More and more, we tend to communicate by interposed screens and very often it is difficult without visual or physical contact to really grasp the feeling of our interlocutors. Although there can often be some ambiguity when the two parties do not have the same interpretation of the pictogram used, the use of emojis very often helps to break the ice but also to better convey one's emotions. In this post, we will see the origin of these tiny illustrations, how they revolutionized communication and finally we will see if emoji tends or not to become a language of the future. 🙏🏽 for joining 👤⬅️.
Emoticons VS Emojis
Emotional icons or emoticons are punctuation marks, letters, and numbers used to create pictorial icons that generally display an emotion or sentiment. The emoticon came into being after a joke went wrong at Carnegie Mellon University in 1982. A gag about a fake mercury spill posted to an online message board sent the university into a tizzy, and because of this confusion, Dr. Scott E. Fahlman suggested that jokes and non-jokes be marked by two sets of characters we now recognize as standard emoticons: the smiley face :-) and the frowning face :-(
Emoji (from the Japanese e, “picture,” and moji, “character”) are a slightly more recent invention. Not to be confused with their predecessor, emoji are pictographs of faces, objects, and symbols. Emojis were invented in 1999 by Shigetaka Kurita and were intended for a Japanese user base. The first emoji were very simple—only 12 pixels by 12 pixels—and were inspired by manga art and kanji characters.
So, if you come across a smiley face that contains a character you can find on your computer keyboard, it’s an emoticon. If it’s a little cartoon figure that is free from the binds of punctuation, numbers, and letters, it’s an emoji.
A brief history of emoji
Back in 1881 — roughly 100 years before the birth of the emoji as we know it today — emoji’s ancient ancestor, the emoticon, was first published in the American humor magazine, Puck. Made up of punctuation marks and other typographical characters conveying joy, melancholy, indifference, and astonishment, the emoticon was then categorized as ‘typographical art.’ After many quiet decades, it wasn’t until the 1990s that the humble emoticon made its resurgence in chat rooms across the world as an integral part of internet-speak.
Note that there are differing theories about when the modern day emoji was born. Some say it was SoftBank in 1997, however, the most celebrated emoji set was created by the Japanese designer, Shigetaka Kurita, for Japan’s main mobile carrier, DOCOMO. Kurita created a 176 character emoji set in 1999 for DOCOMO’s mobile platform “i-mode.” His intention was to design a simple set of characters for users to convey information in a concise way.
How does emoji impact the way we communicate?
A recent study organized by the University of Ottawa found that emojis impact the way messages are interpreted by recipients, regardless of a sender’s intentions. According to the research, recipients of text messages assume negative words and emojis carry more emotional weight than positive words and emojis.
Isabelle Boutet, psychology professor and expert on face perception and cyber-psychology, led the research team to study the importance of emojis in digital communications and she concluded that:
“Emojis have a strong impact on whether your messages are understood and they have a strong impact on how you’re perceived by the person to whom you’re sending the message.”
For this study, 38 volunteers were asked to interpret text messages that were paired with emojis. Researchers paired positive, negative, and neutral messages with smiling, angry, and neutral face emojis. This helped emphasize the positive, negative, and neutral tones of the messages. These emojis were selected based on a study whose findings suggest that these emojis are universally understood to have similar meanings. Then, the research team asked participants to judge the emotional state and personality of a hypothetical texter according to each message-emoji combination.
Will emoji become a new language?
“Emojis are by no means taking away from our written language but rather accentuating it by providing a tone that words on their own often cannot. They are, in a sense, the most evolved form of punctuation we have at our disposal.” | Emmy J. Favilla
Cultures from around the world are now depicted in countless emoji. They have become a way to transcend existing language, toward a global form of communication—one that everyone understands. Overall, we cannot see emojis as a new language. Although each day more than 5 billion emojis are sent throughout the world, there simply aren’t enough available, nor do they convey enough meaning to ever become a standalone language. You cannot have a real, meaningful conversation with just emojis. The more emojis you put in a row, the more indistinguishable your message becomes. The reader is forced to start guessing what you’re trying to say because a string of emojis does not form a sentence. So, emojis can enhance conversations, they can enforce meaning, add a little fun, and make it easier for people to express their emotions. However, emoji is not the new language. Emoji are both easy to integrate into any language, and they level the linguistic playing field since no one uses them as a native language. The main challenge is now to lock down a base set of definitions that everyone can agree on in order to reduce misunderstandings.
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In conclusion, we can say that emojis have had and still have a positive impact on our daily exchanges. However, adopt emoji as a language seems impossible, since the more emojis you put in a row, the more indistinguishable your message becomes. So dear reader, do you tend to use emojis? If so, how often? And do you think emojis can be used in a professional executive? I hope to read your point of view in the comments. In addition, I let you guess the meaning of this quote from Mahamat Gandhi translated into 'emoji':
“🐝🔀🙏👁️👁️➡️🌎”
Thanks for reading! Make God bless you, take care.
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