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ISSN 2278-9529 Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal www.galaxyimrj.com The Criterion: An International Journal in English Vol. 11, Issue-VI, December 2020 ISSN: 0976-8165

The Code: A Socio-Semiotic Inquiry into the Global Landscape of Reading Language Through Images

Rashmi Jacob Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida. India.

Article History: Submitted-23/10/2020, Revised-23/12/2020, Accepted-24/12/2020, Published-31/12/2020.

Abstract:

Emoji, are or pictorial images used as surrogates of plain texts which conveys an idea, meaning, emotions, intent and leaves an effect on the receiver. These are considered an important signal in social cognition. Also, their ubiquitous growth and usage mirror each other’s responses like speech. The purpose of this study is to find if this innovation- mediated artificial language is becoming the new written mobile phone lingua franca in its own right? To answer, the study has briefly explored the origin and development of emoji, its parallels with pre- ancient languages, a comparison with alphabet-based communication, semiotics and the socio-cultural factors which govern the use and historical evidence which suggest that are part of a long tradition of using images to convey meaning in writing.

Keywords: Emoji, paralanguage, gesture, human-communication, socio-semiotic, new language, reverse- learning, mobile communication, digital images, language registers, metaphors, semiotics, CMC

1. Introduction In Rhetoric, Aristotle refers to language as an art of communication with words. An art to develop the skill of writers and for speakers to enlighten, influence a set of audience in certain situations. In the last few decades, technology has significantly altered the patterns of human communication; the Aristotlelian’s art has expanded from traditional space to digital multimodal free space which is replacing face to face conversation with different innovation- mediated channels available to users for their everyday communication. Such changes in lifestyle and growing human-computer interaction is significantly affecting language cape. Human communication adapts according to changes in social environments (Maherhoff, 2011) or as Crystal (2001) said ‘… like a living organism; language responds to change in attitude

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and grows according to the needs of the users’ (Jasperson, 2013). Today, language is evolving from text messages, chat messages, online channels, forums and non-verbal digital cues like , emojis, gifs, et cetra. If the growth and changes in the language are according to the social surroundings, therefore the creation of pictorial language (Emoji) is a response towards the changing environment and the need of humans to communicate creatively and effectively without a physical presence is completely natural. To fathom, an overview is required to understand the rise and the growing acceptance and ubiquitous usage of emoji in everyday human communication. To do so, the study will inquire the early stages of development of emoji, their striking resemblance with ancient pre- alphabet pictorial languages like Sumerian and Egyptian Hieroglyph (which either suggest it a revival of old language). The study will also inquire about the linguistics of emotions and a comparison with alphabet-based language and finally, the changing meaning in a social and cultural context as some commentaries suggest that emoji have universal meaning attached to it like standard language. This will give an insight into the new system of codes or innovation-mediated production of twenty-first-century as the way they have developed, their current and future usage and are they the rightful candidate for the new lingua franca. While investigating the study will explore the learning pedagogy as it is following a reverse flow, that is, from the younger generation (Millennial) to the older generation, so could it be a reversal and revival through emoji.

1.1. Dawn of and emoji

Emoticons began as a sequence by a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon in 1982 while exchanging jokes on online bulletin board about building's elevator. Scott Fahlman (1982) wanted to reduce misinterpretation by adding human emotion to the string of messages with existing symbols and thus smiley face was born :-) (Kennedy, 2012; Garber, 2013). The idea became a breakthrough in technical communication, multiple other forms of human emotions were introduced like frown :(disappointment:-/, uncertainty: -S using a Cyrillic keyboard (Walther et.al., 2001), It soon became clear that these humble faces were useful in expressing emotions better than the written word, as a result, were desired more. Japanese users instead of continuing with a smiley preferred indicating ideas with emoticons which could be read all together with text called it Kaomoji^_ ^, Like- “person shrugging shoulders” \_(ツ)_/

