Forms and Functions of Graphicons in Facebook Private Conversations Among Young Filipino Users

Understanding the functions of graphicons such as emojis, images, memes, videos, GIFs, emoticons, and stickers has become increasingly relevant as they have become extensively integrated into textual messages on Facebook, especially in group chats. This study aimed to investigate the forms and functions of graphicons used by young Filipino users (ages 18-31) on Facebook group chats. The datasets were extracted from the corpora, ten Facebook group chats, each lasting for three months, and analyzed using or computer-mediated discourse analysis or language-focused content analysis. According to the findings of this study, emoji was the most widely used graphicon by young Filipino users on Facebook, while sticker was the least. Adopting Herring and Dainas’ six functions of graphicons (2017), the resear cher discovered additional five functions on Facebook group chats. These functions are identified as mention, reaction, riff, tone modification, action, narrative sequence, response, sharing, replacement, complement, and attention. It was also discovered that a graphicon could serve more than one function in a conversation. Tone modification was the most commonly used function, while the narrative sequence was the least. It was found out that in both emojis and emoticons, ‘tone modification’ was the most us ed function while ‘sharing’ in both images and videos. Meanwhile, ‘action’ was the most used function in GIFs, ‘attention’ in memes, and ‘mention’ in stickers. Because of the significantly increased use of online communication, this study may provide insight on how people may use these graphicons in their everyday conversations.

argued that when interpersonal cues are not present, communicators tend to create notions through the use of the limited available cues. Though non-verbal communication such as body language or gestures, and vocal tonality is not present in online communication, Bliss-Carroll (2016) claimed that emojis could create the elements in verbal and gestural expressions which can be seen in face-to-face interactions and this is why they are accepted as important "enhancer and clarifier" in the digital communication.
In the booming of social media interactions and graphicons, confusion may still arise. Kelly (2015) gave an example about her attempt to use an emoji in composing a message which she planned to send to the parent of her son's friend. She stated that her son stopped her for they have different interpretations of the same emoji. She found out that because of the emoji, the meaning of her message might be different from the message that others would receive. Also, Kauffman (2018) gave examples of cases where plaintiffs and defendants had misunderstandings because of emojis and emoticons. As he said, emojis fail the 'duck test', because they are so confusing that emojis like a 'duck' can mean anything but a duck.  Herring and Dainas' (2017) studied the pragmatic functions of graphicons, where they found six (6) functions, namely: reaction, tone, action, mention, riff, and narrative sequence, they only focused on Facebook comment threads. At present, there are no studies that discuss all the graphicons and their pragmatic functions in private conversations in the Philippines. Hence, this study is a significant pursuit in pragmatics, especially that the Philippines is dubbed as the social media capital of the world (Mateo, 2018), and the Facebook platform, the most popular social media in the country as a means of communication with people in the country and around the world. In Herring and Dainas' (2017) study, they discovered six pragmatic functions of graphicons on Facebook comment threads using the computer-mediated discourse analysis (Herring, 2004). Adopting Herring and Daina's (2017) framework, the researcher aimed at discovering the forms and functions of these graphicons on Facebook group chats and their implications for language use.

