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The blog site of the Oxford Dictionaries features a post dated November 16 2015, which announces that, “for the first time ever”, their “Word of the Year” is not a word, but a pictograph: the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji. The term emoji, which is a loanword from Japanese, identifies “a small digital image or icon used to express an idea or emotio...
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... The sociolinguistic use of emojis has been documented (Moschini 2016), and some have asked whether or not emojis have a syntax (Cohn & Engelen & Schilperoord 2019). ...
Emojis, introduced in the US in 2011 and now ubiquitous, are a set of iconic expressive symbols that are incredibly widespread in computer-mediated communication (CMC), especially among young people. The majority of linguistic research on emojis focuses only on the semantics; however, emerging data suggest that emojis are far more linguistically interesting than merely their semantic contributions to a sentence. Data from Twitter demonstrate that emojis can actually appear as contentful morphological units that behave according to regularly predictable morphosyntactic rules. In this paper I analyze data from several languages including English, German, and Spanish and reach several conclusions about emojis that appear as words. First, these emojis are not merely replacements in text for existing words in a language, but rather they represent the morphosyntactic of a lexically-typed stem, to which inflectional and derivational affixes can be productively added. Second, these emoji stems can undergo morphological changes such lexicalization and grammaticalization. Within pro-speech emojis, I also differentiate two sub-categories of emoji according to how they are interpreted: emojis which have both an iconic and symbolic mechanism of interpreted, and emojis that are interpreted iconically. This work introduces and strengthens the idea that pictures can be part of the morphosyntactic derivation of an utterance and that they can be represented in a language user’s lexicon.
... Emojis are colored graphic icons and have relatively direct meanings [3]. which originated in Japan and are successors to emoticons. ...
... Plenty of previous researchers have studied how users use emojis in different ways to achieve their intended speech acts [6]. For example, Liu and Yang have studied the influence of different emoji attaching to the same text [2][3][4]. The text is "A driver on the highway go the wrong way and said 'I think it is feasible'." ...
... Thus, simply speaking, ideational meaning mainly focuses on the image itself and, in this research, focuses on the visual feature of different emojis and their semantic meaning. Liu and Yang pointed out that emojis can be regarded as pictograms, which provides visual alternative or supplement for text [3,4]. In addition, emojis can be categorized into different groups such as iconic (smiles, sad faces) and symbolic such as star signs. ...
This paper explores the semantic and pragmatic meaning of smiling emoji occurring with text in Chinese online communication and discovers what factors might have an effect on context meaning. Five top popular smiling emojis from WeChat have been selected to set scenes that are most common in daily life. Based on the multimodal analysis framework, how people use emojis in the text will be analyzed to discover representational, interpersonal, and textual features of emojis. It is found that visual graphic features, age, relationship between interlocutors, and structure can all influence the meaning of emoji. People use different ways to use emoji to achieve their goals and hidden purposes. In general, emojis often occur at the end of the text, substituting or assisting words to achieve speech acts and promote emotional feeling.
... A tenor de la proliferación de trabajos que cercan el campo delineado a nivel internacional, huelga decir que la temática elegida se enmarca más en lo actual que en lo novedoso, no obstante, en el caso concreto de esta propuesta se anhela dar un paso adicional distintivo. Para ser exactos, se pretende compaginar la identificación de rasgos idiosincrásicos de la política pop y de la feminización del discurso político en TikTok con el estudio de las reacciones negativas que esta clase de contenidos audiovisuales provocan en ciertos receptores del mensaje/vídeo, especialmente, a través del universal lenguaje de los emojis o palabras pictográficas que complementan lo escrito aportándole, con frecuencia, nuevo sentido (Moschini, 2016;Sampietro, 2019;Pavalanathan;Eisenstein, 2016;Prada et al., 2018). No en vano, de acuerdo con Cervi y Marín-Lladó (2022), los emojis no solo tienen utilidad como representaciones de emociones, sino que llegan a crear alineaciones entre las personas y estructuran intercambios de información sobre la solidificación de una suerte de lenguaje ubicuo capaz de traspasar barreras lingüísticas (Cervi; Marín-Lladó, 2022; Alshenqeeti, 2016; Gibson; Huang; Yu, 2018). ...
