To sum up, here is the flow chart of emoticon’s generation and interpretation process:
4 Conclusion
Since the first Internet emoticon : -) is created in 1982, 31 years have passed. Now in today’s society, the abundant Internet emoticons have become a real star in the network language. Internet emoticons are becoming more and more complex and keep changing in forms, but from a pragmatic point of view, the essence for all Internet emoticons is the same, which is a means of communication.

To recapitulate what was said in the beginning: the meaning of a sign is only created in its cultural context. The author of this thesis showed up how the steps of signification work and how signs are constructed and analyzed. But the significant element in the semiotic analysis is in the last step described, where the denotated and connotated sign is set into a relation with cultural values and experiences.

To sum up the question of how smileys are operating, I demonstrated that they are being used as substitutes of mimics and gestures, they are signs, which can not definitively be categorized as icons or symbols. But most important of all, they achieve their task to enrich computer-mediated communication with some emotion.

Network communication is a projection of the real communication in the network space. According to this, the sequencing words in network communication are equivalent to the sound language in the real communication. Likewise, the function of emoticons is equivalent to the nonverbal language in real communication too. Therefore, emoticons essentially are supplementary or additional means of communication. According to the Speech Act Theory, the emoticons should belong to the expressives.

The unique form of emoticons determines its unique generation and interpretation process from the common language symbols. According to the related cognitive pragmatic theory, I put forward a hypothetical generation and interpretation process of emoticons. Generally speaking, the process of emoticon’s generation and interpretation also is a process of encoding and decoding, which is similar to the language symbols. The key point is there existed an encoding or decoding process in which the emoticons are transformed into conceivable language symbols or imagery. 从语言学视角浅析网络表情符号英文论文(9):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_1062.html