnaire showed

otherwise. In other words, the use of a specific emoticon tends to overlap across

different situations, wherein an emoticon can represent different emotions in different

situations. For example, out of the emoticons used among Singaporean users, the

emoticons :/ and :( had the most number of overlaps (see Appendix K). :/ and :( were

used by Singaporean users to represent situations of disgust, sadness, anger, and fear.

As for Taiwanese users, emoticons such as /( , @@, :(, and T^T had the most

number of overlaps (see Appendix L). For example, /( was used to represent

situations of happiness, surprise and fear. @@ was used to indicate situations of

sadness, surprise, and fear. :( and T^T were used to express situations of disgust,

sadness, and fear. In addition, results obtained from this study showed that the number

of emoticons used to express a certain emotion exceeded the number of emoticons the

researcher has assigned to each emotion at the beginning of the study. In particular,

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emoticons that were used to express the emotion of disgust had the most variety as the

researcher has originally only assigned five horizontal and vertical emoticons to

express disgust. However, Singaporeans were found to use a total of nine emoticons

(see Appendix K) while Taiwanese used a total of 12 emoticons (see Appendix L) to

express the emotion of disgust, many of which were emoticons used to represent

emotions of sadness, anger, and fear as assumed by the researcher at the beginning of

the study.

According to Skovholt, Gronning, and KanKaanranta (2014), emoticons serve

three communicative functions. Firstly, when following signatures, emoticons

function as markers of a positive attitude (Skovholt et al., 2014). Secondly, when

following utterances that are intended to be interpreted as humorous, emoticons can

serve as joke or irony markers (Skovholt et al., 2014). Thirdly, emoticons are hedges

wherein emoticons following expressive speech acts such as thanks, greetings,

wishes, appraisals, promises, and admissions function as strengtheners, and emoticons

following directives such as requests, corrections, rejections, and complaints function

as softeners (Skovholt et al., 2014). Thus, while emoticons can be seen as a form of an

aid to enhance communication, the type of emoticons used largely depends on the

context of a message.

Social Cognitive Theory to Explain Behavior

This research also sought to examine a person’s ability to recognize and

interpret emoticons used by natives from another culture with a different language

background. Results from the focus groups found that while Singaporean participants

had difficulties recognizing and interpreting the actual emotion behind vertical

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emoticons, Taiwanese participants were better at recognizing and interpreting the

meaning of horizontal emoticons with an answer close to the actual meaning. Reasons

brought up by the participants include peer influence, availability of punctuation,

symbols, and alphabets, a person’s reading and writing pattern, the perceived

simplicity or complexity of emoticons, the perceived benefits and importance of using

a certain style of emoticons, a person’s familiarity with the type of characters used in

emoticons, and the accessibility to emoticons. We were able to find a connection

between these reasons in relation to the social cognitive theory since data appear to

support the principles described in the theory. The social cognitive theory states that

in developing models to explain behavior, it is important to consider socio-

environmental, personal, and behavioral factors, and the interplay among them

(Bandura, 1986).

Socio-environmental factors refer to situational conditions as well as social

factors that may promote the learning of a behavior through observations and

interactions with others (Larson, 2007). Personal factors refer to self-efficacy or the

confidence to perform a given behavior, expectations relating to a behavior, and

expectancies or values (Larson, 2007). Behavioral factors refer the abilities, self-

regulatory behaviors, and other behaviors or habits of an individual related to the

performance of a behavior (Larson, 2007).

In the case of this research, we are able to classify the reasons mentioned by

the participants from the focus groups under these three factors. For instance, socio-

environmental factors include the availability of punctuation, symbols and alphabets

to construct emoticons, the accessibility to emoticons, such as whether it being readily

available through the medium, and peer influence, whereby people are often

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influenced to use the same emoticons style as used by their conversation partners.

Personal factors include a person’s familiarity with the type of characters used in

emoticons, the perceived simplicity or complexity, and the perceived benefits and

importance of using a certain style of emoticons. Finally, behavioral factors would

include a person’s reading and writing pattern that has been ingrained in them since

young. Hence, the above-mentioned factors suggest that they all play a part in

influencing and guiding a person’s behavior, ultimately affecting their ability to

recognize and interpret emoticons used by people from a different language

background.

The Effects of Language on Everyday Life

Current research findings have found that language is a predictor of the style

of emoticons. A person’s most commonly used language and the higher the

proficiency in a certain language will affect the style of emoticons he or she uses.

However, not only does language affects the style of emoticons a person uses, on a

larger scale, other studies have also discussed about the impact of language on

everyday life, such as economic decisions.

