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ERIC Number: EJ1212375
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0163-853X
EISSN: N/A
Role of Emoticons as Structural Markers in Twitter Interactions
Spina, Stefania
Discourse Processes: A Multidisciplinary Journal, v56 n4 p345-362 2019
Emoticons play a key role in digital written interactions. Since the 1980s research has highlighted their growing relevance, as they allow to convey increasingly rich emotional, social, and pragmatic information. This article contributes to this area of research by providing an analysis of emoticons as structural markers in Twitter interactions. Based on a large corpus of Italian tweets, mixed-effect models were used to investigate to what extent and how emoticons are used in this role and what variables most influence their use and their relationship with punctuation marks. Results indicate that emoticons often have the function of clause and sentence boundary marking, either replacing or integrating punctuation marks. Variables affecting their use included user's age, emoticon type, and position within the tweets. In this role their use reveals the pursuit of coherent strategies in discourse organization.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Italy
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A