Functions of graphicons
There are different forms of graphicons as introduced by Herring and Dainas (2017). The term 'graphicons' is a blend of the words 'graphical' and 'icons'. These graphicons are composed of emoticons, emojis, stickers, GIFs, memes, images, and videos. According to Herring and Dainas (2017), there are six pragmatic functions of graphicons namely: mention, reaction, riffing, tone modification, action, and narrative sequence. Though they listed the hierarchy of pragmatic functions of the graphicons, being "reaction" as the most used function, and "narrative sequence" as the least used function, they found out that every graphicon has its own most common function. Emojis mostly focused on pragmatic functions such as "reaction", "tone modification", and "mention". Emoticons are mainly used as "reaction", then followed by "tone modification". Stickers, on the other hand, mainly function as "reaction" as well, but followed by "mention", while images and videos mainly function as "riff". However, they had limited samples for GIFs (n=2) which prevented them from concluding their pragmatic functions.
There were also other previous numbers of research about the functions of some graphicons like Skovholt et al. (2014) provided twelve (12) communicative functions of emoticons in workplace e-mails. These are requests, corrections, rejection, complaints, thanks, greetings, wishes, appraisals, promises, admissions, jokes/irony, and signatures. They found out that emoticons mostly serve as the sender's facial expressions and jokes or irony. It also softens the "directive speech" such as "requests, corrections, rejections, and complaints." There is also a dissertation from Al Rashdi in 2015, where she listed nine functions of emojis: (1) indicating emotions, (2) indicating approval or disapproval, (3) response to expressions of gratitude and compliments, (4) signalling openings and closings, (5) indicating celebration, (6) indicating fulfilment of a requested task, (7) contextualization cues, (8) substitute for lexical items, and (9) indexical signs. According to her, emojis are "highly context-dependent" and their functions are "complex", "multi-layered", and overlapping. Bliss-Carroll's (2016), on the other hand, discussed the functions of emojis. She found out that emojis function as "nonverbal signifiers of emotion" and "clarifiers of intent and mediators of self-expression and personal identity in digital spaces." In 2018, Herring and Dainas listed five pragmatic functions of emojis according to the receiver's interpretation of emoji: tone modification, action, reaction, mention, and softening. They discovered that though "tone modification" was chosen as the main function of emoji, every emoji has its specialization such as hearts and kisses which were interpreted as "expressing virtual actions''. Also, they found gender differences in the receiver's interpretation of the emoji. Though males and females mostly agree with the pragmatic functions of the sample emojis, the "other" gender "differed more with females and males than females and males differed from each other." Rouse (n.d.) discussed five broad categories of language use: informative, evocative, expressive, evaluative, and performative. In informative use, the language is used to express information that can be judged as true or false. In evocative use, on the other hand, it is expressed to bring out a response. In expressive use, it is used to express emotions. When there is someone or something to give judgments to, the evaluative use of language is used. Lastly, performative use is when the language is used to perform a social act.

Language Use and Graphicons
With the rise of digital communication, conversation with just words without non-verbal cues can lead to miscommunication. Bliss-Carroll (2016) claimed that "in a face-to-face scenario, people are accustomed to perceptions that often prioritize gestures, facial expressions, and vocal inflections above word content." However, Bliss-Carroll (2016) argued that "emojis foster the elements of both verbal and gestural expression that are present in face-to-face interactions." Having emojis as enhancers and clarifiers, the receiver of a message could have a hint of understanding the language used by the sender in digital communication.

Methodology
The corpora of the study were gathered from ten chosen group chats of one of the researchers on Facebook messenger. The corpora were the three-month-long conversations of each group chat. The oldest chats were from 2016, while the latest chats, in 2019. These chats were chosen according to the time they were chatting the most using the graphicons. The contexts of these chats were also varied. The researcher identified the datasets and extracted these from the corpora.
Because of their expertise in the field, and having conducted several studies on multimodal computer-mediated communication, the researchers used the framework of Herring and Dainas (2017), the only study the researchers discovered that included all of the graphicons that emerged from the dataset. This framework presents the six pragmatic functions of the graphicons. The researchers also used computer-mediated discourse analysis or the "language-focused content analysis" by Herring (2004) to analyze the frequency and the functions of the graphicons, as well as the ground theory approach in order to enable the function categories to emerge from the data.  Table 1 shows the frequency distribution of the graphicons according to their forms. Based on Table 1, 3839 graphicons were analyzed in this research. Among these graphicons, 2322 (60.48%) or more than half of the total graphicons were emojis. This is in line with Herring and Dainas' (2017) study, where more than half of their datasets were also emojis.