While futured languages such as English distinguish between the past, present,

and future, futureless languages such as Mandarin use the same phrasing to describe

the events of yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Chen, 2012). Mandarin does not divide

the time spectrum in the same way English forces it’s speakers to constantly do in

order to speak correctly. For example, an English speaker has to speak grammatically

differently in English if he or she was talking about past rain “It rained yesterday”,

current rain “It is raining now”, or future rain “It will rain tomorrow” (Chen, 2012).

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In contrast, a Mandarin speaker can say something that sounds very strange to an

English speaker’s ears such as ��(yesterday it rain)��(now

it rain), or��(tomorrow it rain) (Chen, 2012). Such linguistic discrepancy

led to huge economic differences. Chen (2012) found that futureless language (i.e.

Mandarin) speakers are 30% more likely to report having saved in any given year than

futured language (i.e. English) speakers, and this would lead to 25% more savings by

retirement, if income is held constant. The reason is due to when speakers speak about

the future as more distinct from the present, it feels more distant. However, for those

who speak a futureless language, since speakers speak about the present and future

identically, this subtly nudges a person to feel about them identically, therefore giving

a person more motivation to save (Chen, 2012). Other effects of language on behavior

include the awareness of gender identity at an earlier stage than the others, as some

languages (e.g. Hebrew) include gender markers while others (e.g. Finnish) does not

mark gender at all (Guiora, Beit-Hallahmi, Fried, & Yoder, 1982), and the ability to

distinguish between colors, as some languages (e.g. Russian) have separate words for

various shades of the same color (Chen, 2013).

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

One of the limitations of the current research is that the online survey

questionnaire was conducted via a non-probability sampling method (i.e. convenience

sampling). This might have resulted in possible bias and limits on generalization of

findings. For example, the use of such method might fail to reach out to certain

groups of people such as those who do not have access to the Internet, or those who

were not online during the period when the questionnaire was made available due to

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unforeseen circumstances. Moreover, it is not known if the demographic

characteristics of respondents who answered the survey questionnaire are of the same

proportion as the general population within the country, which might result certain

members to be underrepresented or overrepresented. With the use of convenience

sampling, we will not be able to generalize the results gathered from the survey

questionnaire to the general population of adults living in Singapore and in Taiwan.

With regards to the focus groups for Singaporean participants, 3 out of 12

participants are students who have been living in Taiwan for at least half a year. As

they have been in contact with the Taiwanese culture for a longer period of time, this

might have affected their answers given during the discussions, such as being able to

recognize vertical emoticons better as compared to the other nine Singaporean

participants who have minimal background knowledge and contact with the

Taiwanese culture. On the other hand, all Taiwanese participants from the focus

groups have no experience of living and studying abroad. As such, none of them are

overly exposed to the English-speaking culture. Future research should ensure that all

participants’ background knowledge and the amount of contact a person has with the

other culture should be kept consistent with one other.

In addition, as this research only focused on the six universal emotions, future

research could consider examining other emotions to see if similar results apply. Also,

since this research held cultural background constant and focused on language by

comparing two Eastern countries, Singapore and Taiwan with different status of

English in the country, future research could also investigate if similar results apply to

two Western countries, both with different status of English in the country (one being

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an English-speaking country and the other being neither an English-speaking country

nor English is in common usage along with local languages).

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Conclusion

This research investigated the cross-cultural use of emoticons in Singapore

and Taiwan. Results gathered from the research show that language background does

play a significant role in affecting the style and representation of emoticons, as well as

the way a person recognizes and interprets emoticons used by the natives from

another culture.

Firstly, Singaporean users predominantly use horizontal style emoticons while

Taiwanese users prefer using vertical style emoticons. Approximately four-fifth of the

total number of emoticons used by Taiwanese users are vertical emoticons. There are

also differences in the way in which eyes and mouths are depicted in emoticons.

Singaporean users emphasize the mouth for expressing emotions and commonly use

the colon sign for the eyes. As for Taiwanese users, both the eyes and mouths of

emoticons are emphasized. In addition, the mouths of emoticons used by Taiwanese

users can sometimes be even more complicated than the ones used by Singaporean

users. Furthermore, data from the focus groups have found that language background

does affects a person’s ability to recognize and interpret emoticons used by the

natives from another culture. This situation was more prominent among Singaporean

participants as they were found to be less capable in recognizing and interpreting

emoticons commonly used by their Taiwanese counterparts.

However, the barrier of not being able to recognize and interpret emoticons

used by people with a different language background can be overcome through cross-

cultural exposure. In a study done by Elfenbein and Ambady (2003), Chinese students

residing in the United States for an average of 2.4 years could better interpret the

meaning of horizontal emoticons used by their American counterparts. Since this

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study was done more than a decade ago, the time taken for a person to recognize and

interpret the less preferred style of emoticons within their own country would

definitely decrease greatly since the advancement of technology can help to

breakdown geographical barriers and give people more opportunity to interact and

communicate with people of different language backgrounds.

