Digital Discourse Database

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Die Frau, die ungewollt mit Emojis ein Haus mietete

(The woman who inadvertently rented a house with emojis)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, misunderstanding
Summary | The debate around whether emojis count as words or seriously meaningful content is very heated - not only in academics but also in law. The Oxford English dictionary only reheated that fire by choosing an emoji as word of the year. Multiple law cases have centered on misunderstandings around emoji use, most recently a case where a woman indicated interest in renting a house with emojis (flamenco dancer, dancer girls, squirrel, comet, a victory sign, and a bottle of Champagne). The house owner sued her for using misleading emojis after she decided not to rent the house after all.
Image Description | An image of a woman's hand holding a smartphone and picking out an emoji and a portrait of the Israely judge who worked on the emoji case.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s), hand(s), male(s), smartphone

Snap Makes a Bet on the Cultural Supremacy of the Camera

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 8.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | GIFs, language threat, Snapchat
Summary | Snapchat is showing us the future: communication is switching to more visual modes of communication such as photographs, videos, GIFs, funny filters. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch has argued that Snapchat filters constitute a new mode of phatic communication. We have seen the primacy of text gradually broken up in the past decade. This does not mean, however, that the written language will disappear altogether. Text is still very important for conveying accurate information concisely.
Image Description | GIF with anthropomorphic cameras and emojis dancing around.
Image Tags | camera, emojis, gifs

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