Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 18
Posts 11 - 18

Apple va remplacer l'emoji revolver par un pistolet à eau

(Apple is going to replace the gun emoji with a squirt gun)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 2.8.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding, threat
Summary | Apple decided to get rid of its gun emoji because authorities thought it was difficult to interpret this new form of communication. With this decision, Apple takes a stand in the U.S. gun debate. The expansion of emojis in the world reminds us of the idiom "a picture is worth a thousand words". The emoji trend can also lead to problems; sending a bomb emoji or gun emoji to someone can be perceived as a threat and people can be arrested for that.
Image Description | Series of gun emojis next to squirt emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

Apple transforme son emoji pêche

(Apple transforms its peach emoji)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 3.11.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, spelling
Summary | Not everyone agrees with the new iOS update; some emojis have disappeared. For instance, the old peach emoji was replaced by another emoji that looks more like an apricot. Changing emojis is another way of saying "you should write this way and not that way", which is similar to a spelling reform. Emojis are becoming political. Finally, emojis are not a threat to language; they are a way to complement it.
Image Description | Images of the old and new peach emojis, and photograph of a cap with the message "make peach (picture of the new peach emoji) peach (picture of the old peach emoji) again".
Image Tags | emojis

Dans le secret de la très discrète Académie des emojis

(The secret behind the very discrete Emoji Academy)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 31.10.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, spelling
Summary | Emojis have to go through a lot before they can be available on our phones and apps; they first have to be approved by the Unicode Consortium. The Unicode Consortium was first created to codify all the different written characters in the world so that they would look similar on any platform. Now, the organization does not only focus on the normalization of words, but also of emojis. People working for the Unicode Consortium (mostly white 50-year old men) meet four times every year to discuss the evolution of emojis. They all agree on one point: emojis cannot be considered a “language”. Emojis complement language (by transmitting certain emotions for instance). Nevertheless, some debates surrounding emojis mirror certain debates related to spelling reforms.
Image Description | Images of different emojis, and logos of companies members of the Unicode Consortium.
Image Tags | emojis, logo

Les émojis ont-ils un sexe?

(Do have emojis have a gender?)

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Newspaper | Le Figaro
Date | 6.2.2017
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, gender, misunderstanding
Summary | Emojis are becoming a universal language. Will they allow men and women to understand each other? A recent study tried to figure out which emojis are mostly used by men and which are mostly used by women. Results show that men and women use different emojis and they use them differently. For instance, women tend to use more emojis with tears than men.
Image Description | Photograph of a coffee mug with a smiley face (design made in the frothy milk).
Image Tags | emojis

Le monde se parle désormais en émojis

(The world now speaks emoji)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 3.5.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, youth
Summary | The use of emojis is a global phenomenon; everyone uses them to express actions and emotions. There was a time when we only had words to exchange; now we also have emojis. The “heart emoji” was the “word” used the most on the Internet during the year. Emojis were first mostly used by young people, but now everyone uses them. They also take several forms and portray the world’s diversity.
Image Description | Digital image of emojis: tears of joy emoji, heart-shapes eyes emoji, face throwing a kiss emoji, and "diversity" emojis
Image Tags | emojis

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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