To date, most cross-cultural literature on emoticons often compare countries

that vary both in terms of their culture and status of English in the country, such as

comparing Japan or Korea with the United States (e.g. Park, 2013; Yuki, Maddux, &

Masuda, 2007), making it difficult to investigate the actual cause of the difference in

style and representation of emoticons. Results obtained through this research hopes to

shed some light on existing literature on the cross-cultural use of emoticons and to

provide more opportunities for future researchers to fill the research gap.

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Appendices

Appendix A

Survey on Emoticons (Pilot Test)

Dear respondent,

You are invited to participate in a research study on emoticons. This study is conducted by Yi-Ting Tan, from the Department of Radio and Television, College of Communication at National Chengchi University. This study is conducted as part of a Master’s Thesis at the university. Your input is important and they will be treated as confidential. Thank you for your cooperation.

Using a combination of symbols, punctuation marks and characters found on your keyboard, please type in the emoticon that you will most likely use for each emotion stated below. Please fill in all fields.

Q1. Disgust: _________________

Q2. Sadness: _________________

Q3. Happiness: _______________

Q4. Anger: __________________

Q5. Surprise: ________________

Q6. Fear: ___________________

End of survey, thank you for your participation!

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Appendix B

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Appendix C

Survey on Emoticons (Actual Questionnaire)

Dear respondent,

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Yi-Ting Tan, from the Department of Radio and Television, College of Communication at National Chengchi University. This study is conducted as part of a Master’s Thesis at the university. The purpose of this research is to explore the cross-cultural use of emoticons.

Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from this study at any time without penalty. The procedure involves filling an online survey questionnaire, which will take approximately 10 minutes. Your responses will be treated as confidential and the results of this study will be used for scholarly purposes only.

Should you have any further questions about this study, please do not hesitate to contact Yi-Ting Tan at +886 979 249 374. Thank you.

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Please select your choice below. Clicking on the “Agree” button below indicates that:

• You have read the information above • You voluntarily agree to participate • You are at least 18 years of age

If you do not wish to participate in the research study, please decline participation by clicking on the “Disagree” button. □ Agree □ Disagree

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Q1. Do you use emoticons? (Note. Emoticons are those that you can type using a combination of symbols, punctuations and keyboard characters, e.g. :)) □ Yes□ No (You have reached the end of the survey. Thank you!)

Q2. How frequent do you use emoticons? □ Rarely□ Sometimes□ Often□ Always

Imagine yourself posting the following messages on your social networking sites or typing them as text messages to your friends. What kind of emoticons would you include after each sentence? Please select an emoticon for each situation from the given options. You are allowed to use the same emoticon for multiple questions.

:/ /( °O° (´ж�;) /_\ :@

>o<!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:X ((( � Д ��))) :O ��

�� >"< =�=!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@@ :D :(

:S ^^ T^T o.O :)

>m< :'( )*) (´π`) :<

Q3(a). The waiter accidentally spilt coffee onto my blouse and didn’t even bother to apologize! _______________

Q3(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q3(a) represent? □ Disgust□ Sadness□ Happiness□ Anger□ Surprise□ Fear□ Other (please specify): _______________

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Q4(a). My cat got hit by a car and passed away this morning. _______________


Q5(a). Surgery in two hours, pray for me. _______________


Q6(a). Accidentally drank a mouthful of spoilt milk, ewww! _______________

Q6(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q6(a) represent?□ Disgust□ Sadness□ Happiness□ Anger□ Surprise□ Fear□ Other (please specify): _______________

Q7(a). Officially graduated from university, finally! _______________


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Q8(a). Just the thought of making a speech in front of the whole school makes me break out in a cold sweat. _______________


Q9(a). Amazing voice, even all the judges were shocked! _______________


Q10(a). Can’t wait for the short getaway in two weeks time! _______________

Q10(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q10(a) represent?□ Disgust□ Sadness□ Happiness□ Anger□ Surprise□ Fear□ Other (please specify): _______________

Q11(a). The taxi driver in front cut into my lane without signalling! ______________


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Q12(a). The awful smell of garbage drifted through the air as I walked along the corridor. _______________

Q12(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q12(a) represent? □ Disgust □ Sadness

□ Happiness □ Anger □ Surprise

□ Fear □ Other (please specify): _______________

Q13(a). The announcement of my best friend’s wedding caught me off guard, didn’t

expect it to be this fast. _______________ Q13(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q13(a) represent? □ Disgust

□ Sadness □ Happiness

□ Anger □ Surprise

□ Fear □ Other (please specify): _______________ Q14(a). Thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the unfortunate incident.

