Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 78
Posts 41 - 50

Are Emoticons And Emojis Destroying Our Language?

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Newspaper | Huffington Post
Date | 13.8.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat
Summary | Emojis are popular, especially among young people. Older people are a little worried about that; emojis may harm our language. Two young female interviewees talk about the new set of emojis that just came out and how happy they are. Emoji is a universal language; everyone can understand it. What does that mean for the future of language? It seems that after years of progress, we're regressing back to the age of hieroglyphics.
Image Description | Digital image of four yellow-face emojis, and photograph of a passage of "Emoji Dick" in emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

Will emoji become a new language?

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Newspaper | BBC News
Date | 13.10.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, grammar, language threat
Summary | Linguist Neil Cohn explains why emojis cannot be considered a new language and why they shouldn't be seen as a threat to language. Emojis don't have the same characteristics as other languages. Emojis are used to complement words, as we would use gestures along speech. Sometimes, people use long sequences of emojis to communicate, but they are not a language since they lack a grammar. Cohn talks about his book The Visual Language of Comics and explains what visual languages are. The visual language of comics does not work the same way as emojis; it's a language that has a grammar.
Image Description | Photograph of a series of emojis on a screen, photograph of a hand gesture, sreenshots of text message conversations with emojis, and photograph of a library of comic books.
Image Tags | emojis, hand(s), smartphone, text

Emojis: Are they changing how we communicate with each other?

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Newspaper | CBC News
Date | 3.4.2016
Language | English
Country | Canada
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, texting
Summary | A professor of new media studies often uses emojis in her texts. She says that they fill a gap in our communication, and that they are a language allowing people to express themselves well via text messages. Using emojis is also informal, fast, and creative. However, other people don't like emojis because they are replacing words. A retired university professor claims that she would rather see people express their feelings with words. The founder of "Emogi" says that emojis are changing (in a good way) the way we communicate. Indeed, emojis allow people to convey things that they wouldn't be able to convey with words alone. Emojis are not destroying language.
Image Description | Image of the 'face with tears of joy' emoji, screenshot of a chat conversation, series of Apple emojis, image of the 'poop emoji', and photograph of the Oxford Dictionary of English next to a cake representing the 'face with tears of joy' emoji.
Image Tags | dictionary, emojis

When things are so bad you have no words, don’t reach for an emoji

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 13.10.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, word/writing
Summary | Some people didn't like the fact that the newspaper USA Today decided to add a little emoji next to one of its editions' front-page stories. The author of this Guardian article thinks that it was inappropriate to use a crying face emoji next to a story about an American hero who was stabbed. Many people use emojis to add context to their messages and to show some emotion. However, emojis are also limited. The author claims that they work well with positive statements, but not with negative ones. This is due to their "inherent ridiculousness". Finally, the author is not worried about the future of words, but she wants to warn people and tell them that if they can't find the right words, it's better not to say anything rather that using an emoji.
Image Description | Screenshot of the front page of USA Today, screenshot of a tweet about the front page, and series of five yellow-face emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, newspaper, Twitter

Emojis: The death of the written language?

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Newspaper | CNBC
Date | 24.6.2015
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, misunderstanding, word/writing
Summary | People are using more and more emojis, which can be seen as a threat to written language. Indeed, people are starting to replace words with emojis in order to communicate a feeling or emotion, and according to the author of the article, this is worrying. Moreover, using emojis can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication. Finally, if school start to incorporate emojis in their curriculum, it can be perceived as a regress back to hierogylphics.
Image Description | Getty image of a keyboard composed of emojis, and image of a series of Apple emojis representing diversity.
Image Tags | emojis, keyboard

Hijab emoji coming to iPhones next year in victory for Muslim teenager

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Newspaper | Mirror
Date | 11.11.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis
Summary | The Unicode consortium is making huge strides in offering more diverse emojis. Users can now select their preferred skin color out of six shades for all humanoid emojis to perfectly represent them. Also, a 15 year old girl from Berlin submitted a draft for a hijab emoji to represent her and millions of other hijabis around the globe.
Image Description | Hijab emoji, a Getty image of a hijabi from behind, a breast feeding emojis and other emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, female(s)

2016: the year Facebook became the bad guy

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 12.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | cyberbullying, Facebook, fake news, law, threat
Summary | 2016 has been a bad year for Facebook. Many scandals surrounded the company. It became clear that Facebook is now longer just an advertizing machine with access to almost 2 billion people world-wide but that it also curates what news media most of these people perceive - whether Facebook wants to accept this or not. They no longer just have to deal with sensoring nudity and human rights violations content but also fake news. While Zuckerberg denies that the fake news bubbles have influenced the presidential elections, his company at the same time makes tons of money selling exactly this persuasive power to advertisers.
Image Description | The Facebook reaction emojis and dislike (thumb-down) emojis, glasses in front of like buttons, and a man holding a smartphone with the Facebook logo in the background.
Image Tags | emojis, Facebook, logo, male(s), smartphone

Emojis on council tax bills: Council puts crying face on residents' statements

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Newspaper | Telegraph
Date | 14.12.2016
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, law, politeness
Summary | Lambeth citizens are getting emojis on their tax correspondence with their local authorities. To be exact: crying face emojis. One resident tweeted her tax calculations with a crying face emoji next to het balance due. Many find this distasteful since many people struggle to pay their taxes and emojis are just inappropriate for government communication. Emojis are one of the fastest growing languages ever recorded in history and they have surpassed their precursors, Egyptian hieroglyphs, which took centuries to develop.
Image Description | Tweet showing the tax document with emoji.
Image Tags | emojis, Twitter

Gaymoji: A New Language for That Search

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 14.3.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | diversity, emojis, research/study, sexting
Summary | The dating app Grindr caters to gay men and is now adding specific emojis - called Gaymojis - to their app. They have noticed that 20% of the messages sent on their platform contain emojis so they are providing emojis specific to the gay dating experience such as a peach with a phone (= bootycall) or an eggplant with a ruler (= well endowed). One linguist says that emojis may take some pressure off of the content of the conversation. Instead of thinking of something to say, emojis just signal that 'I am here and I am interested'.
Image Description | Portrait of the Grindr owners, the Grindr office in LA, and some Gaymojis.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s)

Find and Use Emoji Symbols on Your Computer

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 13.1.2017
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | email, emojis
Summary | Many people do not know where to find emojis on their computers and how to for instance insert them emails. Many email providers already offer them as part of the menu bar but if that is not the case, then there are some combinations of keys that will bring forth an emoji menu on any computer.
Image Description | Email window and emoji menu.
Image Tags | emojis

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