Affectivity and humour in computer-mediated communication : can they survive in a virtual domain?

The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent humorous traits of human communication can be modelled both into the computer interface domain, and into a new lingua franca in which all the culture-specific elements tend to be cancelled out under the weight of the linguistic hybridity of the Net. Most of the graphic user interfaces are constructed by utilizing seductive and affecting strategies - embedded into verbal and/or nonverbal representations - that mainly exploit the humorous sphere. Thanks to the 'user-friendly' philosophy, users are encaptivated and are able to interact with the computer simulating human-human communication: they perceive those humorous traits as constituent parts of human-computer interaction. Furthermore, acronyms, abbreviations, emoticons, and smileys are typical features of e-discourse and of our conversational exchanges in cyberspace. Their function is fundamental because they act for nonverbal codes since, very often, they represent those unique elements with which we convey meaning: verbal and nonverbal systems ‘translated’ into icons and symbols, accepted and decoded by most netizens. In fact, they encode the emotional and affective dimension of face-to-face conversation. How can 'local' humour survive inside a 'global' virtual space? This essay, focusing on these new elements and the way they are used in the Internet domain, is an investigation of the degree to which the humorous component is cast in this new semiotic global universe.