Discussions of Forms
Participants gave their reasons why they mostly use emojis. According to them, they use emoji because of their accessibility. Unlike other graphicons, emojis are more readily available. Some of them reasoned that it is easier to find emojis compared to other graphicons, and elaborated that because emojis are part of the keyboard, they "naturally press" them as part of the message they want to send. Participant 1 claimed that it was easy to react to a message using emojis. This is especially because aside from the go-to emoji keyboard in messenger, as well as the emojis on the phone keyboard, reacting using emojis is part of the Facebook Messenger's interface. She claimed that it is located in a section where it is easy to see; she can just click it and she gets the urge to use it. Last year, there was a new update where users can customize the emojis they can use to react in chats.
According to the participants, this adds to the fun of using emojis. Participant 10 also claimed that "the react button gives visual input of the reactions specifically for a message instead of replying using emojis that might be the general reaction to the messages sent in the group chats".
They also said that emoji is cute and fun to use. Participant 2 explained that "these tons of tiny pictures represent a variety of concepts and ideas." These various concepts and ideas help them represent what they want to say better.
Because it is effortless to send emojis, they use it to reply to the previous message as a replacement for what they want to say, instead of typing words. They also explained that emojis are convenient because instead of hovering all over the keyboard to type words, a person can just tap an emoji and it is already done. Participant 15 also gave examples of when she normally used emoji as a replacement. She said that whenever she travels to other countries, instead of typing the name of the country, she uses the flag emoji to represent the country. She also said that whenever she eats food or drink, she sends the corresponding emojis for those. Lastly, whenever she uploads pictures, she puts a camera emoji on the caption, as a replacement to the words "photo captured by" or "photo taken by," then adds the name of the person who captured the picture.
Another reason Participant 14 gave was that emojis are a great substitute for texts because texts cannot relay emotions or facial expressions. They said that emojis are useful because the sender can let the receiver know how they feel and it can let the sender gauge the receiver's reaction. This reasoning is in line with Bliss-Caroll's (2016) claim, "emojis foster elements of both verbal and gestural expression that are present in the face-to-face interactions, and these characteristics reveal why they have been quickly embraced as necessary enhancers and clarifiers of sentiment within technological communication." This shows that for the participants, emojis help fill the missing elements in digital communication like facial expressions and gestures which can show the sender or receiver's emotions in the conversation. They also discussed that they use emojis as a complement to their messages. They explained that it looks good to them whenever they add emojis to the message they typed.
Participant 5 also added that when a person is lazy to type, he or she can just use a bunch of emojis and it will tell a story; however, she commented that, in her opinion, it is a high-level skill. She reasoned that it is a high-level skill because if the emojis are not properly constructed, they would not make sense. She also said that if one is clueless about the meaning and submeaning of certain emojis, he or she would not understand the message. In the past years, numerous studies emerged about the understanding of emojis. Different studies show that there are many things to consider in understanding emojis. In fact, Kelly Image, on the other hand, was the second most used graphicon in the private conversations of the participants (838 or 21.83%). This is not far from Herring and Dainas' (2017) study, where the image was the third most used graphicon. According to the participants, if it takes too much time to explain with words, they send images. Participant 7 added that whenever she shares information, instead of typing and explaining everything, she just uses the screenshot function of their mobile phones or computers, then sends the screenshots to the group chat. She also pointed out that these images usually become the starting point of their conversation. Participant 16 also mentioned that he uses images as evidence or proof of his claims and stories in the conversations. Images also help him clarify information.
