Study of the Emoji
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Throughout the world, technology has allowed us to make dramatic advancements in the ways we live our everyday lives. We are able to receive news faster than ever through the creation of television and social media, and are able to travel longer distances in a shorter amount of time through automobiles and airplanes. Today, however, we are seeing a new kind of shift in the way we communicate with one another, which is defining all language barriers. This new communication trend is known as emoji’s or emoticons. These digital symbols called emojis consist of different animated facial expressions, gestures, and much more are becoming so popular throughout the world that this may be the very first universal language ever seen. As we examine the frequency of use, place of origin, and how many different countries are using these animated characters, we will see that emojis are and will continue to be a globally recognized language. And with its widespread rapid growth, the potential these characters have is endless.
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Humans have been using pictures and symbols all throughout history as ways of communication. Primitive humans used cave drawings to tell their stories, while ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphics. While cave drawings and hieroglyphics were a way for these people to communicate before written language was developed, the use of emoticons we see today is primarily used as a simpler way of communicating. Using the symbols and pictures of emoticons is indicative of people going back to the roots of communication that we saw in ancient times and is a language that is globally understood (Pilgrim 2016). The invention of emojis first originated in Japan and was called kaomoji, which literally translates to “face like symbols” in English. The original use of emojis from Japan was for internet correspondents who combined the use of characters such as commas, quotation marks, slashes, and parenthesis to make digital faces that conveyed one's emotion. This new use of digital body language created a new way for people to communicate over the internet and cellular phones (Lebra 2004). The cellular phone market was a big reason for the creation of emojis as well. Japanese mobile phone company DoCoMo developed emoji characters based off manga art as a way to increase its teen user market share. Once companies like Google and Apple realized the appeal these animated characters had on the public, they decided to bring them into their market in the mid 2000’s (Lebduska 2014).
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With character limits on mobile phones and the use of emojis to express your feelings or to send a message using fewer characters, it’s understandable why emojis have become so popular. And this popularity also doesn’t just stop with normal everyday internet and cell phone users. Big consumer based companies such as Budweiser and Oreo are seen using emojis on their Twitter accounts to communicate with their followers. More and more marketing campaigns seem to be going towards this trend of using emojis to communicate with their target audiences. Not only are emojis immensely popular with mobile phone and internet users, but it also stands as a communication language that is universally understood with the ability to reach a wide range of people in multiple countries (Law 2015).
If we look at the use of emojis and emoticons from a more technical aspect, we get a better understanding of why this form of communication has become so popular. A study conducted by the University of Applied Sciences from Austria took a deeper dive into the social media Facebook users and the ways they use internet communication. The university was able to get 66 students to participate in their study and were able to discover information about the online internet culture. From the results, they were able to see that among both short-term and long term Facebook users, both groups used emoticons in their communications significantly more than any other forms of communication, such as abbreviations and stylistic forms, or capital letters or bold words to imply significance (Hodic & Kelz 2014). And the fact that the use of emoticons was significantly high for both short term and long term users shows that emoticons are much more easily understandable and easier to use than other forms of communication. The study also looked at gender specific postings to see if there was a difference in the amount of communication posted and the type of communication used between genders. Female users were seen to post much more than male users with 382 total postings from females compared to just 166 for males. However, the results showed that even though there was this big difference in the amount of postings each gender participated in, both genders still used emoticons much more frequently than other forms of communications. Female users were shown to use emoticons in 192 uses out of their total 382 while males used emoticons in 63 of their total 166 (Hodic & Kelz 2014). With no difference being found between short term, long term, male or female users in their frequency of emoticon use, we can see that clearly there is a universal acceptance in emoticons being a viable communication language. What makes the use of emoticons or emojis appealing for users may not just be the ease of use, however. A great appeal towards using these characters of simply writing everything out is its ability to not misinterpret the meaning the user is trying to convey in their message. There have been plenty of instances where a user’s message is interpreted differently, usually in a negative way, because of the difficulty text has with showing connotation. By adding an emoji with a smiling face or its tongue out it can imply a joking implication with the message that without might have been construed as rude by the receiver. A linguistics professor at Columbia University spoke to this notion on emoticons and emojis by saying, “They add on a part of language that often gets lost in writing, the expressive and personal part” (Tatera 2015).
If we look at the use of emojis and emoticons from a more technical aspect, we get a better understanding of why this form of communication has become so popular. A study conducted by the University of Applied Sciences from Austria took a deeper dive into the social media Facebook users and the ways they use internet communication. The university was able to get 66 students to participate in their study and were able to discover information about the online internet culture. From the results, they were able to see that among both short-term and long term Facebook users, both groups used emoticons in their communications significantly more than any other forms of communication, such as abbreviations and stylistic forms, or capital letters or bold words to imply significance (Hodic & Kelz 2014). And the fact that the use of emoticons was significantly high for both short term and long term users shows that emoticons are much more easily understandable and easier to use than other forms of communication. The study also looked at gender specific postings to see if there was a difference in the amount of communication posted and the type of communication used between genders. Female users were seen to post much more than male users with 382 total postings from females compared to just 166 for males. However, the results showed that even though there was this big difference in the amount of postings each gender participated in, both genders still used emoticons much more frequently than other forms of communications. Female users were shown to use emoticons in 192 uses out of their total 382 while males used emoticons in 63 of their total 166 (Hodic & Kelz 2014). With no difference being found between short term, long term, male or female users in their frequency of emoticon use, we can see that clearly there is a universal acceptance in emoticons being a viable communication language. What makes the use of emoticons or emojis appealing for users may not just be the ease of use, however. A great appeal towards using these characters of simply writing everything out is its ability to not misinterpret the meaning the user is trying to convey in their message. There have been plenty of instances where a user’s message is interpreted differently, usually in a negative way, because of the difficulty text has with showing connotation. By adding an emoji with a smiling face or its tongue out it can imply a joking implication with the message that without might have been construed as rude by the receiver. A linguistics professor at Columbia University spoke to this notion on emoticons and emojis by saying, “They add on a part of language that often gets lost in writing, the expressive and personal part” (Tatera 2015).