En un contexto de campaña electoral permanente, cada vez son más los especialistas en comunicación política que tra-tan de desentrañar los recursos con los que los gobernantes y sus formaciones buscan influir en los tiktokers. Desde un punto de vista amplio, la temática se enmarca más en lo actual que en lo novedoso, no obstante, en el caso concreto de esta investigación se apunta a un vacío académico al compaginar la identificación de rasgos idiosincrásicos de la femini-zación del discurso político en TikTok con el estudio de las reacciones (texto y emojis) que los contenidos audiovisuales imbuidos de esta tendencia provocan en los usuarios. El propósito es averiguar si el tono integrador del estilo retórico feminizado puede extrapolarse a la red social de origen chino y, de ser así, si sus particulares características atenúan las formas de incivilidad. Para llevar a cabo estas comprobaciones, se seleccionan los siete primeros meses de actividad en TikTok de la plataforma política Sumar con su lideresa, Yolanda Díaz, como protagonista de la mayor parte de los vídeos. La metodología mixta de análisis sobre el contenido audiovisual y los comentarios permite comprobar que, aunque el nuevo partido español no aplica una estrategia perfectamente adaptada a la plataforma objeto de estudio, la retórica antipolarización y el storytelling contribuyen a neutralizar las formas extremas de flaming.
... In view of the proliferation of works on this field worldwide, it goes without saying that the subject matter is not new but it is topical; however, this research clearly goes one step further. Specifically, the aim is to combine the identification of idiosyncratic features of pop politics and the feminisation of political discourse in TikTok with the study of the negative reactions that this kind of audiovisual content elicits in some users who are recipients of messages/videos; especially through the universal language of emojis or pictographic words that complement written text, often giving it new meaning (Moschini, 2016;Sampietro, 2019;Pavalanathan;Eisenstein, 2016;Prada et al., 2018). According to Cervi and Marín-Lladó (2022), emojis are not only useful as representations of emotions, but also create alignment between people and structure exchanges of information built on somewhat ubiquitous language capable of crossing linguistic barriers Marín-Lladó, 2022;Alshenqeeti, 2016;Gibson;Huang;Yu, 2018). ...
In a context of permanent electoral campaign, an increasing number of political communication specialists are trying to unravel the resources with which government officials and their parties seek to influence TikTok users. From a broad perspective, the theme is more current than novel, however, in the specific case of this research, an academic void is identified by combining the identification of idiosyncratic traits of the feminization of political discourse in TikTok with the study of reactions (text and emojis) that audiovisual content imbued with this trend provokes in users. The intention is to find out whether the inclusive tone of the feminized rhetorical style can be extrapolated to the Chinese-origin social network and, if so, whether its particular characteristics mitigate forms of incivility. To carry out the checks, the first seven months of activity on TikTok by the political platform Sumar with its leader, Yolanda Díaz, as the protagonist of most of the videos, are selected. The mixed methodology of analysis on audiovisual content and comments allows to verify that, although the new Spanish party does not apply a strategy perfectly adapted to the social network under study, the anti-polarization rhetoric and the storytelling techniques manage to neutralize extreme forms of flaming.
... With visual content being an integral component of mediated platforms, it is important to understand the power of emojis in shaping the context of messages. Emojis are a set of pictographic unicode characters that display small images or icons expressing ideas, emotions, and humor (Moschini 2016). ...
Digital technology has long provided new ways of initiating romantic relationships as people communicate through text messages, social media, and dating applications. Emojis have been widely adopted as a means of conveying nonverbal cues in digital communication. However, what role do platform‐provided social cues, such as emojis, play in fostering or impeding clear communication and shared romantic expectations from a flirtatious text message conversation? In this study, 713 college students were randomly assigned to read a Snapchat conversation with or without emojis and, they were subsequently asked to infer the characters' thoughts and feelings, clarity of the characters' intentions, and indicate their own discomfort with receiving a similar Snapchat message. The results showed that emojis increase the clarity of the main character's intentions. Moreover, the participants' cognitive efforts, the extent to which they were emotionally affected by the conversation, and the presence of emojis reduced comfort level with receiving a similar Snapchat message. These findings suggest that emojis provide clarity to romantic conversations, which can amplify the interpersonal discomfort of receiving text‐based sexual overtures.
... It described an illustration of a student who is doubtful and does not know for sure the correct answer to the questions provided in Quizizz. According to Moschini (2016), a massive sweat fall represents shame or anxiety. ...
Many studies have examined the role of the Quizizz website as a medium of English language instruction, especially for assessment, and found it to have positively impacted learners’ learning enthusiasm and engagement. However, few studies have examined the linguistic and visual aspects of Quizizz from a multimodal perspective. To fill this void, this study aimed to explore the engagement aspects and representational functions underlying certain parts of the Quizizz website from the multimodal lens. Using the content analysis approach, the data were taken from relevant documents and analyzed using the Systemic Functional Multimedia Discourse Analysis (SFMDA) framework (O'Halloran, 2008) with a focus on the representational meaning of visual and engagement taxonomy for each textual data. The findings showed that the Quizizz website entailed multimodal engagement taxonomy (disclaim, proclaim, entertainment, and attributes) and representational function (transactional, non-transactional, and covert). Specifically, the most dominant types were proclaiming and entertainment, encouraging students and entertaining them while undertaking quizzes. Nonetheless, the data in visual analysis displayed more covert taxonomy, which can reduce the students' thinking concepts that better reflect equal diversity in the form of multimodal.
