kaomoji

plural kaomojis

1. A text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is not rotated sideways, and often includes a larger variety of characters (originally from Shift JIS, now including Unicode).

   For example, the typical emoticon for smile, :-), is the kaomoji ^--^.

   2011, Francisco Yus, Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated Communication in Context, John Benjamins, published 2011, →ISBN, page 170

   5 more examples

   While kaomoji and emoji express contexts or moods that cannot be conveyed through textual information alone, they are also used to compensate for the lack of personalization in electronic text that otherwise exists in hand-written form.

   2010, Misa Matsuda, “Japanese mobile youth in the 2000s”, in Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson, Damien Spry, editors, Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia, Routledge, →ISBN, page 35

   Katsuno and Yano (2002) insisted that the development of kaomoji (emoticon in Japanese) online has important connections with Japanese popular culture.

   2013, Hyisung C. Hwang, David Matsumoto, “Nonverbal Behaviours and Cross-Cultural Communication in the New Era”, in Farzad Sharifian, Maryam Jamarani, editors, Language and Intercultural Communication in the New Era, Routledge, →ISBN, page 130

   According to Nishimura, kaomojis are so frequently used in Japan that they have been “codified” in dictionaries.

   2017, Carmen Lee, “Linguistic diversity and language choice online”, in Multilingualism Online, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 31

   Going back to the kaomojis, note that, even in their highly abstract form, they are capable of displaying emotions. In order of display, the kaomojis show happiness, indifference, love, dissatisfaction, and anger.

   2018, Xuanyi Chew, “Basic Facial Detection”, in Go Machine Learning Projects: Eight Projects Demonstrating End-to-End Machine Learning and Predictive Analytics Applications in Go, Packt Publishing, →ISBN, page 276

   Kaomojis are not used much in Western culture, but they are like emoticons except they can be read front-on and are from a fuller set of keyboard characters.

   2019, Leo Palladino, Martin Green, Karen Roemuss, “Communication and working effectively in the industry”, in Professional Hairdressing and Barbering, Australian and New Zealand 2nd edition, Cengage Learning, →ISBN, page 170

   Synonyms: verticon