Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 20
Posts 11 - 20

Learn to speak EMOJI: Translator app turns everything you say into popular symbols

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Newspaper | Mail Online
Date | 17.12.2015
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, translation, youth
Summary | Words do not always express the exact feeling people want to transmit, so emojis can help. Thanks to a new app (SpeakEmoji), you can now translate what you want to say (voice) into emojis. Emojis are a new universal language, so this new app is suited for our digital era. The app was first designed to help parents communicate through emojis. In 2015, an emoji was chosen as word of the year because it represented the mood and preocuppations of the year.
Image Description | Screenshots of the SpeakEmoji app, video of the new translator app, and video of how to use emojis in social media
Image Tags | emojis, male(s), social media

Adults who use emoji should grow up

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Newspaper | The Guardian
Date | 18.6.2014
Language | English
Country | UK
Topic Tags | emojis, youth
Summary | Emojis are not the most interesting Internet invention, according to the author. Next to memes for examples, they are quite unimaginative. Also, the use of emojis by adults seems to mirror their refusal to grow up. They have important decisions to make in order to shape a bright future for the next generations.
Image Description | Image of a winking face emoji.
Image Tags | emojis

Abusar de los "Emojis": ¿el nuevo enemigo del lenguaje?

(Abusing emojis: the new enemy of language?)

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Newspaper | infobae
Date | 13.1.2016
Language | Spanish
Country | Argentina
Topic Tags | emojis, language threat, youth
Summary | An Instagram study revealed that emojis are becoming more popular and are replacing words in messages. Linguist Silvia Ramirez Gelbes claims that using emojis allows users to say something very precise in one click -whereas using words would take longer. Are emojis detrimental to written language? According to the linguist, emojis are not harmful and they are not a "youth phenomenon".
Image Description | Photograph of a man (head cut off) holding a selfie stick and taking a selfie; he is also wearing five emoji medals around his neck.
Image Tags | emojis, male(s), selfie stick, smartphone

New York Public Hospitals Use Emojis to Reach Young People About Sex

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Newspaper | The New York Times
Date | 17.7.2016
Language | English
Country | U.S.
Topic Tags | emojis, social media, youth
Summary | New York City hospitals are now trying to get young people's attention on social media to inform them about free, confidential sexual health services. The advertisement campaign includes emojis, for instance the question "Need to talk to someone about 'it'?" accompanied by an eggplant emoji or bird and bee emojis. They talked to youths in focus groups and determined that this might be the best way to reach them. The campaign is particularly important because many youth report that they do not approach their parents with questions concerning sexual health. Critics of the campaign however say that the advertisements might be too ambiguous and difficult to understand for people who are only just learning English.
Image Description | Two advertisements of the question "Need to talk to someone about 'it'?" accompanied by an eggplant emoji and bird and bee emojis.
Image Tags | emojis

Wir wollen zeigen, dass wir gut Englisch können

(We want to show that we are good at English)

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Newspaper | 20 Minuten
Date | 29.4.2016
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | anglicisms, code-switching, emojis, texting, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Young people increasingly communicate in English with each other (especially digitally). This has become a way to imitate their idols, who are largely English-speakers, and to exclude adults from their communicative code. Linguists are delighted by young people's creativity; they use different languages and emojis available to them even though their competence may not be perfect.
Image Description | Series of four screenshots of WhatsAspp conversations showing English/Swiss-German code-switching.
Image Tags | WhatsApp

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.

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

“Pic speech”: le parler ado

(“Pic speech": teen talk)

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Newspaper | La Tribune de Genève
Date | 30.5.2015
Language | French
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, Facebook, language threat, selfie, Snapchat, social media, WhatsApp, youth
Summary | Nowadays teenagers mostly express themselves through visual modes (e.g. Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Snapchat) and thus create their own language: “pic speech”. Images do not necessarily replace words; young people claim that words are still important since they contextualize images. Regarding emojis, teenagers use them for their “affective” purpose. This new language is a way for youth to become autonomous and emancipate themselves.
Image Description | Series of screenshots of different teenagers' snaps (selfie + Face Paint feature).
Image Tags | male(s), Snapchat

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

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

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