With the constant growth in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the last 50 years or so, electronic communication has become part of the present day system of living. Equally, smileys or emoticons were innovated in 1982, and today the genre has attained a substantial patronage in various aspects of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Ever since written forms of electronic communication lack the face-to-face (F2F) situation attributes, emoticons are seen as socio-emotional suppliers to the CMC. This article reviews scholarly research in that field in order to compile variety of investigations on the application of emoticons in some facets of CMC, i.e. Facebook, Instant Messaging (IM), and Short Messaging Service (SMS). Key findings of the review show that emoticons do not just serve as paralanguage elements rather they are compared to word morphemes with distinctive significative functions. In other words, they are morpheme-like units and could be derivational, inflectional, or abbreviations but not unbound. The findings also indicate that emoticons could be conventionalized as well as being paralinguistic elements, therefore, they should be approached as contributory to conversation itself not mere compensatory to language.
In the last two decades, Short Messaging Service (SMS) has witnessed a remarkable growth and acceptance worldwide. Among other Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) avenues, it is regarded as one of the fastest in increase probably for being so instant and private. It is being estimated recently that short messages are being sent in trillions globally. In the Nigerian framework, the technology has been generating momentumas a phenomenon to be reckoned with socially and politically. The younger generation, above all, use the machinery to bring about social change, fight corruption, and actively monitor and participate in the local politics. This critique reviews related literature on the global nature of SMS and the inference of its use in a local milieu.Findings revealed that SMS has a variety of positive impacts on the lives of ordinary Nigerians. At the same time, results of some studies conducted on students at different levels of education raises some alarm over the growing influence of SMS language shortcuts on students' formal scripts. Socially, the literature has reiterated the increasing concern over the culture of ‗sexting' and how capable it is in promoting social vices and incongruity among the Nigerian populace.
By default, all announcements notify listeners or readers of a given event, be it social, cultural, or religious. Newspaper personal or non-product advertisements tend to make audiences focus on its sponsors or the subject-matter of the announcements. Most personal announcements fall within the homely discourse genre. Scholars believe that careful examination of these types of announcements reveals further communications achieved beyond its primary functions and literal wordings. These communications could be within sociocultural or religious contexts. This critique reviews scholarly literature on how language is employed in a variety of newspaper announcements to convey much deeper sociocultural, religious, or political messages. The review focuses two types of genres, viz: congratulatory, and obituary and death announcements. Findings reveal that in congratulation and thank-you messages, a higher level of communication is achieved through various segments of such announcements, i.e. the use of multimodal, its position in the newspaper, etc. It shows how the announcements serve certain communicative purposes and how they are being influenced by factors such as gender and socioeconomic class. On the other hand, the literature reviewed on obituary and death announcements discloses how language is being utilized in the advent of death to communicate, not only to the deceased, but with wider audiences. The appraisal demonstrates how pages of newspaper death notice become platforms for eradicating social divisions and fighting the privileged groups. Another part of the evaluation discusses some contrasting conflicting views on the question of invoking God and religion in death rituals. As deceased persons are being celebrated and seen as martyrs in given cultures, others subscribe to notions that perceive death as personal choice and mere departure from the world. It is therefore recommended that more empirical works be conducted on congratulatory and other happy ceremony category of the newspaper announcements as the literature reviewed, so far, shows a very few scholarly works in that aspect of the genre.
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