The meme was added as a main form of graphicon, unlike in Herring and Dainas' (2017) study, where they only indicated meme under graphicons per group category. This may be because, in public comments, images and videos are usually memes rather than just simple images or videos. According to Table 1, the meme is the third most used graphicon among all the graphicons the participants used (301 or 7.84). According to a participant, he mostly shares memes on his group chats, especially when he finds it funny. Most of the time, he uses these memes to start the conversation in the group chats. He also added that he uses memes to reply to conversations. Instead of typing a message to reply directly in a conversation, he looks for the most appropriate meme to use in his reply. Videos were the fourth-least used (189 or 4.92%) in the participants' conversations. According to the participants, they also use videos to start conversations. They also send videos to share information or just for entertainment.
GIFs were found to be the third least used in their conversations (89 or 2.32%). This is not far from Herring and Dainas' (2017) study where GIFs had the lowest frequency count; however, unlike their study, GIFs were used more than emoticons and stickers. Five participants admitted that they prefer using GIFs more than other graphicons because they best represent what they want to express. Nevertheless, unlike emojis and emoticons, searching for GIFs in messenger needs a data connection. Sending GIFs is not included in free Facebook. Unless they have GIFs on their phone or computer's storage, they will have to search for GIFs on messenger's GIF section, which needs a data connection. Because they still need to find the appropriate GIF for the conversation, they stated that data connection is a factor. Therefore, instead of using GIFs, they send emojis or emoticons as a replacement for GIFs.
In contrast to Herring and Dainas' study, emoticons, which were second to the highest, got second to the lowest in frequency count (79 or 2.06). The decline of their usage of emoticons was answered by the participants. Participant 13 stated that in sending emoticons, it needs an effort to type, unlike emojis. Also, she stated that even if they type emojis, some of them automatically change to emojis on the platform. Another participant described the usage of emoticons as a "sign of aging." This may be because emoticons were used even before people had smartphones. Since they cannot put other graphicons on text messages before, emoticons were used. Another participant explained that there are still platforms that do not support emojis like online games, so she uses emoticons there more than on Facebook messenger, which supports mainly emojis. Even so, she stated that she still uses emoticons in conversations especially whenever she likes her message to be in uniform. She argues that putting an emoji out of nowhere in some of her messages does not fit.
Stickers, with a frequency count of 21 or 0.55%, were the least used among all the graphicons in group chats. This finding opposes Herring and Dainas' (2017) study where stickers got the third lowest frequency count and GIFs got the lowest frequency count. Participant 10 stated that she uses stickers but not in her age group. She explained that she uses the stickers for children because it is more age-relevant. She further explained that stickers are cute, and very straightforward unlike GIFs, in which the meaning can vary depending on the context, understanding of the reader, and intention of the sender. Therefore, using GIFs is more complicated than stickers to use for a child.
The wide gap between all the graphicons can be seen. According to the participants, this is mainly because of the graphicons' accessibility and convenience. Unlike emojis, other graphicons are not included in the basic interface of Facebook messenger. To send an image, meme, GIF, or video, the user should save the graphicons first on his phone or computers' storage before sharing them. The sender should be able to initially see them, especially on Facebook, then clicks the share button. For stickers, the sender downloads the Facebook stickers on the sticker store first before sending one on the group chats. Since most emoticons automatically change to emojis, the usage of emoticons is also affected. Based on the forms of graphicon the researcher found in the corpora, the researcher categorized the forms of graphicons based on the graphicon complexity map of Herring and Dainas (2017).

