Literature Review
Extensive research has been done on emoticons and their affordances. However, as technology transformation continues to take hold, and the use of CMC continue to be prevalent, more inquiries will need to be conducted in the future.
Dunlap et al (2015) point out that previous studies conducted on the use of emoticons can be broadly divided into three major areas:
Emoticons and Electronically-mediated Communication: Research conducted under this banner have mainly been interested in the affordances offered by nonverbal cues.
Emoticons and Group Difference: Studies under this section have been concerned with examining whether there exist differences in the use of emoticons such as between men and women. Researchers have also attempted to investigate the use of emoticons among different ethnic groups as well as different age groups.
Emoticons and Social contexts: Environment plays an important role of on how people use emoticons. Studies in this area have investigated how the use of emoticons is influenced by the social context within which the communication takes place.
Other studies according to Skovholt (2014) have focussed on issues such as frequency, variety and usage patterns of emoticons.
Another area which has been examined in relation to emoticons has been the impact of emoticons on the interpretation of messages.
Ethical Concerns
1: The purpose and the goal of the research will be explained to the subjects clearly.
2: Survey will be completely anonymous
3: The teachers will be encouraged to interact in the discussions on our closed group Facebook page
4: In reporting the results, care will be taken that there will be no identifiers or links revealing the participants' identity