Your Smiling Face is Impolite to Me: A Study of the Smiling Face Emoji in Chinese Computer-Mediated Communication
Kun Yang,
Shuang Qian
Abstract:This paper explores whether and in what situation the smiling face emoji will influence the interpretation of an utterance in a virtual context. The researchers drew examples from daily WeChat communication and posted them to participants in the experiment. Experimental studies found that the smiling face emoji decreases the politeness of an utterance but does not mitigate the illocutionary force of an impolite utterance. Further studies demonstrate that the interpretation is related to two features of WeChat:… Show more
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