(using multiple fonts) and, symbols such as hearts <3, roses @}->–, and (``/- -), representing a

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person bowing with lowered eyes and extended arms (a part of Japanese socio-cultural norm) but it was complex typing combination of Kaomoji for users. Shigetaka Kurita, considered as the father of emoji recognized that the Japanese language strongly relies on contextual cues and emotional context “lack of visual cues in mobile communication made the service more difficult to use than it ought to be” users would “benefit majorly from some extra characters to show contextual information” (Blagdon,2013 p.2; Brisson,2015 p.3). The new form was meant to help users express their emotional and contextual ideas through the use of tiny pictorial images (standardized set of emoticons) called emojisi (Moschini, 2017, p 11-25). By mid-90s, work for standardization of these symbols was in progress even though mobile communication was still in its formative years. Lebduska (2014, p.3) observes that the thought of standardization of emojis bears some similarities with the standardization of ‘Roman du Roi' by Louis the XIV, a typographic form “which embod[ied] the authority of the scientific method and bureaucratic power of the time”. .

Figure 1: Kurita’s original inventory of Emoji (The original set of 176 emojis, acquired by MoMA. Photograph: Shigetaka Kurita/AP)

The users quickly embraced the new technology which is full of expressions such as a big smile, red cheeks, lined eyebrows, tears and even hysterical laughter. As a result, new characters (facial and non-face) were rapidly added to Unicode’s library representing food, nature, people, symbols, animals, clothing, weather and more. Each new emoji is approved by a consortium and are included in their version. The current version has a total of 2389 emojis. (Unicode.org)

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1.2 Similarities with Pre- Alphabet Language Forms

This “picture writing instinct” (Dutton, 2009) seems to be part of human DNA which manifested during the early stages of cognitive development. It is said that when children utter their first words they also start scribbling and doodling without any training if given some drawing instrument. Researchers claim that this may be part of evolutionary residue from the past that unconsciously guides language development (Vygotsky, 1986) for instance- even the first most prominent phylogenetic pictographic writing coincides with “prehistoric art”, proviso, then writing and art might have a common origin (Bouissac,1983). By these definitions and by Bloomfield that, “writing is merely a way of recording language using visible marks” (Bloomfield, 1935) indeed, writing is a form of art. Research commentaries available elucidate that the balance between different modalities- visual and phonetic appears in nearly all style and writing practices in the world (Schele, 1979). The Mayan civilization had a set of phonetically based writing symbols which were used along with pictographic characters to create a historical record of Gods to pharaohs, dynasty etc. The Mayans used a hybrid or “mixed model” to ensure easy understanding. Another known ancient mixed-modal system was the Egyptian hieroglyphics. Nearly from around 2,700 to 2500 BCE, the were mainly iconic, referring to concrete referents (eye, giraffe, sandal, reed, bread, flute etc). But, as the system came to be used regularly, it developed numerous ideographs for referring to abstract referents (beat, cry, walk, break, and bind). There are also connections between parts of speech and actual speech forms, concrete nouns were typically portrayed as , whereas verbs were represented by ideographs (Goldwasser 1995; Danesi, 2016). Emoji shares a similar resemblance with Sumerian and Egyptian, the Aztec form of writing (Scoville, 2015) in terms of ‘mixed-modality’ and their gradual development and form. (Fig.2).

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Fig 2: Sumerian Cuneiform and Egyptian Hieroglyphs (source: Google image)

Even in the alphabetic age, few writers like da Vinci, Lewis Carroll and others have used symbols or pictures to convey emotions especially sarcasm. (Brisson, 2015, p.2).

