Emoticons and email Etiquette

An article is concern about emoticons and email ettiquette, Emoticons and email ettiquette by Antony Funnell. This article is interview between Scott Fahlman,professor in Carnegie Mellon Univeristy; Whitman School of Managment, Syracuse University, New York ;and also Will Schwalbe who is New York-based publisher and author.

Regarding the content in the media report, we notice that different interviewer are having different opinions towards the emoticons and the latest email trends. The summary of the interview are as below:

• Kristin Byron pointed that the over-confident in perceiption of sending email cause us make the mistakes in judgement of emotion. It is also misleading reader or create misunderstanding between writter or reader.
  
• Scott Fahlman pointed that has turn off the graphical emoticons himself and only use the simply emoticons. This is to avoid the misinterpret his emails.
  
• Will Schwalbe pointed that is informal to use emoticon in condolences. It makes misleading on email by being too casual or too formal.

Theory and Readings

According KVL 2006 and Schriver 1997, the combination use of images and texts are able to make better understanding and to reader. KVL views that the interpretation of the writting or messages are highly rely on different cultural background and its context. (KvL 2006). In Walsh 2006, the meaningwill be affected by the affordance of the modes as well as the readers.

What is emoticon?

According Entity.cc, emoticon defines as convey emotion or voice inflection in the text conversation. The example of emoticons as belows:

:) = smiles

:( = Frown

Who is like to use emoticon?

The answer of research as below:

(Refer to Cool Smileys 2009)

My Opinion

In my personal opinion, there is number of peoples are like to use emoticon. In fact, emoticons does able to deliver better message and better understanding to the reader. It is bringing a lot of the advantages to the email. But, it should not full with the emoticons in one sentence. In my experience, i hate to read emoticons when i chat with my friend in msn messenger. The too much emoticons has made me confused and misunderstanding in the conversation.

Reference List :

1. Cool-smileys.com,'Some statistics about smileys', last viewed June 10,2009 <http://www.cool-smileys.com/some-statistics-about-smileys>
2. Abc.net.au,'Emoticans and email Etiquette',last viewed June 10, 2009 <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm>
3. Entity.cc, 'What is an emoticon?', last viewed June 10,2009 <http://www.entity.cc/define-emoticons.php>