The use of emoticons among university students : a pragmatic study

الملخص EN

The current study aims to find out the possible ways that university students from scientific departments at (college of basic education – Salahaddin University- Erbil) make use of Emoticons when they communicate using any online medium that is applicable for communication.

Questionnaire is used as an effective tool for data collection.

This study attempts to find whether they can differentiate between emoticons and emoji , and the situations in which university students use emoticons in academic communication or in socio-emotional communication, the study also tries to find whether females use emoticons more than males or viceversa.

The results indicate that participants were aware of the differences that exist between emoticons and emoji besides the readers of this study would expect certain results, including that females use emoticons more than males.