Discussion of Functions
There are eleven (11) functions that emerged from the data. Six (6) of them are similar to Herring and Dainas' (2017) pragmatic functions: mention, tone modification, reaction, action, riffing, and narrative sequence response; while five (5) of them are the newly found functions of the graphicons: replacement, sharing, complement, and attention.

Mention
Mention, as explained by Herring and Dainas (2017), refers "to the graphicon itself". These graphicons are what the speakers are talking about in the conversation. The function of the graphicon is to be the subject of the conversation. Mention also refers to graphicons that are the graphical representation or the duplicate of the text itself (Dainas & Herring, 2019/2021).
In Figure 1, the text translates to "Guys. This sticker is creepy. Lol." In her message, the speaker talked about the sticker she sent after her textual message and told others that she was creeped out by it.

2.
Tone modification Tone modification, as discussed by Herring and Dainas, refers to the graphicon used by the speaker to modify the tone of the message "it accompanies". In Figure 3, it can be seen that the video changed the whole tone of the message it accompanied. Even though the speaker said "I'm de[a]d good night", by looking at the video, the tone of the word "de[a]d" changed from negative to being dead because of happiness or kilig.

Reaction
This function, theorized by Herring Dainas (2017), refers to the emotional response of the speaker to the preceding message in the conversation. The sender in Figure 4 told others that she was tired, and her headphones were broken. Because of that, the other user reacted to her message using a crying face emoji, a sad emoji with one tear, indicating that he sympathized with what the other participant was going through. However, this can also be seen as sarcasm or something he reacts to lighten her mood because the other user always teases the sender whenever something bad happens to her.

Action
This pragmatic function pertains to substitute the physical action by using graphicons. As stated by Herring and Dainas (2017), it can also substitute for "predicate in a text comment". For example, instead of saying I love you, users tend to use I "<3" you. "<3" emoticon became a substitute for the predicate "love". Figure 5 imitates the action of patting the head. The other participant was sad so the sender tries to console her by patting her head using the sticker.

Riffing
This pragmatic function is "a humorous elaboration on, play on, or parody of a graphicon or text comment." This function by Herring and Dainas (2017) shows that the usage of the graphicons in the conversation is to elaborate on the first message or graphicon by using other graphicons. The sender in Figure 6 claimed that she became like a dog ("Mirai", the name of the dog of one of the participants) after the other participant sent a picture of a certain food in their group conversation. The other participants asked her in what way she became "Mirai", then, she sent a GIF of a dog, wiping his mouth, indicating that the food looked delicious. Then, another participant also sent a GIF of a dog who was eating. The GIFs served as the elaboration for the statement "I became Mirai" [I became like a dog].

Replacement, GIFs
The narrative sequence pertains to the series of graphicons that were sent together to create a story or a message. Like Herring's and Dainas' (2017) research, this function only applies to emojis. In Figure 7, the sender sent a meme, then another two memes to continue the first meme. These images served as a substitute for a whole narrative about the spelling of the name 'Guinevere'. These memes show the different levels of 'brain power' in using a different spelling for the said name, though the last panel in the first image and the last two images show sarcasm. In the first panel of the first image, it shows the 'normal' spelling of the name 'Guinevere', especially in the mobile game "Mobile Legends" which is a reference for this meme. The first panel implies that if a person used the spelling 'Guinevere', it is considered normal, as implied by the first picture (the head with a normal brain). The second and third panels show that a person's brain is advanced and more advanced if they use 'Gwen' and 'Guine' respectively. On the last panel, the image shows that a person used incorrectly the spelling 'gammyber' for the name 'Guinevere'. Though sarcastic, the meme shows that a person's brain is 'way more advanced' if they use 'gammyber'. Then the sender sent additional two memes, to continue the "evolution of brain", 'transcending persons', one more advanced than the other, using the spelling 'gwywywyr', a running joke inside the group chat, then, 'gingerbear'. Instead of narrating the joke using words, the sender used memes.

7.
Response Response refers to the response to the command/request of the speaker to the other participant who commanded/requested them. This also refers to the response to a question or statement. The first speaker in Figure 8 requested a group photo of the other participants who were present during that time. The second participant sent two group pictures, responding to the request of the first speaker.

Replacement
Replacement refers to the graphicons that are used to substitute the text the sender wants to relay to the other participants in the group chats. Figure 9 shows a series of GIFs to replace a whole conversation of the two participants in a group chat. The first speaker was asking the other person ('pleading' on the third GIF, 'commanding' on the sixth GIF), to let him go since he was teasing him about what the first speaker did long ago. The other replied 'never' using a GIF, then a blah hand on the fifth GIF to tease him even more.

Sharing
Sharing refers to the function in which the graphicons are posted for entertainment or information by the sender with the other participants in the group chats. The researcher divided this function into two categories: entertainment and information. Entertainment refers to graphicons that are shared for leisure. Most of the time, the goal of the sender is just to share the images for other people to see, enjoy, and store. In Figure 10 (next page), the sender sent the copies of pictures they took when they went somewhere for a vacation. Most of the time, the goal of the sender is just to share the images for other people to see, enjoy, and store.

