May 15, 2007
Via R_Mutt, emoticons reflect the cultural differences in how people read faces. The Japanese use the eyes to gauge emotions, while Americans tend to use the mouth.
when Yuki entered graduate school and began communicating with American scholars over e-mail, he was often confused by their use of emoticons such as smiley faces :) and sad faces, or :(.
"It took some time before I finally understood that they were faces," he wrote in an e-mail. In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;). "After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles," he said.
More japanese emoticons.
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Cam,
interesting.I'd always wondered about the graphic emoticons. They annoyed me in emails and other text, but they also intriqued me. I could see that these small image, intended to represent a human facial expression and to convey an emotion.
Why? I wondered. Isn't it in the words? Why do I need to know your emotional state from this facial expression? What's the point?