By the end of the 19th century, poet Alcantar de Brahm offered a point d’ironie resembling backward question mark- a similar submission echoed, a century later, by the novelist Herve` Bazin. Nabokov wanted a ‘special typographical sign for a smile-some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket' Ambrose Bierce offered the ‘snigger point' (a horizontal parenthesis, or ") to punctuate ‘every jocular or ironical sentence (Gaber.2013, p.2)

Pictures provide a greater level of depth and personalization to the letter as well as the feelings of the writer. Grace (2015) observes this as the return of “rebus” (fig.3) which in Latin means “not with words but with things”. In Fig 3, Lewis Carroll has used “U C I” which is similar to acronyms used in textual conversation, and the use of “eye” drawn to signify “I” and a smiley face at the end and a “deer” image to indicate the initial salutation at the start of the letter. (Brisson, 2015). Like Sumerians and Egyptians, these writers have used pictograms to effectively convey the meaning without using words (Abujaber et al, 2012). The visual method helps in better interpretation and understanding and provide clues to the meaning and intent of

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the author (feelings and emotions). Therefore, from cuneiform and hieroglyphics to emblematic literature of the Renaissance; picture writing is the system of codes used to express emotions in a textual message which run parallel or find similarity with innovation-mediated images inserted to semantically convey richer meaning and build a connection (Brisson, 2015).

Fig 3: Lewis Carroll ‘Rebus’

2. Objective 1. To understand if emojis can be considered as the new lingua franca, if so, do they have linguistics like natural language? 2. To understand how is it affecting language and meaning due to influx of emoji from a social and cultural perspective as they run parallel and often overlap with each other. 3. Method- The general intent of this exploratory and descriptive study is to understand emojis as the new global language. Earlier researches in this field suggest that there is the universal meaning attached to it like standard language which can be insightful in understanding the linguistic behind emojis if any. For this research, a search string was applied to entail potentially relevant work with keywords like emoji, paralanguage, computer-mediated communication, semiotics, mobile communication, and gestures from scholarly journals across disciplines using backward reference searching. 4. Literature Review- This section review scholarly from academic scholarship across sociolinguistics, computer-mediated communication, NLP to understand the changes in language coming from technology created non-verbal cues called emoji and very

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briefly behavioural studies as gestural signs are a means to understand its effect on human behaviour. The first linguistic study on Emoji was conducted by Peter Schlobinski and Manabu Watanabe in 2003; the authors referred emojis as an ‘idiosyncrasy of Japanese mobile phone communication’ (Sclobinski et.al 2003; Dürscheid et.al, 2017). The word emoji, therefore, is etymologically derived from the Japanese letter (絵, "picture"-e) + Moji (文字, ‘sign’,‘character’) and not from the word emotion(Skiba.2016; Alshenqeeti,2016). Before emoji, emoticons were considered as socio-emotional providers in computer-mediated communication, mainly in short service messages, or SMS and researchers have studied emoticons in CMC, emails (Rezabek et.al. 1998), online chat and instant messages (Garrison et al. 2011; Derks e.al 2007) text messages (Amaghlobeli 2012; Tossell et al. 2012), gender differences on usage (Wolf 2000; Tossel et al. 2012) Most of these studies focused on 3 main emoticons :), :(, ;). Studies in the use of computer in human behaviour indicate that social context influence the use of emotions (Derks et al, 2007) But not many studies have analyzed emoticons from a discourse analysis perspective (Dresner et.al. 2010; Skovholt et al. 2014). With Emoji replacing emoticons or ASCII text ;) or :-(. (Barbeiri et.al., 2016). The usage has grown, data available indicate 13.69 per cent Tweets consisting of at least one emoji (Pavalanathan et.al. 2015) and nearly half of text on Instagram contains emoji (Dimson, 2015). The growing popularity of emoji on applications such as Twitter has replaced emoticons completely rather than complement it. (Pavalanathan et.al., 2016). The rise of emoji is also directly related to their adoption in iOS and android operating system (Dimson, 2015). Moreover, emoji are gestural images and gestures are an automatic response of motor flow ( Kinsbourne 2004). Charles Darwin instituted that facial expression is universal and not learned differently as the anatomy of all humans is same and their muscle usage to express feelings is common (Mesquita et al, 1997). Hence, as the facial expression is universal, emoji represent universal emotions making them global, cross-cultural and effective, as visuality has been part of the long tradition to convey meaning in writing (McIntyre, 2016). Recent studies have also shown that non-face emoji also contribute to disambiguating meaning in a textual message like face emoji (Riordan, 2017) 5. Discussion 5.1 Emoji as lingua franca and the linguistics of images