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Emojis are useful in the fact that they are able to portray one's emotion that might be difficult to write out in a message. This problem is intensified even more between languages from different cultures. Many different cultures have words or lack words that translate well in other cultures. By using the picture symbols of emojis, we can break down the language barriers that often times leave us lost in translation. Even though these symbols are condensed versions of expressions or ideas, they allow us to communicate with one another more clearly regardless of our native language. As of today, the number of official emojis is over 2,666 and continues to grow. And while there currently aren’t any grammatical rules or consistency with how emojis are used, it’s safe to anticipate that with the vast number of emojis available and with its continued growth that we may very well see a much more structured language developed in the near future. How this language of emojis unfolds ultimately depends on the youth and how they embrace and use emojis as they are the generation born into this phenomenon (Terry 2017).
Emojis and emoticons are able to do something that no other language in the world is able to do. They are able to transcend language barriers and convey emotions and ideas that might be otherwise lost in communication. Marketers are realizing this breakthrough and are now focusing on the new generation of people born into our current social media and mobile driven world. Each day, 6 billion emojis are sent through mobile phones around the world making emojis a global culture trend (Law 2015). With so many people familiar with and actively using emojis, some companies are starting to try out using only emojis to communicate. Domino’s Pizza tried a concept of having customers using only emojis to order a pizza. Customers would simply Tweet an emoji of a piece of pizza and Domino’s would deliver a pizza to their address (Bračko 2017). People may see this use of symbols to communicate as civilization going backgrounds to how ancient civilizations used to communicate, but what we are seeing today with emojis seems to be something much different. Communication itself doesn’t appear to be declining, but we are finding a new, faster, and more understandable way of communicating. With many different countries with vastly different languages and cultures still being able to understand the message behind emojis as a form of communication, leaves a lot of potential for its use. How the language of emojis continues to develope and its acceptance by communities will determine if we one day will finally have a globally recognized and understandable language.
Emojis and emoticons are able to do something that no other language in the world is able to do. They are able to transcend language barriers and convey emotions and ideas that might be otherwise lost in communication. Marketers are realizing this breakthrough and are now focusing on the new generation of people born into our current social media and mobile driven world. Each day, 6 billion emojis are sent through mobile phones around the world making emojis a global culture trend (Law 2015). With so many people familiar with and actively using emojis, some companies are starting to try out using only emojis to communicate. Domino’s Pizza tried a concept of having customers using only emojis to order a pizza. Customers would simply Tweet an emoji of a piece of pizza and Domino’s would deliver a pizza to their address (Bračko 2017). People may see this use of symbols to communicate as civilization going backgrounds to how ancient civilizations used to communicate, but what we are seeing today with emojis seems to be something much different. Communication itself doesn’t appear to be declining, but we are finding a new, faster, and more understandable way of communicating. With many different countries with vastly different languages and cultures still being able to understand the message behind emojis as a form of communication, leaves a lot of potential for its use. How the language of emojis continues to develope and its acceptance by communities will determine if we one day will finally have a globally recognized and understandable language.
Works Cited
Bračko, Paula. 2017. “Say it with Emojis: Digital Communication through Little Yellow Faces.” Last modified April 20. http://www.media-marketing.com/en/opinion/say-it-with-emojis-digital-communication-through-little-yellow-faces/.
Hodic, Azra & Kelz, Andrea. 2014. Facebook and the Changing Way we Speak.” Paper presented at European conference on social media, University of Brighton UK, July 10–11.
Law, Louise. 2015. “CAN EMOJIS BREAK LANGUAGE BARRIERS IN GLOBAL BRAND MARKETING?” Last modified May 8. https://www.welocalize.com/emojis-break-language-barriers-in-global-brand-marketing/.
Lebduska, Lisa. 2014. “Emoji, Emoji, What for Art Thou?” Last modified November 12. http://harlotofthearts.org/index.php/harlot/article/view/186/157.
Lebra, Sugiyama. 2004. The Japanese Self in Cultural Logic. University of Hawai’i Press. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=C0xbMp8xbYQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=emojis+globalization&ots=VgRqxdZjpK&sig=5J8ooP1HjHuN6ZdIUM9BgITwbG0#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Pilgrim, Shannon. 2016. “Globalization through symbols.” Visual Communication Blog, January 25. https://quharrison.com/emoji-language/.
Tatera, Kelly. 2015. “Emojis are Creating a Universal Language.” Last modified September 2. http://thescienceexplorer.com/technology/emojis-are-creating-universal-language.
Terry, QuHarrison. 2017. “Emoji Language Is The First Unified, World Language.” Quick Theories, May 30. https://quharrison.com/emoji-language/.