Emoticon

An emoticon is a sequence of text characters that represents a facial expression or conveys emotion in electronic communication.

ASCII: A character-encoding standard that represents text using numeric codes, including letters, digits, and punctuation. Classic emoticons use punctuation characters available in ASCII.
Scott Fahlman: An American computer scientist who proposed :-) and :-( for online messages in 1982. His proposal made the sideways smile and frown a documented convention.
Emoji: A standardized pictographic character used in electronic communication to represent objects, expressions, or ideas. Emoji are pictographs, unlike emoticons assembled from ordinary text characters.
Computer-mediated discourse: The study of language and interaction in communication mediated by computers. Emoticons are a recurring feature of computer-mediated language and interaction.
Punctuation: Written marks, such as colons and parentheses, that organize text or convey meaning. These marks supply the eyes and mouth in familiar text-based faces.
Carnegie Mellon University bulletin board: An early online discussion system used by the Carnegie Mellon community. Fahlman proposed emoticons there to distinguish jokes from serious messages.
Kaomoji: Japanese-style text faces that usually depict expressions without requiring a sideways orientation. Kaomoji use fuller character arrangements and are often read upright.
Pragmatics: The study of how context shapes meaning in communication. An emoticon can change how the surrounding words are understood.
Facial expression: A visible arrangement of facial movements that communicates emotion or social information. Emoticons simplify facial expressions into a few typed marks.
Computer-mediated communication: Communication between people conducted through computer systems. Emoticons arose as a way to restore social cues in computer-mediated text.

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