_______________ Q14(b). What emotion does the emoticon you have selected in Q14(a) represent?

□ Disgust □ Sadness □ Happiness

□ Anger □ Surprise

□ Fear □ Other (please specify): _______________

Finally, I would like to ask you some demographic questions. These are for statistical purposes only. Q15. How old are you? _______________ years old Q16. What is your gender?

□ Male □ Female

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Q17. Which of the following is your most commonly used language? □ English□Mandarin Chinese

Q18. How would you rate your proficiency in English? □ Poor□ Fair□ Average□ Good□ Excellent

Q19. On an average day, how many hours do you spend using English and/or spend in contact with another English-speaking country? (E.g. conversing, reading and writing in English, watching English television programs and films) □ Less than 1 hour□More than 1 hour but less than 2 hours□More than 2 hour but less than 3 hours□More than 3 hour but less than 4 hours□More than 4 hours

Q20. How would you rate your proficiency in Mandarin Chinese? □ Poor□ Fair□ Average□ Good□ Excellent

Q21. On an average day, how many hours do you spend using Mandarin and/or spend in contact with a Mandarin-speaking country? (E.g. conversing, reading and writing in Mandarin, watching Mandarin television programs and films)□ Less than 1 hour□More than 1 hour but less than 2 hours□More than 2 hour but less than 3 hours□More than 3 hour but less than 4 hours□More than 4 hours


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Appendix D

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:/ /( °O° (´ж�;) /_\ :@

>o<!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:X ((( � Д ��))) :O

�� >"< =�=!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@@ :D :(

:S ^^ T^T o.O :)

>m< :'( )*) (´π`) :<

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Appendix E

Survey on Emotions

Dear respondent,

You are invited to participate in a research study regarding emotion recognition. This study is conducted by Yi-Ting Tan, from the Department of Radio and Television, College of Communication at National Chengchi University. This study is conducted as part of a Master’s Thesis at the university. Your input is important and they will be treated as confidential. Thank you for your cooperation.

Please fill in each blank with the appropriate emotion each sentence is trying to express.

DISGUST SADNESS HAPPINESS ANGER SURPRISE FEAR

Q1. The waiter accidentally spilt coffee onto my blouse and didn’t even bother to apologize! ____________________

Q2. My cat got hit by a car and passed away this morning. ____________________

Q3. Surgery in two hours, pray for me. ____________________

Q4. Accidentally drank a mouthful of spoilt milk, ewww! ____________________

Q5. Officially graduated from university, finally! ____________________

Q6. Just the thought of making a speech in front of the whole school makes me break out in a cold sweat. ____________________

Q7. Amazing voice, even all the judges were shocked! ____________________

Q8. Can’t wait for the short getaway in two weeks time! ____________________

Q9. The taxi driver in front cut into my lane without signalling! ____________________

Q10. The awful smell of garbage drifted through the air as I walked along the corridor. ____________________

Q11. The announcement of my best friend’s wedding caught me off guard, didn’t expect it to be this fast. ____________________

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Q12. Thoughts and prayers to all those affected by the unfortunate incident. ____________________


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Appendix F

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Appendix G

Focus Group Discussion Consent Form

Dear participant,

You are invited to participate in a focus group discussion conducted by Yi-Ting Tan, from the Department of Radio and Television, College of Communication at National Chengchi University. This study is conducted as part of a Master’s Thesis at the university.

The topic of discussion is to explore the cross-cultural use of emoticons.

There will be five participants in the focus group discussion, including a moderator who will ask questions and facilitate the discussion. The whole discussion will be audio recorded. During the discussion, you will be asked some questions relating to your experience and thoughts on the use of emoticons. Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from this study at any time without penalty.

This study will take place on ____________________ (date and time) at ____________________ (place) for a period of approximately one hour. By participating in the focus group discussion, you will also receive a transportation fare of NT$200.

The moderator herself will analyze the data gathered from the discussion. Results will be used for the purposes described in this study. The identity of all participants will not be disclosed; each participant will be given a pseudonym and all information obtained from this study will be kept strictly confidential.

Should you have any further questions about this study, please do not hesitate to contact Yi-Ting Tan at +886 979 249 374. Thank you.

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By signing this consent form, you are indicating that:

• You have read the information above• You voluntarily agree to participate• You are at least 18 years of age

Participant’s signature: ____________________ Date: ____________________

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Appendix H

)

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Appendix I

Questions for Focus Groups

Questions under each category include (but are not limited to):

Opening questions: 1. Please introduce yourself.2. How often do you engage in computer-mediated communication?

Introductory questions: 1. What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word

“emoticons”?2. How often do you use emoticons?3. When was the last time you used emoticons?

