Emoji as Digital Gestures
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Abstract
Emoji (small coloured images encoded like text) went from unavailable outside Japan in 2010 to active use by 92% of the world's online population in 2016. Their sharp rise is often explained by noting that it is difficult to convey emotion in writing without tone of voice and body language, and that emoji fill in this gap. But what exactly is the nature of this gap, and how exactly are emoji filling it? We argue that the most insightful explanation for the function of emoji in digital communication comes by drawing comparisons with existing theoretical literature on gesture. In addition to the obvious similarities between certain emoji and certain gestures (e.g., winking, thumbs up), gestures are commonly grouped into subcategories according to how codified their meaning is and how much they are dependant on surrounding speech. Drawing on individual and aggregate examples of emoji used by English speakers, we show that this same range of functions accounts for how people use emoji.
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