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Emoji are expanding linguistic ability and innovating traditional writing (Danesi, 2016). One can observe clear echoes of the past by looking from the lens of precursors of modern writing. However, there is a challenge in accepting emoji as a language form in its own right or as a complement to the alphabetic system. This section is an attempt to understand the linguistics of images through gesture, structuralism and alphabet-based communication. The current repertoire of emoji can be used in isolation or with standard natural language in a sentence figure 4 and 5 are examples to show a single smiley used along with standard language in text conversation and an emoji string message in the form of a statement.

Translation

7/4/, 10:17:20 PM: Huda: Hi Sara, Asia, and Zakia

It makes us happy that you’ve joined us

Fig 3: A smiley with standard language in a text:

Fig 4: Emoji String (P.C: Neil Cohn/ Adam Proctor)

These examples illustrate how information can be communicated using different emoji without the use of morphemes and other grammatical structure (Lucas, 2016). Emoji enhance the meaning of the messages sent in a highly expressive way. (Tauch et.al. 2016). In an experiment published in Neuropsychologia, linguist Neil Cohn measured the brainwave of the participants while they viewed a sequence of one message at a time. He observed that the particular brainwave responds in the same way, as when there is a disruption in the syntax of a

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sentence. That is, the brain responds in the same way as it does in the disruption, violation of grammar (in a sentence or sequential narrative). Meaning, emoji, could be an idea, a feeling, a status, a statement, an interview, or even an eventii which fulfils some functions associated with language affecting the users in a similar way as in sentence structure of natural language.

To elaborate further, emoji fall under the realm of gestures and many theorists call them emblem which is part of semiotics or the study of sign and symbols as elements of communication behaviouriii. There is a good taxonomy of gestures that are used in everyday life like thumbs up, winking, waving, making a heart with fingers; many of these gestures have direct emoji equivalents like thumbs up, peace sign, finger crossed, winking etc with common English names. Emblem gestures can fit easily into a linguistic frame and are perfectly meaningful without speech at all. This goes for emoji with just a thumb up sign or rolling of eyes. Emblem gestures have precise forms and stable meaning and may seem universal as gestures cover wider territories than language can reach. The key feature of gesture is that they are nameable with proper dictionary entries in their status as English words. This is one way of looking at emoji (McCulloch, 2019) In structural linguistics, language is divided into Langue and Parole. Langue is the set of internally related but different signs in a language, which are governed by a system of rules (language as structure); while Parole is the language used in speech and writing. Langue is the complete system of structure of a language which includes words, their meaning, rules, regulation, etc. Emoji, post- standardization (Unicode), were categorized into several groups, like- smileys, people, animal, nature, food, drink, activity, travel, places, objects, symbols, and flags etc. (source Apple keypad). Each emoji draws a parallel with logograph (a conventional, abbreviated symbol for a frequent word or phrase e.g. @), representing either a singular word or morpheme. However, the difference between emoji and traditional logograph is in the multiple emotional reactions from a single image such as ,, . These grouping of emojis could be considered as Langue in Saussurean standing, but emoji goes beyond the system of rules of a langue; they are more of auditory symbols, as in speech. The emoji Langue as said by Jonathan Culler (1977) offers a ‘nomenclature for a set of universal concepts making it comprehensible between different languages’ (p.31). Emoji, therefore, is free from the rules of grammar as seen in fig 5. While grammar is completely constrained by rules, individual units particularly play a significant role in the sequence of a sentence- the use of noun and a verb makes the meaning of the word clear in a sentence. Moreover, grammar changes with the

