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Emoticons: Emotions
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Emoticons are little text representations of emotions that you find in email, chat rooms, and IM's. When you talk to someone, they can tell what you mean by the tone of your voice or the look on your face. For example, maybe someone says something like, "Why are you so annoying?"
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Emoticons, the modern-day Ki‘i Pöhaku, are “emotional icons” used for text-based internet communication. An Emoticon is a sequence of standard keyboard symbols (QWERTY) used to express voice inflections, facial expressions, and body gestures which are absent in written communication.
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Similarly, Emoticons are small icons which express your feeling to whoever you are talking to on the internet. You can further express your feeling by using them, this is why they are called Emoticons; icons which express your emotions.
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Scott Fahlman is known as the inventor of the first emoticons. In his webpage, he explains the reason he developed the first emotions :-) and how it spread out to other networks. He explains that the first emoticons were developed to help people better communicate in bulletin boards. This webpage ... includes the first message that includes emoticons. It is interesting to see the first developer of certain culture explain about it himself, and his negative opinion on Microsoft and AOL using emoticons with actual graphic.
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There are emoticons that can cover just about any feeling or emotion you want to express. As an example, surprise or shock is often indicated by an emoticon that displays wide-open eyes and a round mouth. Anger may be conveyed by an emoticon that is red rather than yellow, and features a grimace. Love or cordial feelings are often expressed by the use of an emoticon that features a beating red heart. There are even emoticons that can convey boredom, excitement, wild laughter, and a sly wink.
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The most common emoticons are faces and expressions composed of standard keyboard punctuation marks and symbols, and which are viewed sideways. These are known as "smileys" in reference to the first emoticons, which represented a smile, such as: :-). Smileys are indicators of the emotional "tone of voice" intended by the writer.
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