Figure 13
Sharing-Example, Image Information is a function when the participants send graphicons to share additional knowledge. There are three subcategories of information: reference, evidence, and example. Reference refers to the giving of information to act as a source, especially for studying purposes. For example, in Figure 11, a participant sent captured images of a PowerPoint presentation. This was sent to serve as a study reference for the participants. The second subcategory, evidence, refers to the function of graphicons that serves as proof in conversation, especially on arguments. In Figure 12, the sender sent pictures of Joker and Jared as evidence to prove that Jared looks almost similar to the Joker in comics. The third subcategory is 'example'. This subcategory is used to share the examples of the one the sender is referring to. In Figure 13, the first sender told the other participants that she looked 'Mirai' (the dog) while looking at the food a participant sent to the group. The other participant asked her how, so she sent an example of what 'the dog or she' was supposed to look like at the moment.

Complement
In this function, the graphicons' role in conversations is to complete the message the speaker wants to convey. Unlike tone modification, this function is being used not to modify the tone of the message but as a complement to the text, it accompanies. In this function, the graphicon may also act as an accessory of the message to set the mood in conversations, as well as a decorative, to make the whole message more beautiful to the eyes of the sender/receiver. In Figure 14, the emoji was used to make the message more pleasing. This also helped in setting the mood of the message in the figure. According to the participant, she also used the emoji because it looked 'cute' that way. In Figure 15, the sticker was sent to complete the previous messages. These graphicons were used to enhance the message by sending the graphic image especially of what they feel in the messages, thus making the message complete.

Attention
Attention refers to the graphicons that are used to catch the attention of the other participants or a conversation opener. This function is also used to emphasize a part of the preceding graphicon.
In Figure 16, the GIF was sent to know if other members of the group chat were online during that time. On the other hand, when the sender sent a link in Figure 17 to the group together with pictures, he took a shot of a certain part in the caption to emphasize the word; then sent it later. In this function, the participant used the graphicon to emphasize the word he wants the other participants to notice. Table 2 presents all the functions of graphicons according to forms. During the analysis, the researcher found out that each graphicon can have more than one function in conversations. Since it shows the functions of graphicons according to form, the frequency count of the forms of the graphicons in Table 2 differs from Table 1, which shows the total number of each graphicon only; however, the order of the graphicons (most frequent to least frequent) did not change. The overall results show that the graphicon that has the highest total number of functions was emoji (3283 or 55.64%), while the least was sticker (44 or 0.75%).

Frequency of Functions and Their Forms
It can be observed that, of all the graphicons and features, emoji was the most widely used graphicon in all functions, being the most commonly used graphicon in seven out of eleven functions (tone modification, reaction, replacement, complement, response, action, mention, and narrative sequence). Next are images, which were the most used graphicon in three out of eleven functions (sharing, attention, and mention). Then meme, which was the most used graphicon for riffing.
Meanwhile, the graphicon video was the least used graphicon in all functions, being the least commonly used graphicon in six out of eleven functions (tone modification, reaction, complement, response, action, and narrative sequence). It is followed by emoticon, which was the least used graphicon in five out of eleven functions (sharing, attention, mention, riffing, and narrative sequence). GIF and sticker, on the other hand, were both least used graphicons in two out of eleven functions (tone modification and narrative sequence; attention and replacement). Attention, GIF It was observed that tone modification was the most used function while the narrative sequence was the least used function among all the functions of the graphicons. The most or least used pragmatic function of graphicons, however, varies depending on the used graphicon.