Transition questions: 1. Why do you use emoticons? What motivated you to use them?2. Under which situation would you use emoticons?3. How does emoticons enhance or affect your communication with others?

Key questions: 1. What is your preferred style of emoticons? Horizontal or vertical? Why?2. According to a survey that I have conducted earlier, Singaporean users

prefer horizontal emoticons while Taiwanese prefer using vertical emoticons instead. Why is it that Singaporeans in general prefer horizontal emoticons to vertical ones? / Why is it that Taiwanese in general prefer vertical emoticons to horizontal ones?

3. Have you encountered any difficulties while interpreting vertical style emoticons? Explain. / Have you encountered any difficulties while interpreting horizontal style emoticons? Explain.(Note. This question asked about participants experience in interpreting emoticons in the form of the less preferred style deemed by the users of the country – vertical style for Singaporean users and horizontal emoticons for Taiwanese users)

4. Can you tell me what does this (inserts emoticon) means?(Note. Participants were tested on their ability to interpret emoticonscommonly used by natives from the other country)

5. Even though Singapore and Taiwan are both Asian countries and belong tothe Eastern culture, why is there a difference in the style of emoticons?What do you think have resulted in such difference?

Ending questions: 1. Is there anything you would like to add on?2. Is there anything we should have talked about but didn’t?

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Appendix J

Results from Focus Groups

Categories Description Time spent using CMC

E1: Everyday, I guess. E2: Same here. E3: Yes, practically everyday. E4: Me too. M1: I use it almost everyday. M2: Me too, almost everyday. M3: Everyday. M4: Everyday. All participants from Singapore and Taiwan engage in CMC everyday.

Impression of emoticons Facial expression Found in text-based messages Express feelings

E2: A happy face? E1: Different kinds of emotions that can be formed depending on how you type them. E3: Different types of facial expressions. M4: They are realistic facial expressions in digital form. M5: They are meaningful icons; many different facial expressions can be formed. M6: A smiley. E3: Something I try to include after my sentences. E4: Very common in text messages. M1: It helps to make sentences livelier and more interesting. M3: Something that we add to our sentences, mostly after sentences. E7: It helps to enhance my message. It’s more than just text. E11: The presence of emoticons makes a lot of difference when a reader reads a text. M2: It helps to express my feelings through text, in an effective manner. E4: Things that help me express my feelings better. M9: Helps to emphasize my emotions in text messages, especially when we don’t see who we’re talking to.

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Symbols

Culture

M1: Cute icons. M7: Facial expressions formed with different symbols.

M5: Japanese culture.

Frequency of emoticons use Usage rate

Last used

E2: Very often, every time. E3: I think I use them everyday. E4: Very often and almost everyone who I talk to. E1: I try to include an emoticon at least once, especially at the end of every conversation. M1: Very often. I use a lot in a conversations. M2: Sometimes when I am talking to a person, I use an emoticon after every 2 to 3 sentences and it can easily add up to more than 10 emoticons per conversation. M4: Basically everyone who I speak to online. E7: Very often. I don’t actually count the number of emoticons I use. Maybe more than 30 a day.

E1: Today, after lunch, I was talking to a friend.E2: Just now.E4: Yesterday, haven’t talked to anyone today yet.M1: Before the discussion started.M3: A while ago.M4: This morning.

All participants have high usage frequecy of emoticons and have recently used emoticons in text-based messages.

Reasons and motivation for emoticons use Peer influence

Non-verbal cues

E3: I think it’s because people around me were using it, so I was sort of influenced to do the same. E4: My friends were using it, so I thought of using it as well. E1: Same here, I saw my friends using it. M1: Everyone around me was using. E12: Sometimes, I feel guilty for not using. As in when I see my conversation partner using emoticons and if I don’t use them, it will seem as though I’m not expressive enough. So I’ll at least try to have an emoticon at the end of a conversation.

E2: I found it meaningful, even if it’s just an emoticon in a text without any words, the person who

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Clarify tone of message

Designs

Popular culture

Positive feeling

I’m talking to will still be able to understand what I mean. E10: Helps me to express feelings that are hard or awkward to express with words.

M3: Emoticons can help make a message sound less serious and friendlier. Sometimes, people might interpret your message wrongly. It can help to prevent misunderstandings.

M1: Because the designs are cute. M9: They look like a person’s facial expression in real life.

M4: It is very popular online. M2: Influence from the Japanese culture.

E7: Last time, I received a message with a smiley face on it. As I read till the end of the message, where the emoticon was, I smiled and it felt really nice. I want my friends to feel the same too.

