This abstract is perfect:
True net-heads sometimes resort to punctuation cartoons to get around the absence of inflection. They may append a :-) if they are making a joke (turn your head to the left) or use :-( for an ersatz frown.
back
1 comments
I've enjoyed witnessing the use of terms like "lol" and the intentional elimination of full-stops, etc to communicate tone through mobile communications. I don't think many people throughout history have had the opportunity to witness such wide-scale shifts in language use within the course of 10, 20 years.