Emoticons and Emails Etiquettes

E-mails are a part of everyday life, however it is a saddening fact that e-mails are often misinterpreted causing misunderstandings and miscommunication. According to Byron (2007), the tendency of one to misinterpret emails are higher in people of lower status compared to the higher ones.

Schwalbe (2007) states that email should be used as a starting message followed by a proper note in events of importance, but not completely replacing it. He also states that Generation Y has proper e-mail etiquette more than older generations as they grew up with communications.


Figure 1 : Email
Source: abc.net.au

Of e-mails ...
According to Walsh (1996), reading from text involves decoding where the levels of meaning depends on the reader's background.Walsh's statement is also supported by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) where they state that different interpretations of texts can occur due to different perspectives of people based on both cultural and social experiences.

I strongly agree with them as I believe that sometimes we get offended by graphics and text in an email, but from the sender's social and cultural background, that particular email may be a part of his culture. In my opinion, it is very hard to avoid misinterpretation of email in a culture so diverse.

Email is so easy that it is taken for granted and even used for important events such as condolences, thank you's, marriages and even divorces !

An American of Arab descent e-mailed his Saudi wife to break their marriage bonds. (Baron, 2002)

Some may not perceive this kind of usage of e-mail as an issue, however some may opine that e-mailing a person regarding important events shows the lack of sincerity and pervades irrespectiveness to the receiver. But, who are the ones who actually set the laws on what email etiquette should be? According to Baron (2002), stylistic practices are influenced by shifting social attitudes as to which parts of language should be normatively governed.

Of emoticons...
The invention of emoticons are a great boost to increase email interpretation accuracy as I believe people interpret pictures better than texts.

American Scott Fahlman was motivated to invent the 'emoticon' :-) due to the inability of people to interpret emotions and intentions in an email.


Figure 2 : Emoticons
Source : Icons-Land.com

According to Walther (2001), emoticons are used as substitutes for nonverbal cues that are missing from computer mediated communications (CMC) in this case e-mails in comparison to face-to-face communication.

The usage of emoticons helps in the interpretation of e-mails as it gives a more familiar touch to all and this simple graphic is far more easier to interpret compared to text.



References

1. ABC.net.au, 2007, Emoticons and email etiquette, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
2. Baron, NS 2002, Who sets E-mail style? Presvriptivism, Coping stragetiges and Democratizing communication access, viewed 15th June 2009, <>
3. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006, Reading Images, Routledge, London.
4. Walsh, M 2006, "Textual shift : Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts", Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24 - 37.
5. Walther, JB 2001, 'The impacts of emoticons on message interpretation in computer-mediated communication', Social Science Computer Review, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 324 - 347, viewed 15th June 2009, <>