Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 54
Posts 51 - 54

Antiquiert chatten

(An antiquated chat)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 11.11.2015
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, school, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Two Swiss high school students adapted the antique myth of Aeneas and Dido into a WhatsApp chat. A school assignment for their Latin class asked students to adapt ancient stories into other media. The two students reinterpreted the storyline as a WhatsApp chat between Dido and Aeneas in Latin with a lot of dramatic language (e.g. indicate shouting with all capital letters or word length with letter repetitions, and communicate emotions with emojis).
Image Description | Screenshot of a WhatsApp chat in Latin with words, emojis, and images.
Image Tags | emojis, WhatsApp

Un retour aux hiéroglyphes?

(A return to hireoglyphics?)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 24.4.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, grammar, language threat
Summary | The use of emojis is a global phenomenon that is rapidly growing. Should we be worried about it? A linguist from the University of Zurich claims that it is almost like “a return to hieroglyphics”, but that “emoji” is not a language: there is no grammatical structure. The linguist also states that nowadays, “emojis replace words and are not just a complement”. However, linguists do not seem to be worried. Another linguist from the University of Lausanne talks about the advantages of such visual communication: it fosters creativity, and adds nuances and precisions.
Image Description | Digital image of a chart representing which emojis are used the most in the world.
Image Tags | chart, emojis

On rigole toujours mais on ne LOL plus

(We still laugh but we don't LOL anymore)

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Newspaper | 20 minutes
Date | 10.8.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, research/study, youth
Summary | According to a Facebook study investigating the different ways to translate “laugh” online, the use of “lol” is outdated. People prefer using “haha” or “hehe”, and 34% of participants would rather use emojis, especially young people. Only 2% of participants still use “lol”, and they are a little bit older; their average age is 30.
Image Description | Digital image of the "face with tears of joy" emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

Les émojis, ces drôles de petites bêtes virtuelles

(Emojis, those funny little virtual creatures)

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 6.2.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, research/study, texting
Summary | Emojis are becoming a “global” phenomenon. For example, Facebook recently introduced a set of emojis, companies use them in their advertisement campaigns, and some people would like to create a “language” with emojis. Should we fear an impoverishment of “traditional languages”? Some linguists claim that emojis do not replace words but serve as complements in our communication. They can substitute a gesture or an intonation that we usually have in our oral exchanges. Another study concluded that text messages are not a threat to orthography, and that we have always used images to express ourselves.
Image Description | Digital image representing different emojis: sick emoji, cowboy emoji, tongue-out emoji, winking eye emoji etc.
Image Tags | emojis

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