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change in the sequence of structure e.g. Tom love Kate in an active sentence which roughly conveys the same meaning in passive voice- Kate is loved by Tom. Emoji provides similar flexibility, people wish birthday using a cake with candles, a slice of cake, balloon, gift, a smiley wearing a party hat, sparkles, heart, confetti. These emoji showed in the Swiftkey dataset in a wide variety of combinations and orders (McCulloch, 2019). The sequence may or may not have some internal structure, yet if arranged in any other sequential order it will convey the same meaning. Even though emojis don’t have their grammar yet they follow the conventional way of communication. But, what if the order matters? Reflect on another example- “a woman had a party where they drank, opened presents and then had cake”. In certain situation, emoji pursue sequences that correspond to the order of events (Neil Cohn: visuallanguage.com) (fig 5)

Fig.5 Source: Neil Cohn/Adam Proctor

These examples suggest that emojis like units are linked in a linear arrangement; one unit will sequentially follow another. As a result, any change in the message string will produce a new set of arrangement which would significantly change the connections between units. However, there is no restriction on the number of emojis sent at a time this reportedly makes it more convenient and enhances its usage, unlike conventional grammar. As a result, emojis can be placed anywhere, substitute textual words, used alone in a text, initiate a conversation and end the conversation like in face to face or written communication. (Brisson, 2015). Whereas, Parole or sum of the linguistic unit involved in speech and writing is an unrestricted set of images which allow countless arrangement, as Culler pointed ‘both this arrangement help the users make use of codes of the [emoji] system to communicate their thoughts and emotion’ (Culler, 1997). So, Langue which is the overall system of the structure of a language, in emoji term are those human emotions which are common and shared by every living being, irrespective of their language. While, Parole is an individual intention that is, its user’s expression. So, emoji can be misinterpreted due to the personal and independent interpretation of the users.

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The second variance which Saussure presents is the difference between signifier and signified. This accounts for the capacity of language to offer to mean. The meaning offered by language arises from the difference between linguistic units which are determined by the overall system of language. A change in a letter in a word can give an entirely different concept, meaning. The signifier is the ‘sound-image’ (the word as we speak or write); while signified is a concept, idea denoted by a sign. For example, the spelling of words ‘dog’ and ‘god’, if a single letter is changed it will altogether give a different concept or meaning. In contrast to natural written language, emoji joins Saussure’s concept of signifier and signified into one image. For example, if the user uses an ‘apple’ emoji, it will immediately evoke a concept in the readers' mind. This relationship between a signifier ‘apple’ and a signified concept ‘an actual apple’ invoke boundless signified of an apple, its colour, taste, country etc. The image or emoji here is the combination of signifier and signified, where meaning is located for the interpretant to decode. If used alone in a text message it might give an array of meanings for implication; for example-does the person who has sent the message is hungry and thinking about food? Or is the person on a diet and can have only fruits and apple seems to be his/her favourite fruit? Or the person in an orchard and freshness of fruits is reminding of something? Maybe it is related to health? Or is it implying to the biblical concept of temptation? Perhaps, the person is indicating a teacher’s or parents favourite child? Or maybe, the person is talking about the computer? What becomes more obscure is a single (solo) smiley face without any contextual information. For example – a sad face, this would again lead the interpretation in many directions. Therefore, a sign is arbitrary and is meaningful only if it is located within the general structure of the language and placed within a structure.

