English

Noun

kaomoji ‎(plural kaomoji)

1. A text-based Japanese emoticon, distinct from a Western emoticon in that it is meant to be written and read horizontally, and often features advanced Unicode characters.
   • 2010, Misa Matsuda, "Japanese mobile youth in the 2000s", Youth, Society and Mobile Media in Asia (eds. Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Theresa Dirndorfer Anderson, & Damien Spry), Routledge (2010), ISBN 9781135281281, page 35:

     While kaomoji and emoji express contexts or moods that cannot be conveyed through textual information alone, they are also used to compensate for the lack of personalization in electronic text that otherwise exists in hand-written form.

   • 2011, Francisco Yus, Cyberpragmatics: Internet-mediated Communication in Context, John Benjamins (2011), ISBN 9789027256195, page 170:

     For example, the typical emoticon for smile, :-), is the kaomoji ^--^.

   • 2013, Hyisung C. Hwang & David Matsumoto, "Nonverbal Behaviours and Cross-Cultural Communication in the New Era", Language and Intercultural Communication in the New Era (eds. Farzad Sharifian & Maryam Jamarani), Routledge (2013), ISBN 9780415808897, page 130:

     Katsuno and Yano (2002) insisted that the development of kaomoji (emoticon in Japanese) online has important connections with Japanese popular culture.

See also

• emoji

Japanese

Romanization

kaomoji

1. rōmaji reading of かおもじ