The tentative discussion of icons' substituting for body language in CMC

Abstract

Icons, as new ways of transmitting information, are used in high frequency in CMC, and to certain extent, they play important roles of substituting for body languages used in reality communication. Firstly this essay illustrates the facts that icons came into being and have been spreading with CMC, brought forth the special nonverbal intercommunicating functions of icons in CMC. Then based on those intercommunicating functions of the body languages in face-to-face communication, the article analyses and discusses the phenomena of icons' taking on some functions of "internet body languages" and their realistic meanings of this cross-subjects net-language culture. © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.