Saussure also discusses linguistic sequence, when words follow each other in a sentence they are called syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationship (when one-word substitutes for another word in a sentence). When emojis are defined on these axes, it helps in the exploration of possible combination of symbols and meanings to bring clarity. For example, recent use of emojis in-guessing games on the social platformiv which creatively tests users capability to decode a string of emojis that represent books, songs, the name of films and even English idioms and phrase (refer appendix). On the paradigmatic axis, emoji, users have the independence to choose from the wide array of groups available (all possible signs of emoji over 1000) to create a stand-alone image or use multiple images to create a meaningful sentence and even modify the meaning. It also offers an array of images whose meaning is similar or relatively similar. For example- there are ten ways to smile or show laughter, six ways to kiss

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or show love, three ways to wink and twenty-six ways to show anger, disappointment or sadness in the swift key of Apple iPhone (refer appendix).In a syntagmatic relationship, emoji users have the independence to communicate a message in more than one sense using the emoji sets. The users apply an image instead of a textual word or phrase as mentioned earlier. For example – if the user wants to express its anger with the phrase “I am angry” than it can be

easily replaced with just an image or cry or sleepy etc. Sometimes a pictograph or image can give a wrong idea just like an incomplete, vague or fragmented sentence in a text. But, since emoji are blessed with the narrative capacity they exhibit certain human feelings or gestures; however, feeling and gestures are a personal affair and subjective. This explicates why emoji are used with one textual morpheme to add a tone in a conversation. Moreover, culture should also be considered in the syntagmatic axis of emoji as cultures also carry certain semiotic characteristics in verbal and non-verbal communication.

5.2 Comparison with Alphabet based communication

Emoji can perform the functions of the alphabetical letter, to discuss this aspect and make sense; the study will refer the work of Christa et.al (2017) study ‘Beyond the Alphabet- Communications with Emojis’. The authors discussed emojis like traits using a 1985 pre-emoji study by Gallmann. In his study, formal writing is classified into five subcategories-

Formal Classification 1. Letters (alphabetical signs) 2. Auxiliary characters (e.g.-!,?) 3. Space characters 4. Digits 5. Special characters(e.g.-%,&,*) Table 1: Formal Classification of graphic signs

According to Gallmann, it is the fifth category which can be extended, it should ‘be seen as elements of general language (typewriter keyboard)’ (1985, p.13). Of course, there are many signs which cannot be entered via a keyboard like –currency sign. But with the growing library of emojis, non-face emoji can perform the function of special characters which include currency sign. Furthermore, Galmann divided them into six categories based on their functionality –

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Functional Classification 1. Basic (letters) 2. (e.g. digits, special characters) 3. Classifiers (e.g. capitalization) 4. Border signals (e.g. comma, full stop) 5. Sentence intention signals (e.g. question or ) 6. Omission signals (e.g. apostrophe, full stop) Table 2: Functional Classification of graphic signs

The functional classification varies with a formal classification, both digits and special characters’ function as Ideograms and an auxiliary like full stop functions as a border signal. For this study, the second functional category is mainly relevant but emojis can also perform the function of allographs, as border signals and as sentence intention signals.

a) Emoji as Allograph An allograph is a variant from graphene, it is a free variation or complementary with another form of free graphene as ‘n’ in run and ‘nn’ in the runner. In mobile communication, a letter can be substituted with a similar-looking emoji. For example-

in the word emoji itself ‘O’ can be replaced with an emoted image of a smiley face , though it is rare in digital communication as people use automatic word completion keyboards so they don’t type a word letter by letter. This is mostly used in advertisement and also applied on the to distort words; the trend is known as Leetspeak: an alternative alphabet for many languages used to replace another character that looks similar to a glyph via reflection or resemblance (primarily used on the internet). Besides, letters other signs can be replaced with an equivalent emoji, for instance-currency note or exclamation mark or question mark etc. b) Emoji as Ideogram