Situation Clarify or emphasize certain feelings

No specific situation

Depends

E1: Maybe when I need to clarify myself further?Sometimes if I’m being sarcastic with my words, emoticons help me sound less serious. Or when I need to emphasize certain feelings.M3: When I have strong emotions on an issue and I want to express it.E7: When I feel that words alone are not able to explain or express myself fully.

E2: No specific situation, I use it every time. E3: Same as E2, mainly happy and sad situations. M2: I use emoticons for all situations I guess. M7: No specific situation. When I feel like using them, I’ll use them. E11: I don’t think it matters actually.

E4: I mostly use them when my conversation partner and I are talking about happy stuffs. Adding emoticons to negative situations will seem as though you’re mocking the person or situation. M1: I use more for positive than negative situations. E10: Not during formal situations or when I am talking to my teachers, usually only with friends or family members. M5: Depends on my mood and depends on who my

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conversation partner is. E10: I think it’s more on the person whom I’m talking to rather than the situation. If I am talking to closer friends or my family, I use less emoticons. But for those who I’ve just met or those who I’m not really close to yet, I include more emoticons.

Perceived benefits and drawbacks Benefits Drawbacks

E4: Helps to clarify the tone of your message. M2: You don’t see the other person, so it’s important to avoid misunderstanding. E1: Portray a friendly image of yourself. E2: To make you look more sociable. M1: People are more likely to interpret your actual intentions correctly. M4: Sometimes what you type might cause someone to misunderstand your words, depending on how they read it. Emoticons help to clarify your intention. E7: Strengthen relationship with one another. M6: Create a happier conversation. M8: Saves time, you don’t have to use a lot of words just to state your feelings. M10: Emoticons help to lighten the mood. M3: Make you sound informal. E3: Some people might not understand the emoticons used, better to state explicitly. E1: Irritating when too many emoticons are used. E2: Make you seem as though you are not being serious. E7: It could be possible that someone might misinterpret the meaning of the emoticon. E5: Emoticons are limited because they cannot convey complex feelings. E8: Others may feel that using emoticons are childish. E9: Unprofessional, especially in formal setting. M11: Not suitable for serious or sensitive topics. M12: Using too many emoticons make others feel that you are insincere.

Preferred style of emoticons Horizontal

E4: It’s like a social norm. Everyone is using the same pattern. E1: I think it’s because we are influenced by the people around us.

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Vertical

E3: They are of the same direction, just like when our eyes read a text. E2: People around me are using the same style, so I naturally picked them up. E2: Symbols that can be found readily on my keyboard. E5: Simple design yet sufficient to express what I want. E6: You read sentences from left to right, same for emoticons, like it’s part of the sentence. It just comes very natural; sentence left to right, emoticons left to right, and it’s not as though I need to tilt my head or turn the paper I can read it as it is. E7: I guess I’m used to it. E9: We have been in contact with this kind of style ever since we started using CMC. I can understand them easily and way faster than those that are not rotated. E12: It’s just something that comes naturally to you. E10: Horizontal emoticons are more straightforward and we don’t have to spend so much time trying to understand what do they mean.

M1: Vertical expressions are much more exaggerated, but in a good way. For horizontal emoticons, we only use :) :( or XD, but not as much.M3: We actually use both kinds of emoticons, but vertical emoticons are usually the more commonly used ones. We pay attention to the eyes, we think its more important. Vertical emoticons are more vivid and realistic and they help us express ourselves better.There is a saying, “Eyes are the windows to the soul.” M2: They are more expressive and look cuter. M4: More variety for the eyes and mouths. M5: Because Japanese uses vertical styles and Taiwan is influenced by the Japanese culture. M8: Vertical emoticons have more variations than horizontal ones. There are more choices to select from. M9: They are more emphasized, and this makes the message more impactful. M12: Vertical emoticons are more creative. They can also express complicated actions. M11: More expressive, like a real human face and helps to improve the mood of the conversation partner.

Singaporean participants mainly prefer horizontal

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emoticons. As for Taiwanese participants, even though they favor vertical emoticons, some stated that they do use horizontal emoticons too, but just not as much.

Reasons for not using and perceived difficulties of less preferred style Horizontal style

