Emoticons in Professional Communication

This assignment examines the use of emoticons in professional communication, focusing on their suitability in job application emails. It discusses the potential impact of emoticons on perceived professionalism and explores whether they can effectively convey emotional nuances in formal contexts. The analysis considers both the perspectives of job applicants and hiring managers.

Running head: EFFECTIVE BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
EFFECTIVE BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Part B
June 21, 2015
Ms. Claudia Banks
122 River Heights Drive
Bettendorf, IA 52722
Dear Ms. Banks:
Thank you for your recent purchase. We wish you many years of satisfaction with your new
Yahama CG1 grand piano. The CG1 carries more than a century of a Yamaha’s heritage in
design and production of world-class musical instruments and will give you many years of
playing and listening pleasure.
Our commitment to your satisfaction doesn’t stop with your purchase, however. As a vital
first step, please remember to call us sometime within three to eight months after your piano
was delivered to take advantage of the Yamaha ServicebondSM Assurance Program. This free

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service program includes a thorough evaluation and adjustment of the instrument after you’ve
had some time to play your piano and your piano has had time to adapt to its environment.
In addition to this important service appointment, a regular program of tuning is essential to
ensure your piano’s impeccable performance. Our piano specialists recommend four tunings
during the first year and two tunings every year thereafter. As your local Yamaha dealer we
are ideally positioned to provide you with optimum service for both regular tuning and any
maintenance or repair needs you may have.
Sincerely,
Madeline Delauny
Owner

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Part C
1. Lean media, which has capacity to carry the reduced amount of information, could
not judge the other factors of face-to-face communication such as facial expressions and
gestures when someone is communicating (Finegan, 2014). In contrary to that, in face-to-face
communication, these factors such as facial expression and gestures, which are important
however, silent factor in communication could be seen. In lean media or asynchronous text
communication such as email or instant massage, words sometimes fail to express the
emotional nuances. In these situations, one uses emoticons to express what could not be
expressed in words. Thus, emoticons sometimes enrich the comprehensive level of the overall
meaning of the lean media communication.
In the following case study, the use of emoticons in the professional
communication has helped to tackle the situation in well-organized way. The winking
emoticon in the case study is telling everyone to lighten up without saying so. This was
necessary in the communication of the case study situation. It was not possible to replace the
sarcasm presented in the text massage with the use of other symbols or periods. In this type of
case, application of emoticons is necessary and demanding in compare to its context.
Emoticons have that power where words fail to communicate whatever one wants to
communicate (Lee, 2016). It has its own usefulness in the lean media communication and that
is why it has invented. It could communicate something more apart from the words.
However, the use of emoticons in the official communication seems unprofessional, childish
and not formal (Skovholt, Gronning & Kankaanranta, 2014).

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In my opinion, use of emoticons in the professional communication should depend on
the situation and context (Loglia, 2013). There is no universal acceptability of application of
the emoticons in the communication of the professional world however; in some cases,
emoticons could be used like the situation in the case study. Later, the user of the emoticons
in the case study has replaced the winking emoticons with simple period and after that, with
exclamatory symbol. The user thought that the use of the winking emoticon is inappropriate
and unprofessional and later he changed it. However, the meaning of the text in the case
study could be excellently expressed with application of the emoticon.
As an example of using emoticons, the following case study is appropriate. However,
in this case, the user has thought that using emoticon in text massage is unprofessional, but
the application of emoticons could deliver the massage more comprehensively to the
colleagues.
The problem of using emoticons in the professional communication is that the user
cannot understand how the other party would receive it (Loglia & Bower, 2016). No one
wants to take risks getting on the nerves of the superiors as the superiors could anytime check
official massage. The reason behind not using emoticons could simply because one wants to
be ‘on trend’ as like in the past, communication through text massage was unprofessional.
However, a massage with emoticons is one thing, applying emoticons as the universal
language could simply create misinterpretation to the recipient. Stream of symbols or
emoticons could not be the professional language; in the professional communication, the
only application of the large extent of emoticons could create misinterpretation (Loglia,
2013). It could be applied in private communication.
According to me, when instant massage or g-mail or other applications have been
using to communicate, emoticons could be acceptable in that case as this is the fun part in the

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new form of communication. The way and medium of communication has changed a lot in
the last decades. We have talked about a lot to accommodate the possible changes in the
workplace communication, thus, difficulty in communicating emotional nuances in lean
media, emoticons is not that bad and it could be applicable when it is necessary.
2. Receiving emoticons in the emails of the job application, I would be disgusted.
However, Use of emoticons could not break the professional tone of communication if it is
applied in proper way and appropriate place. In the professional world, emoticons are not so
welcoming though (Kuney, 2013). However, I could accept it in other form of text massages
apart from the job application mail. Job application e-mail massage should contain the
relevant information regarding the applicants. It is job applicant’s duty to communicate the
employer regarding the relevant experiences, educational qualifications, and training taken.
He or she should try to make employer understand that how appropriate and efficient he or
she is in particular job role. This type of email should end with thanks and regards to the
employer to allocate time and consideration. In job application email, the tone should be
strictly professional (Skovholt, Gronning & Kankaanranta, 2014).
As a manager, I would at least expect the professional tone in case of job application
emails. Using emoticons in such areas could break the strict professional tone, which is no
more demanding in this type of e-mails. I would rather accept emoticons in the job
application email in negative way. It could approach me to provide some extra advantages to
some cases where emoticons are being used in thanks and regards section of the mail. In
other areas in the job application, application of emoticons has no utility. There is no need to
use emoticons in the other areas such that, educational qualifications, work experiences. Use
of emoticons is irrelevant in this type of descriptions (Loglia, 2013).

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In job application email, the other part is contact details of the applicants where
employers could connect with the applicants directly. In the contact details, use of emoticons
is not only unnecessary, rather offensive and abnormal. Why would someone use emoticons
in the contact details? There is absolutely no reason to use emoticons in the contact details
and profile descriptions of the applicants (Loglia & Bower, 2016).
Emoticons should be used in the professional communication where it is necessary
and demanding. The emoticons should express the emotional nuances where words could not
satisfy the expression of the heart and mind (Lee, 2016). In the job application emails, I think
there is no necessity to use emoticons in anywhere and as a manager; I would be disappointed
to see this unnecessary actions where one is using emoticons.

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References
Finegan, E. (2014). Language: Its structure and use. Cengage Learning.
Kuney, G. W. (2013). Legal Form, Style, and Etiquette for Email. Transactions: Tenn. J. Bus.
L., 15, 59.
Lee, J. S. (2016). Emoticons. In Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation (pp. 207-213).
Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Loglia, J. (2013). How Emoticons Affect Leader-member Exchange.
Loglia, J. M., & Bower, C. A. (2016). Emoticons in Business Communication: Is the:) Worth
it?. Emotions, technology, and design, 37-54.
Skovholt, K., Gronning, A., & Kankaanranta, A. (2014). The Communicative Functions of
Emoticons in Workplace E‐Mails::‐. Journal of Computer‐Mediated
Communication, 19(4), 780-797.