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Emoji can function as both Allographs and Ideograms at the same time. For example- in the spelling of Indian currency ‘rupee’, letter ‘r’ can be replaced with "र" sign. It

functions both as allograph for letter ‘r’ and an ideogram meaning ’rupee’ or I India (the phrase is a concrete noun it is possible to depict the meaning or verb or adjective though emoji). In general, users are unaware of the original meaning (as

intended and applied for admission into the Unicode). For example- was added as a gesture for please and thank you, a common meaning in Japan but in the western world, it is interpreted as a sign of praying or a ‘high-five’. However, this is not a major concern as people choose emoji based on what they look like and how is it used in their surroundings. Therefore, the semantics of emoji depends on the use by its actors. c) Emoji as Border and Sentence Intention Signals ‘Emoji is not communicatively neutral but give a visual tone in a message’ (Danesi, 2016) For example- an emoji used at the end of the sentence functions as a border signal as indicating the intention of the message preceding them in Galmann’s terminology, ‘sentence intention signals’ (like a question mark or explanatory mark as a member of the group, they function both as a border and sentence intention signal. Table.2). When emoji is placed at the end it complements the preceding statement and at the same time, it structures the elements. Emoji also performs the indexical function in respective situational context, which is not a component from the above-stated Gallmann’s classification. It is important to emphasize here that, in the pre-emoji era texts were was always assumed as formal, if words were replaced with pictograms (pictograms were not typical of emoji, ) or small drawings were inserted into the text, it was only to assist the readers to recognize the word to comprehend the text during the early phases of literacy, also, pictograms occurred in ‘textual arrangement’ which again is not an informal writing style unlike emoji which are representative of ‘modern-day informal communication’. (Danesi,2016)

3. The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning

Jacobson in, ‘Linguistic and Poetics identified six functions of language, while Halliday stressed on three metafunctions of language, mainly- the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual. He said, “all languages are organized around two main kinds of meaning, ‘the ideational’ or reflective and ‘the interpersonal’ or active” and together with these two kinds of

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meanings is a third metafunctional meaning the ‘textual’, which provides relevance into the other two kinds” (Halliday, 1994, p.39). All these arrangements exist simultaneously in every stage of the language. (Liu, 2014)

Since emojis are taking over the world by storm as the new lingua franca and with the ubiquitous meaning of emojis have to be preserved for users across the world to understand. How Cosmopolitan is Emoji, researchers experimented to understand if emoji carry similar meaning globally and if they do, how do they overlap? (Barbieri et.al. 2016). They used 150 emojis with a corpus of 30 million tweets in four languages, American English, British English, Peninsular Spanish and Italian. Using Pearson’s correlation of similarity matrices, they concluded that most of the languages are ‘strongly correlated’ with each other even though vocabularies and contextual words are different but the semantics of emoji used in the study were similar. American English and Spanish construe emojis in the most universal way. Existing studies in the sociological and psychological literature on user behaviour, sentiment and cultural difference are interesting and intriguing but are borrowed from computer scientists to understand online users’ behaviour. For example, Zhao et.al (2012) studied the public sentiment of Chinese users on Weibo (using 95 customized emojis. (Kelly et. al. S2015) discussed the role and meaning of emojis in close personal relationships. Gupta et.al projected GLOBE as a priori clusters. Lim et.al (2015) investigated country-wide variation in mobile app users, their behaviour difference in the selection and abandoning using Hofstede’s cultural index (1997). Reinecke et. al. (2011) discussed systems which personalize and adapt automatically according to user’s cultural preferences. Tossell et.al (2012) research on cultural factors of emoticons established that female use more emoticons in their messages, while male use different sets of emoticons. The study used individual data of users for over six months. Online chats are a new medium to understand and infer cultural differences among users worldwide. Tan et.al (2011) in the study showed that users who are ‘connected’ share similar or common opinions mostly use related, similar emoticons. Park et.al (2013) in their study showed a socio-cultural model and the meanings can differ according to the identity of the users. The study was based on the practice of using emoticon on Twitter based on the semantics, cultural and social aspects of the interlocutors. Thus, the pattern of usage of ‘emoji is considerably diverse across countries, which act following the cultural backgrounds as culture is based on shared values of socially interacting people’ (Lu. et.al, 2016) but they are still correlated despite lexical and contextual differences as the meaning of emoji used across by global audience of online users in human-computer interaction is same.

