Research on the Emotions Interpreted from Emoticons in Japanese Cellular Telephone Email

Japanese textual communication as cellular telephones has been characterized as the main mediated-communication method for Japanese young people. In textual interaction, misunderstandings of emotions tend to be easily done. However, some previous studies have consistently found the benefits of using emoticons in CMC interaction because these marks can convey social emotions and reduce perceptions of flaming. In this study, we focused on the readers of email messages and how they interpreted the emotional content of various emoticons. A comparison was made between the emoticons which evoked positive and negative emotions by comparing their relative breadth of interpretations. As a result, the emoticons which evoked negative emotions are considered to have a greater number of emotional interpretations. The findings suggest that emoticons with negative emotional interpretations may increase the chances of miscommunication when used in text messages.