Communicative functions of emoji sequences on Sina Weibo

Abstract

The popular press is currently rife with speculation that emoji are becoming a global, digitally-mediated language. Sequences of emoji that function like verbal utterances potentially lend strong support to this claim. We employ computer-mediated discourse analysis to analyze the pragmatic meanings conveyed through emoji sequences and their rhetorical relations with accompanying text, focusing on posts by social media influencers and their followers on a popular Chinese social media platform. The findings show that the emoji sequences can function pragmatically like verbal utterances and form relations with textual propositions, although their usage differs from textual utterances in several respects. We also observed user innovations that make the sequences more language like, although there is not as yet a fixed grammar of emoji sequences. We characterize this emoji use as an emergent graphical language, with the caveats that it is not yet a fully-formed language and that the Chinese emoji language that is emerging is different from the English variety, and therefore emoji are not a universal language. In order to promote the further development of emoji language(s), we advance recommendations for emoji design grounded in linguistic principles.

Researching digital communication practices among German-speaking expats in China: Study design

“…In addition, we have shown that emoji sequences can fulfill certain communicative functions that were previously associated only with verbal utterances [.]" (Ge, Herring 2018) This argumentation might be going even a bit too far, however, it still stresses the importance of further analyses of messenger communication such as the one proposed here, for there are vast areas of mobile communication that have not been under a linguistic magnifying lens to date.…”

“…This is even more so since WeChat with vigor shifts the frontiers of digitization and inevitably has become a model for Western societies' patterns of digital transformations (Szurawitzki 2018, 139-140). Ge, Herring (2018) even go so far as to suggest some very far-reaching tendencies in the emoji sequences they analyzed in Sina Weibo communication:…”

Emoji Sequence Use in Enacting Personal Identity

“…Sina Weibo, China's indigenous microblogging site, lends itself well to emoji sequence analysis. Emoji useincluding the formulation of emoji sequences -is common on Weibo due to the platform's emoji affordances and developed emoji culture [11,12]. In short, by focusing on China, whose culture fosters an especially high concentration of emoji use [11], this study advances current CMC and emoji literatures, while also providing new insights which can inform the future design of emoji and social media platforms.…”

“…The common occurrence of emoji sequences in computer-mediated communication (CMC), defined as "two or more emoji with different meanings that stand together to form a conceptual unit" [12, p.1], has led to the popular speculation that emoji are evolving into a new and digitally-mediated language [8,12]. Indeed, these colorful, cute and playful pictographs go beyond merely expressing emotions and embellishing messages; rather, a sequence of emoji can function as a sentence-like textual utterance (though it may not convey a complex idea or concept), offering social media users a new way of meaning-making, expression and selfpresentation [8,15,26].…”

“…Existing emoji literature only mentions the role of single emoji in the establishment of user identity [7,24,36,46,50]. Further, the few previous studies that pertain to emoji sequences mainly focus on their pragmatic and communicative functions [12]; their social use, such as when employed to enact personal identity, remains largely unexplored.…”