Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 45
Posts 31 - 40

Au Japon, des emojis « lost in translation »

(In Japan, emojis "lost in translation")

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 7.12.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, misunderstanding
Summary | The 2020 Summer Olympics' organizers are encountering a series of problems. The Japanese government and the Olympic committee want to make sure of the unambiguity of certain emojis before thousands of foreign visitors come to Japan for the Olympics. One symbol seem to be misunderstood: a symbol representing hotsprings is seen as a bowl of hot soup. This reminds us of the fact that emojis do not bear enough information to make it a fully-fledge language.
Image Description | Image of the hotsprings emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

« LOL » et « omg » menacés par les « emoji », selon Instagram

("LOL" and "omg" threated by "emojis", according to Instagram)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 7.5.2015
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, Instagram, research/study, translation
Summary | Instagram conducted a study on emojis, and revealed that they tend to replace certain Internet expressions. Today, half of Instagram posts have emojis. The use of emojis is changing people’s Instagram language. This language change led someone to translate an entire book (Moby Dick) in emojis. The Instagram search engine now allows people to look for posts using emojis.
Image Description | Two charts: one showing the use of internet slang compared to emojis, and the other showing the breakdown of emoji use on Instagram by country. Images of three emojis.
Image Tags | chart, emojis

L’emoji, un caractère envahissant

(The emoji, an invading character)

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Newspaper | Le Monde
Date | 10.5.2016
Language | French
Country | France
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat
Summary | The Unicode Consortium (UC) was accused of spending too much time on emojis and not enough time on minority languages. Michael Everson complained because his propositions (e.g. coding medieval punctuation marks) have been ignored by the UC. However, the UC only counts 1500 emojis out of 120000 characters. Accoding to linguist Gretchen McCulloch, emojis are not a fully-fledge language; they are a complement to language.
Image Description | Screenshot of a new text message with with many different emojis.
Image Tags | emojis, text

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

Les jeunes parlent romand

(Young people speak Romand (Swiss French))

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 18.5.2016
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, research/study, texting, What's up Switzerland, WhatsApp
Summary | Interview with Federica Diémoz at the University of Neuchâtel. She talks about a study related to the different expressions used in the Swiss French part of Switzerland. People also use their local expressions in text messages. The "What's up Switzerland" project is going to analyze WhatsApp messages. From what researchers have observed so far, people sometimes use regional expressions and don't always write the same way. They also add emoticons and images that replace words.
Image Description | Photograph of the interviewee, Federica Diémoz.
Image Tags | female(s)

A table tout le monde!

(Dinner time everybody!)

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Newspaper | Le Matin Dimanche
Date | 30.3.2014
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, texting, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | The author talks about her experiences at home; she created a dinner schedule so that her kids would notify her of whether or not they would be home for dinner. But the kids would never notify her in advance; they would text her at 19:00 saying they would not come home. Thus, one of the kids created a WhatsApp group for the family. It's fun! There are "ribs emojis" and "spaghetti emojis". They laugh a lot on WhatsApp, so she doesn't even realize that she is eating dinner by herself.
Image Description | Photograph of the author of the article.

Marre de ces émoticônes qui remplacent nos emotions

(Fed up with those emoticons that replace our emotions)

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Newspaper | Le Matin
Date | 24.4.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, threat
Summary | The emoji phenomenon is global and growing very fast. Those smiley faces are everywhere and have invaded our lives. They are not just used to express our emotions alone, they also replace them. Yes, emojis are young and fun, but they are also a way to “disempower” human relationships and to be emotionally correct.
Image Description | Photograph in black and white of the author of the article.
Image Tags | male(s)

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