Are Emojis Creating a New or Old Visual Language for New Generations? A Socio-semiotic Study

Abstract

The increasing use of emojis, digital images that can represent a word or feeling in a text or email, and the fact that they can be strung together to create a sentence with real and full meaning raises the question of whether they are creating a new language amongst technologically savvy youth, or devaluing existing language. There is however a further depth to emoji usage as language, suggesting that they are in fact returning language to an earlier stage of human communication. Parallels between emojis and hieroglyphs and cuneiform can be seen which indicates the universality of visual communication forms, rather than written alphabetised language. There are also indications that emojis may be cultural or gender-specific with indications that women use more emojis than men to express their feelings and that age is less of an indicator of usage than technological awareness and capability. It appears that emojis are filling the need for adding non-verbal cues in in digital communication about the intent and emotion behind a message. Examinations of the way that emojis have developed and evolved and their current and forecast usage leads to the conclusion that they are not a “new” language developed by the technological adept younger generations, but instead are an evolution of older visual language systems that make use of digital technology to create greater layers and nuance in asynchronous communications. Furthermore, emojis are devices for demonstrating tone, intent and feelings that would normally be conveyed by non-verbal cues in personal communications but which cannot be achieved in digital messages. It is also evident from prior works and analyses of usage that there are universal meanings to Emojis. This suggests that as a language form, emojis may be able to contribute to increased cross-cultural communication clarity. Further research is however recognised as being necessary to fully understand the role that emojis can play as a visual language for all generations, not just those termed millennials or technologically savvy youths. Keywords: Emojis, socio-semiotic analysis, new language, old language, pictograms

Emojis in Indonesian Intergenerational Family WhatsApp Group

“…It is not taken from English word emotion (Skiba, 2016). Crystal (2001, in Alshenqeeti, 2016 suggests that the emergence of emojis' use in communication is mainly due to the nature of language responsive to changes in social, culture, needs, and tools of communication. Although CMC is a relatively new phenomenon, the use of emojis is seen as non-innovative as it tends to be highly correlated with the use of pictorial messages such as Egyptian Hieroglyphs by the past society.…”

“…According to Graham (2007), emojis are adopted by more global communities. Hence, emojis are naturally used differently by people from various social group indicated by different ages, gender, geographical location, and status (Graham, 2019;Alshenqeeti, 2016). They show identity and membership to a particular speech community by serving as a phatic language (Graham, 2019).…”

“…Emojis are part of language that functions to deliver emotional situations and cues in CMC and are used differently by various groups of people (Alshenqeeti, 2016). In terms of frequency, for instance, people in Finland used emojis in their message the most frequently, while Tanzanians use emojis the least often compared to other 13 countries surveyed by Woollaston (2015).…”

“…Related to the gender of the users, Alshenqeeti (2016) and Graham (2019) found that women tend to use more emojis than men. They subtly relate the results with the general belief that women tend to express their emotions more frequently and openly than men; thus, the emojis which one of the functions is to signify emotional messages are used more regularly.…”

COVID-19 and the Gendered Use of Emojis on Twitter: Infodemiology Study

“…Despite these strong positives for the use of emojis, there remains a perception in some quarters that their use is a lesser form of language and is devaluing and devolving language. However, these concerns are not only unfounded, but they ignore human needs for nonverbal communicative practices [ 18 ].…”