Apart from accessibility issues, I don't think emoticons work well in this context. At least they would make me stare more at the dialog and not less.

Although verbs like Save along with icons like a floppy disk might increase familiarity, so graphics could be applied moderately.

a very interesting and valid point about mixing the text with graphics. Though I standard of PLAY/PAUSE/STOP/FWD/BACK icons on VCR a is a example of a standard that is embraced and known globaly, no text involved. That said the old stories of people having problems programming there VCR may well have roots in the iconic only introduction only to be dumped into the non-standard programming interfaces that changed from model to model.

I certianly do believe signs/symbols when known have a very intuative communication medium and once adopted and used the comfort value is as good and if not better than some words which are after all a collection of symbols in themselfs. Road sighs would be another area which has at least some universal symbols, maybe those would be more adoptable for a user interface.

Perish the thought that one day we have a computer that you set up and asks you how you the user would like certain common dialogues to be handeled and propergated that customised standard across all applications running upon them. I'm all for graphic symbols to indicate across languages the actions available as apposed to limiting to words alone, which are in themself (for English and many other languages) only a collection of 26 or so symbols combined in themself.

The example you give about the word Save with a icon with a floppy disc is very common in alot of applications, though I do wonder for a new user who is starting out with computers if they would even be able to identify with the image of a floppy disc, let alone know they ever existed and there use. So some symbols are, if not thought out limited in there use and some are timeless classics that still endure today, like some roadsigns. It is also worth noting that colours play a important part and with that also have limitations. If you saw a road stop sign in green instead of red you would think it was a go sign and not a stop one; So careful use is wise. With that the mix you say of text and symbols is perhaps not that bad an approach after all, albiet language biased it would still allow say a user of a mobile phone to navigate the menu's using the symbols to change the menu language back to say English with ease having been comfronted with russian text due to a child changing the settings or the like.