Performative
In contrast to the previous categories, the performative is used to carry out a social act. Rouse (n.d.) gave examples of performative use such as "I apologize for my offensive behavior" (performance/act of apologizing) and "I do" (performance/act of making a wedding vow). In this category, graphicons can be used as a replacement to the performative message or action of the speaker.  Table 22, the most appropriate functions for informative are replacement, response, and sharing. This is because these three fit the description of the given function, which can be used to inform. Moreover, emojis and images were the recommended graphicon forms, for they were the most used graphicons for the given functions. Though the gap of the results is wide, other media graphicons can be used for this usage as well.
Since evocative is the language used to elicit a response, such as questions or commands, the most appropriate function for the category is replacement. It can be observed that even though the gap between emoji and the three given graphicons is huge, the researcher still added these three in the recommended graphicon. This is because, according to the findings, emojis are mostly used to replace lexical words than the whole message, while the media graphicons are used to replace the whole message itself. They were also added because of the participants' claim that they use graphic media to replace messages that they are lazy to put into textual messages. Emojis, on the other hand, can also be used to change the tone of the whole message (tone modification), making statements evocative.
Because expressive use is the emotional expression of people, tone modification and reaction are the most appropriate functions to use for this category. This is because tone modification deals with the tone of the message, changing the mood or emotions of the message, while reaction deals with the emotional reaction of the user. For the graphicons, emojis and emoticons are recommended for the function tone modification, for they were the most used graphicons for the said function. On the other hand, when it comes to the function reaction, besides emojis, images, memes, and GIFs are the recommended graphicons for it gives a vivid expression of people's emotions.
The use of words to express judgments is known as evaluative use. As a result, the most suitable language functions for this use are replacement, reaction, and response. Emojis, images, memes, and GIFs, on the other hand, are the graphicons that are recommended for this category. Though emoji was most commonly used for the specified functions, the said media graphicons can provide a vivid evaluation of whatever or whoever is being evaluated. Performative use is the expression of doing or acting something. The most appropriate functions for this category are replacement, action, and response while emoji, meme, image, and GIF are the recommended graphicons for this language use. However, even with a low number of usages in the findings, video is also recommended for this usage since it can show a more detailed way of performing the act.

Conclusion
This paper presents all the forms and functions of graphicons in Facebook private conversations, as well as their implications to language use. It was observed that emoji was the most used graphicon, followed by image, meme, video, GIF, emoticon, and sticker. However, the forms of graphicons used in chatting largely depend on one's generation, environment, culture, and schema. Users are also inclined to use forms that are 'appropriate' in a certain conversation. They also tend to use graphicons that connect more with their generation. The receiver's age and background also determines the forms used in conversations. Some graphicons are also preferred than other forms due to their features and convenience of use. Emojis are preferred to emoticons by users because of their accessibility. Emoticons are less used because some automatically transform into emojis on platforms like Facebook. Also, images are being used more because users need not explain in narrative form. Many users like to use GIFs but because it needs data, it limits them in using the graphicon. Lastly, stickers are more suitable for kids because they are cute and simple.
Eleven functions emerged in the dataset collected from the corpora : mention, tone modification, reaction, action, riffing, narrative sequence, response, replacement, sharing, complement, and attention. A graphicon can be used in more than one pragmatic function, but cannot be used in all functions. Some graphicons are specific to a purpose such as relaying a message. Moreover, the functions of the graphicons affect the form usage of the users. Graphicons are heavily integrated in computer-mediated communication. With the rise of computer-mediated communication, especially during pandemic, more people are using graphicons in Facebook and other social media platforms. Since graphicons are now a big part of online communication, people should be familiar with their forms and functions. Depending on the purpose of the users, graphicons could be utilized in different language use sucsh as in sharing information, suggesting evocative meanings, expressing emotions, evaluating messages, and performing acts. The findings of this study may also serve as a reference to people who are interested in internet communication. Present studies mostly focused on some of the graphicons, especially emoji ; however, with the growing use of the different graphicons in conversations, it is recommended to study not just only one or two graphicons but all the graphicons that are used in a conversation. However, since the corpora were from 2016 to 2019 on Facebook messenger, some new emerging graphicons are not included in the study. Because of this, future researchers may try to focus on different forms of graphicons such as animoji, avatars, and bitmoji. They may also focus on private conversations on other platforms like Twitter and Tumblr, or even different conversation topics. They may also feature the implications of the graphicons for other fields.