Vertical style

M3: Horizontal emoticons are limited in a way because they may only have one or two faces to express happiness. So you don’t really have much choice to choose from. For vertical emoticons, we have a lot more than that.M4: The whole emoticon just looks simple and I don’t think I can fully express myself. Horizontal emoticons usually have a wide happy smile or a sad expression. The eyes are simple. As for vertical emoticons, there is more to it. We have the shape of the face, and even the hands. It seems as though we are using our whole body to express our emotions.M1: Western style emoticons are too simple.M2: When I see a horizontal emoticon, I usually take a glance at it, and that’s all. But for vertical emoticons, I try to imagine the facial expression in my head and sometimes try to mimic them.M7: It depends on what kind of language I’m using. If it’s English, I usually use horizontal emoticons. If it’s Mandarin, I use more vertical ones. It’s because some symbols found on the English and Mandarin keyboard are different. So when we type out the emoticons, it turns out to be horizontal style for English keyboard users and vertical style for Mandarin keyboard users. M8: I guess it’s more of whom I’m talking to. To foreigners, I’ll use the horizontal ones. Foreigners don’t usually understand vertical emoticons. They are more familiar with horizontal emoticons. M10: People in our culture mainly use vertical emoticons. I don’t see the need to use horizontal ones. Besides, if we use other horizontal emoticons, apart from those few that we commonly use, I don’t think people would understand.

E2: I don’t even understand them. They use a lot of unfamiliar symbols. E3: It looks weird, and I find it awkward to use. E1: Looks too cute, this kind of emoticons look as though they take the shape of an animal, like a cat or

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a dog or bear. E2: Simple ones like this ^^ is fine, but anything more complicated than that, I cant. E4: Not just too cute, but I don’t like them overall. The main thing is not being able to understand what each of them actually mean. E5: I can stare at it for 5 minutes but still do not get the meaning. Not sure if its because of the orientation or complicatedness. E8: Sometimes when I talk to my Taiwanese classmates and I see them using vertical ones, I’ll be full of question marks. As in I don’t actually get the meaning of that style of emoticons and I don’t think I would want to use them because they are not something that Singaporeans will understand. E6: Every time when I see those, I have a hard time understanding the emotions behind. I can only infer it through the text. So I kind of ignore the emoticons. E7: I think Singaporeans in general don’t understand vertical emoticons. E5: They are too complicated for my understanding. E9: I feel that these kind of emoticons are too emphasized and too detailed. E11: Shouldn’t messages be short and simple? I don’t like it when things are complicated. E10: For horizontal emoticons, the eyes are simple, usually with two dots, so we only look at the mouth. For vertical emoticons, everything seems so emphasized and complicated, I don’t know where should I focus. Singaporeans feel that horizontal emoticons are simple and are sufficient to express the feelings of the user. They are unfamiliar with the symbols used in vertical emoticons and feel that such emoticons are too complicated for them to understand. Taiwanese like vertical emoticons because of their expressiveness and are able to express themselves better. They feel that horizontal emoticons are too simple.

Interpretation of emoticons >m<

E2: Don’t know. E1: Not sure. E3: Sleepy maybe? E4: Looks like a bird. E5: Happy? The eyes look happy. E7: No idea.

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:S

E8: A pig? E10: Excited. E11: Anxiety. E9: Worried. E12: Scared.

M4: Uncomfortable. M3: Vomiting. M2: Nausea. M1: Don’t know. M6: Feeling sick. M7: Disgusted. M10: Looks like it’s expressing “How?” M9: Weak. M12: Stomach churning.

Reasons causing difference in emoticons style Language influence E4: If it’s not culture then maybe language? Since

Singapore is an English-speaking country and Taiwan is a Mandarin-speaking country.M1: Language? We think and act differently on based on the language we use. If we were to talk about directions, in Mandarin, we say Ącƅ_� (east, south, west, north) but in English, its north, south, east and west. The way we say things might have an effect on the way we think.M8: Chinese has more than tens of thousands of characters but English has only 26 alphabets. Some of the punctuation symbols we use are also different. The difference in characters and symbols in English and Mandarin could have resulted in the difference in styles. Also, since there are lesser characters inEnglish, the number of emoticons English speakers can form might be much lesser as compared to Mandarin speakers.E9: Sometimes, when you type an emoticon in English and in Mandarin, it looks different. Say if you were to type a smiley emoticon, in English, it’s like :) but if you are using the Mandarin keyboard, it will look like this�. The characters are placed side by side, close together, like there is no space in between each character. But for Chinese, the characters are much more spread out. Since vertical emoticons are more complicated, the Mandarin keyboard can portray it better, since they would require more space in between each character to portray the face

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Social norms

External influences

Limitations of keyboard

properly. But for horizontal emoticons, it looks better on English than Mandarin. It probably has to do with character encoding of English and Mandarin.

E1: There is a saying in mandarin that “eyes are the windows to the soul”. That is why Chinese people tend to focus on the eyes more. E12: Taiwanese usually wear surgical mask when they are out and they show their eyes. For Singaporeans, we don’t wear surgical masks but we wear sunglasses. Taiwanese pay attention to the eyes and since horizontal emoticons don’t have a lot of variety for the eyes, vertical emoticons are able to express the eyes better. They have so much more variety. Since Singaporeans wear sunglasses, this means that people focus more on the mouth, that’s why we have more variation for the mouths.

