The battle is over and the emoticons have won. Whatever you think of the symbols, they’re absolutely everywhere, including in work emails. But the etiquette over emoticon usage is still fuzzy, and it’s an understandable source of tension, especially considering that people may be judging us based on our smiley deployment.
斗争结束情感获胜。无论你怎么看待表情符号，它们真真无处不在，哪怕是工作的邮件。但如何使用这些表达感情的符号并没有明确的规则，也可看成是我们紧张情绪的舒缓，尤其是意识到别人可能会根据我们发出的表情符号对我们自身做出判断。
Luckily, researchers are starting to better understand how people perceive emoticons in various contexts (emojis may be having a moment, but they’re not as universal as the top three old-school emoticons: the smiley, the frowny, and the winky). Their work can provide some helpful pointers on how to use your emoticons to maximum effect, whether dating online or responding to a professional email.
好在，研究者们已经开始试图找到更好在不同文体中使用表情的方法（emojis也许火过一阵子，但并没有其他传统校园表情前三那般流行：笑脸，皱眉和眨眼。）他们的研究告诉我们如何在网上约会抑或回复专业邮件时充分利用表情符号。
Here are five ways to be a smarter emoticon user:
下面五招教你做一个聪明的表情使用者：
1. If you want to be popular, limit how many frownies you use.
1.如果想增粉，就减少皱眉的表情吧。
Researchers from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory and Yahoo Labs analyzed more than 31 million tweets to determine the characteristics of the most popular and influential Twitter users. They found that Twitter users with a lot of social capital sprinkled smileys liberally throughout their missives, while frownies were linked to low popularity. Popular users still expressed negative opinions — they just did so with words.
剑桥计算机研究室的调查者以及雅虎实验室分析3100多万推特旨在发现最受欢迎影响力最大推特用户的特征。他们发现这些推特红人们会在发送的信息中添加大量的微笑表情，而皱眉则是减粉的原因。推特红人们也会表达负面情绪-仅限于文字表达。
2. Be aware of gender stereotypes.
2.意识到性别模式。
Multiple studies over the past 15 years have shown that women use emoticons more than men. Women also smile more in real life, perhaps because they are expected to be the more expressive gender, says Susan Herring, a linguist at Indiana University who studies online communication. In a 2009 analysis of messages featured on a texting-based Italian dating show, she and her colleagues argued that men and women used their texts to project different identities. The women who sent in their messages seemed to be “performing a kind of socially desirable femininity” characterized by “playfulness” and “fun,” while the men acted more serious.
超过15年的多项研究发现女人比男人更爱使用表情符号。研究网上交流印度大学的语言学家Susan Herring认为现实中女人也更爱笑，也许她们本身就被看成是更乐于表达，在09年对意大利文字约会的信息分析中，她和同事们认为男人女人用文字塑造出了不同的个性特征。女人们发送出的信息似乎”是要成为有魅力的社交尤物“，比如”好玩“”有意思“，而男人就会更加认真严肃一点。
“There’s this new norm that women are expected to show more happiness and excitement than men do,” said Herring. “If you’re a woman, you may have to realize that if you don’t use a smiley face sometimes, you may be misinterpreted as being in a bad mood or unhappy with the person you’re talking to. I don’t think that’s true for men.”
”新的标准也指出似乎女人应该比男人表现的更快乐和兴奋，“Herring说”如果你是女人，你也许会意识到如果有时候没有用笑脸的表情，就会被对方误认为是心情不好不开心。但这一点在男生身上却不适用。“
3. If you want someone to like you, match their emoticon frequency.
3.如果你想别人喜欢你，时常配合他们的情绪。
In a 2013 study of messages in chat rooms full of men and women of various ages, Chris Fullwood, a cyberpsychology researcher at the University of Wolverhampton, and his colleagues found that although men typically use fewer emoticons in general, when conversing with women they become more expressive and up their usage.
2013年充满各个年龄段的男女聊天室聊天信息的研究中，武尔夫普尔顿大学网瘾研究员Chris Fullwood以及他的同事发现，尽管男生普遍使用更少的表情，一旦和女人聊天，他们会更热衷于表达，增加使用次数。
“That could be a direct attempt to minimize social differences,” Fullwood said. “Our communication styles become more similar if we want to show we are similar to another person and get them to like us.” So if you’re trying to flirt with someone who isn’t matching your emoticon frequency, that may be a sign they’re not into it. And more generally, it’s best not to overdo it with the emoticons, since if you do you may be perceived as superficial or silly. “If you use one after every utterance you’re not going to be taken seriously,” said Herring.
Fullwood说”也有直接的途径来减少社交差异”，“当我们想表现出跟对方的相似性以取悦，我们的交流模式也会变得相似。”所以如果你调情的那个人似乎跟你使用表情的频率不一致，那么也许说明他们不想配合你而已。一般来说，也不要过度使用表情，以免被认为肤浅或傻。“如果你每句话之后都加一个表情，那么别人就会觉得你不太正经。”
4. Wait until you know someone.
4.了解之后再说。
We don’t send emoticons to strangers with the same frequency that we send them to our friends, according to a 2008 study by Daantje Derks, an organizational psychologist at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. If you receive an emoticon from someone you don't know very well, it may be interpreted as creepy. Like in face-to-face interactions, there’s a social norm against emoting around people you don’t know very well, Herring said. Going too heavy, too early on the emoticons is a bit like “laughing too loud,” she says.
根据08年鹿特丹伊斯拉姆斯大学组织心理学家Daantje Derks的研究表明，我们对陌生人使用表情的频率肯定不及对朋友。如果一个不熟悉的人给你发来表情，也许会被认为有点诡异呢。就好比面对面的交流，社交准则说不要对不熟悉的人有太多面部表情。Herring说，过早过度使用表情就好比“大声笑“。
5. Avoid looking like an emoticon tourist.
5.别看起来完全不懂使用表情符号。
Language and culture have been shown to color how emoticons are used and interpreted, as was recently demonstrated in a 2013 study of tweets from around the world. In Japan and South Korea, for instance, emoticons are more likely to be horizontally oriented (think @_@) ), as opposed to the standard American :), which is vertically oriented unless your mail program or phone turns it into a graphic for you.
在对2013年全球推特的研究中发现语言和文化会影响表情的使用和含义。比如日本韩国，表情更加倾向于横向（思考@_@），然而标准的美式表情：），是纵向的。除非你的邮件系统或电话自动为你修改。
In the Philippines and Indonesia, however, where English is spoken along with local languages, emoticons are just as likely to be vertically oriented. And in languages read from right to left, such as Arabic and Hebrew, smileys are reversed, like (: . South Americans apparently “are known to explore various types of eyebrows in their emoticons,” according to the study authors. So if you’re sending emoticons to foreign friends, a bit of research can help bridge the communication gap.
然而在菲律宾和印度尼西亚，英语和当地语言混杂使用，表情符号也似乎偏纵向。而对于从右往左阅读的语言，比如阿拉伯语和希伯来语，笑脸也会反过来（：。研究发现南美显然”被认为在表达情绪中更热衷于使用眉毛“。所以如果你给国外的朋友发送表情，一点小调查能帮助你缩短交流代沟哦。