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6. Summary and Conclusion To sum it all, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” emojis are certainly offering new possibilities in the new wave of human-computer communication. They are emerging as a language form which is helping exchange pragmatic information, much like ancient pictographic or naturalistic systems of communication (Kern, 2015). As the evolution of language and all historical evidence achieved to date suggest that pictures and symbols have always been a primary source of achieving connections with one another. Emoji have reclosed the cap; by emphasizing that they are ancient, resurfaced variety of language (Lucas, 2016). Eli Dresner and Susan Herring argue that rather than thinking emoji as emotional it should be considered as cues for intention and sometimes intention to align with emotions, emojis are a versatile tool for such contextualization. It softens harsh statements as writing an insulting statement plus a smiley soften the tones and turns an insult into a joke (Riordan, 2011). Spoken languages have already well-established distinction, dating back to Austin’s speech act theory - utterance has a performative function in language and communication. It is the performance of several acts at once which are communicative as well as indicative of speaker intent and emotions which simultaneously cause an effect on the listener. Adam Kendon (1995) supports Austin’s idea that utterance covey intentions as emblems (gestures) do in communication. Surely, it is artificially constructedv but it is guiding receiver with correct interpretation than words. Moreover, the physical movement just don’t communicate gesture they also exist in space and time, and emoji help in doing the same virtually, they indicate an active listening response. They mirror each other response like speech. It is also a place for hanging out especially among teenagers, allowing social interaction with less pressure (Kelly et.al.,2015). Emojis are successful because they are still not a language but compete with words as they add a new layer of meaning and fill the gaps of communication as gestures in physical space. Emoji and gesture also share “universal” meaning as they both cross boundaries that words can’t, paving way for change and uniting the entire globe through symbols. Moreover, the universality factor with the standardization of the emoji keyboard in all digital devices is also helping it emerge as lingua franca. Blommaert (2003) observes that " people never learn ‘a language', but specific and specialized bits of languages, sufficient to grant them ‘voice' and to make themselves understood by others. People’s repertoires can be consequently seen as an organized complex of semiotic traces of power they gather in the course of their lives (Blommaert et.al., 2012)”. With the growing digital literacy “People collect things and necessitate their needs to be seen as "normal ", logical social human being by others” (Blommaert et.al.,2012), or to have a voice in certain circumstances, a certain moment,

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occasion and with specific interlocutors. The process of learning of languages(s) develop according to learning background or surroundings and numbers of learning methods, ranging from closely controlled and standardized methods of schools and other recognized establishment, to brief and temporary “encounters” with language in informal learning environments’ (Blommaert et.al 2014).” The growing contemporary online environments have created opportunities for people to use language in the most unrestricted manner and the ephemeral encounters creating an opportunity for a new variety of unconventional learning (completely untapped), paving way for change and uniting the entire globe through symbols. (Jacob. 2020).

The study might speculate on the development of emoji in coming years as more lively, dynamic, animated and more humanly as possible which would enhance textspeak with the addition of more multimodal cues. Whatever the next stage in the evolution and development of emoji is, it will only make communication more effective and vibrant. This also suggests that the prospect of emojis is likely to be more common practice than verbal texts and even emails, as emphasized by the Oxford English Dictionary’s for making emoji as "word of the year".

i iSource Emojipedia. The term ‘Emoji’ was derived from the Japanese letter (絵, "picture") + Moji (文字, ‘character’), and not from the English word emotion, as generally believed. (Skiba, p.56-57; Alshenqeeti, p.57).

ii Andy Murray announced his wedding on Twitter using only 51 emojis.

iii Dictionary.com iv http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet v The term “artificial” is used here to allude to a wring system that has been intentionally constructed by someone instead of one that has developed overtime from historical linguistic and cultural tendencies guiding its development

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Appendix

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DATA FROM APPBOY 2016 (INCREASE IN EMOJI USE)

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