... As it is apparent, cold signs and algorithmic expressions called emojis have rudely violated the exclusivity held by traditional linguistic language expressed in text. Their roots go to Japanese manga where 'emoji'-picture (e) character (moji)-became integrated into digital keyboards (Moschini, 2016). The popularity of this unconventional communication mode eclipsed emoticons that were in vogue before its advent (Pavalanathan and Eisenstein, 2016). ...
Developing nations have been experimenting with different models and theories in their quest for development for decades but are missing some critical elements when mirrored or judged via a Westernized lens. In order for these countries to successfully establish their identity and address issues that have held them back in the past, further study on the use of media and philosophy in correlation with development must be conducted.
The Handbook of Research on Connecting Philosophy, Media, and Development in Developing Countries examines how media can be utilized to bridge the gap between the past and the future for developing countries and drive sustainable development. The book also seeks to reimagine development within developing regions through the prism of their unique cultures, religions, media, and philosophies so they can take hold of their identity and portrayals within the international arena. Covering topics such as human development, new media, language, and culture, this major reference work is ideal for government officials, policymakers, scholars, researchers, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.
... Crystal, 2001) contend that the use of emojis does not seem to stem from the 'what' but from the 'how' of text production, and that the use of shortened text language is hampering users' literacy and communication skills. This has not been proven to be the case, however, and other researchers view emojis as a highly creative form of language (Moschini, 2016) that contributes to innovative communication, and expands traditional writing, making language more visual and playful (Danesi, 2017). Whether they are creative or regressive, emojis are clearly enormously popular. ...
... The growth of social networking has highlighted the quickly emerging and evolving expressive means of emojis as an essential element of multimodal literacy (SwiftKey 2015;Danesi 2017;Herring and Dainas 2017;Ge and Herring 2018;Bai et al. 2019; see also Kress 2003). 1 Originating in Japan, emojis are chromatic graphic icons which are usually seen as successors to emoticons, which consist of ASCII symbols and were first used in the US (Moschini 2016;Hakami 2017;Aull 2019). The Romanized word emoji is a blend of the Japanese words "e 'picture'" and "moji 'character'" (Rodrigues et al. 2018). ...
This paper explores the pragmatics of emojis co-occurring with or embedded in text on Chinese social media with this central research question: what are the patterns and the communicative functions manifested by emojis in co-occurrence with Chinese text? Building on the metafunctional approach of multimodal analysis, popular online posts from Sina Weibo which contain both emoji(s) and text have been collected and analyzed to discover the representational, interactive, and compositional features manifested by emojis co-occurring with text. We have found that these emojis on Weibo appear most frequently at the end of the posts and reflect some unique Chinese cultural and linguistic features. Based on recurring pragmatic and functional patterns of text-emoji co-occurrences, it is proposed that emojis are used to perform speech acts, highlight subjective interpretations, and enhance informality, while substituting, reinforcing, and complementing the meanings conveyed by verbal language.
... In the late 1990s, a set of pictorial signs were then created in Japan deemed 'emoji'-picture (e) character (moji)-which became integrated into digital keyboards. Many emoji were pulled from the conventional depictions of emotions used in Japanese manga (Moschini, 2016), as evident in the nose bubble for sleep , shade on the forehead for dread , and the large sweat drop on the forehead for anxiety (Cohn, 2013a;Cohn & Ehly, 2016). As people began using emoji, emoticons reduced in prevalence (Pavalanathan & Eisenstein, 2016) or became automatically converted into emoji, and now emoji have become a common part of interactive digital communication. ...
Abstract Emoji have become a prominent part of interactive digital communication. Here, we ask the questions: does a grammatical system govern the way people use emoji; and how do emoji interact with the grammar of written text? We conducted two experiments that asked participants to have a digital conversation with each other using only emoji (Experiment 1) or to substitute at least one emoji for a word in the sentences (Experiment 2). First, we found that the emoji-only utterances of participants remained at simplistic levels of patterning, primarily appearing as one-unit utterances (as formulaic expressions or responsive emotions) or as linear sequencing (for example, repeating the same emoji or providing an unordered list of semantically related emoji). Emoji playing grammatical roles (i.e., ‘parts-of-speech’) were minimal, and showed little consistency in ‘word order’. Second, emoji were substituted more for nouns and adjectives than verbs, while also typically conveying nonredundant information to the sentences. These findings suggest that, while emoji may follow tendencies in their interactions with grammatical structure in multimodal text-emoji productions, they lack grammatical structure on their own.
