Study Of Functions Of Network Emoticons From The Perspective Of Mediation Theory

With the development of the society and Internet technology, many of people’sopportunities for face-to-face communication gradually are substituted by networkcommunication. As a nonverbal communication tool, network emoticons are widely acceptedby the society and become one of the important tools for people to exchange information andmaintain emotions and contacts. However, as a relatively new research object, theoreticalstudy of network emoticons has only a history of ten years. Studies on network emoticonsabroad began in the early21century, and researches at home were also from2000insuccession, and the related studies are increasing year by year. Because of its originalityscholars try to do researches from a variety of angles without a unified agreement on suchnotions like its definition and classification, etc. The themes of the researches involved arealso a little scattered. And few scholars have done the research about network emoticons fromthe perspective of mediation theory.Mind and mind communication without mediation is impossible. Mediation theory isan important part of SCT rooted in theories from the former Soviet Union psychologist L.S.Vygotsky. For Vygotsky, mediation refers to the use of “tools”. He describes the concept ofmediation as “the psychological tool that alters the entire flow and structure of mentalfunctions by being involved in the process of behavior”. Network emoticon is acommunicative tool and a nonverbal communication symbol. Like language, it becomes anindispensable network communicative tool for people nowadays. Thus, unique theoretical andpractical significance would be shown up by the research on network emoticons under theframework of mediation theory. This paper puts forward three research questions: Hownetwork emoticons are used in network communication, such as frequency of use, theproportion, etc.? As an intermediary, what unique functions and role do network emoticonsplay in people’s network communication? And what is the interaction between networkemoticons and language in the network communication?The network emoticons are varied. This article mainly focuses on a series of littlegolden sun-type facial emoticons of QQ network emoticons with the total number of50.Participants are30researcher’s classmates and friends, ranging from25to35years old, mostof whom use the Internet frequently in daily life communication. The research data iscollected in two aspects, the first part consists of30electronic texts about networkcommunication provided by30participants; the second part is formed by the transcriptions ofthe semi-structured interview. Under the framework of mediation theory, the data about mediation was treated withgrounded theory including four stages of codes, concepts, categorization and theory.The results show that the emergence of network emoticons enriches and activates thenetwork communication environment of Internet users, virtualizes images from both sides ofthe language communication and conveys gestures and expressions in real time to prompt amore vivid and quick transmission of both sides. As is shown in the study, network emoticonstake up a certain proportion when people carry out network communication, about30%, inwhich network emoticons with a relatively high frequency of use are、、、、,etc. As an intermediary tool, network emoticons have four main functions, namely,simplifying the content, improving communication atmosphere, delivering effective andcomplete information and improving convenience. Each has its own specific sub-functions aswell, they are replacing the content and simplifying the content, heightening the atmosphereand lightening the atmosphere, semantic expression integrity and emotional expressionintegrity, improving convenience by all omission and improving convenience by partialomission respectively. Further results can be concluded that in network communication,network emoticons and language are different but interconnected with each other. Networkemoticons differ from language in that it is a kind of nonverbal communication and animportant auxiliary means for network communication. At the same time, those functions ofnetwork emoticons are closely related to the three meta-functions of Halliday’s theories of theSystemic-Functional Grammar in linguistics, namely, the ideational function, interpersonalfunction and textual function. In the Internet environment, network emoticons and languagesupplement each other and interact with each other; both improve the network communicationprocess, making great significance to language construction and linguistic study.Popularity of network emoticon lies in its unique characteristics and functions. Therelations between language and gestures in real life and the relations between networklanguage and network emoticons in virtual world are comparatively the same. And somelimitations come out that network emoticons cannot work well without the Internet or someother IM platforms; they may not show the entire meaning of the users at some point and alsois confined to the age. As for limitations of the study, the limited scope of data collection maymake it harder to apply some of the findings to other contexts involving different backgroundsor situations. And the research is confined to the field of linguistics which may limit theapplication of the findings to the other fields.