M2: I think the reason why Taiwanese mainly use vertical emoticons is due to the influence of the Japanese culture. With Kaomoji, it made vertical emoticons seem even more complicated. Kaomojiinclude the shape of the head or the hands. The eyes are also emphasized, not like the Western style ones. I think it is due to the influence of comics. If you look at Japanese comics, they usually have huge eyes, or their eyes are usually emphasized. Just like it is one of the more important features on the face. But if you were to take a look at Western comics, their eyes are pretty much simple, using dots or lines to express the eyes. That’s probably why the emoticons we use are similar to the way Japanese comic characters are drawn. E7: Seems like Taiwanese use more Japanese style emoticons. They are pretty much influenced by the Japanese culture. I think it’s called Kaomoji. They are very expressive. They don’t only show emotions but actions as well.

E1: I have a Taiwanese friend, I think she has a different kind of keyboard with a lot of foreign symbols and when you combine them together, you can form different kinds of vertical emoticons. M6: The English keyboard doesn’t have them, but it’s built-in for us. You can choose one of the default ones or create new ones yourself, so there are unlimited possibilities. You don’t have to download or enable them. It’s already inside.

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Appendix K

Table 8

Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six Universal Emotions among Singaporean Users

Emoticons Emotions

Disgust Sadness Happiness Anger Surprise Fear :/! 4 (1.2%) 2 (0.6%) 27 (7.8%) 286

(83.1%) /( ! 10 (2.9%)

°O°!(´ж�;)! 6 (1.7%) /_\! 1 (0.3%) :@! 1 (0.3%) 148 (43.0%) >o<! 1 (0.3%) 1 (0.3%) :X! 239

(69.5%) 39

(11.3%) ! 1 (0.3%) 6 (1.7%)

((( � Д ��)))!:O! 240

(69.8%) ��!��! 1 (0.3%) 8 (2.3%) >"<! 6 (1.7%) =�=! 4 (1.2%) @@! 4 (1.2%) :D! 61 (17.7%) 1 (0.3%) :(! 1 (0.3%) 271

(78.8%) 9 (2.6%) 2 (0.6%)

:S! 87 (25.3%) ^^! 29 (8.4%) 2 (0.6%) T^T! 14 (4.1%) o.O! 95

(27.6%) :)! 242

(70.3%) 5 (1.5%)

! 6 (1.7%)

>m<! 1 (0.3%) 4 (1.2%) :'(! 49 (14.2%) 2 (0.6%)

!)*) ! 1 (0.3%)

(´π`)! 2 (0.6%) :<! 3 (0.9%) 2 (0.6%) 140 (40.7%) Total 344

(100%) 344

(100%) 344

(100%) 344

(100%) 344

(100%) 344

(100%)

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Note. Each of the 172 Singaporean respondents had to answer two questions for each emotion,

thereby achieving a marginal total of 344.

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Appendix L

Table 9

Number of Emoticons Used for Each of the Six Universal Emotions among Taiwanese Users

Emoticons Emotions

Disgust Sadness Happiness Anger Surprise Fear :/! 4 (1.3%)

/( ! 40 (13.0%) 15 (4.9%) 4 (1.3%)

°O°! 17 (5.5%) (´ж�;)! 171

(55.5%) /_\! 83

(26.9%) :@! 4 (1.3%) >o<! 205

(66.6%) :X! 18 (5.8%)

! 10 (3.2%) 6 (1.9%)

((( � Д ��)))! 28 (9.1%) :O! 24 (7.8%) ��! 58 (18.8%) ��! 2 (0.6%) 36

(11.7%) >"<! 3 (1.0%) 134 (43.5%) =�=! 26 (8.4%) 4 (1.3%) @@! 77 (25.0%) 11 (3.6%) 10 (3.2%) :D! 17 (5.5%) :(! 5 (1.6%) 125

(40.6%) 13 (4.2%)

:S! 22 (7.1%) ^^! 48 (15.6%) 3 (1.0%) T^T! 1 (0.3%) 62 (20.1%) 7 (2.3%) o.O! 5 (1.6%) :)! 145

(47.1%) 5 (1.6%)

! 2 (0.6%) 56 (18.2%)

>m<! 4 (1.3%) 113 (36.7%) :'(! 34 (11.0%) 16 (5.2%)

! 4 (1.3%) 101 (32.8%)

)*) ! 19 (6.2%)

(´π`)! 50 (16.2%) :<! 1 (0.3%) Total 308

(100%) 308

(100%) 308

(100%) 308

(100%) 308

(100%) 308

(100%)

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Note. Each of the 154 Taiwanese respondents had to answer two questions for each emotion,

thereby achieving a marginal total of 308.

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