emoticon vs facial gesture

emoticon and facial gesture both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
emoticon	Yes	No	No	No
facial gesture	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, facial gesture is a hypernym of emoticon; that is, facial gesture is a word with a broader meaning than emoticon:

emoticon: a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email
facial gesture: a gesture executed with the facial muscles

Other hypernyms of emoticon include facial expression.

emoticon (noun)	facial gesture (noun)
a representation of a facial expression (as a smile or frown) created by typing a sequence of characters in sending email	a gesture executed with the facial muscles