Is it possible to communicate using the Emoji

Popularity images, penetrated into the language of web communication, sometimes makes talking about a new system of graphic signs. Is this what all Emoji, Layfhaker and N + 1 decided to ask a linguist Maxim Krongauz.

---

Emoji - very amorphous and heterogeneous phenomenon, there are mixed different c semiotic point of view, the signs and systems. Usually this word designate icons, but it can be and linguistic signs, and emoticons - Emoji function very differently.

Can I call Emoji some new script, to compare them with the ideograms - marks conditionally representing a particular concept? It seems to me impossible. Emoji are not converted into ideograms, remaining at the level of icons - that is, the stage of development of written characters that precedes ideograms. If ideograms are already linguistic signs, the pictogram - what in linguistics is called pre-written.

The fundamental difference lies in the ideograms that are composed of message is read only verbal way. Elements of ideographic writing - is essentially a word, linguistic signs.

Icon same - it is a picture that can be interpreted in different ways. Herodotus have known story how the Persian king Darius received a message from the Scythians, which consisted of a frog, a bird, a mouse, and five arrows. The king and his advisers had to think hard, but they did not come to a consensus that would tell them Scythians. Each of them received the object had its symbolic value, but they can be interpreted in different ways.

Here I am not very correct from the linguistic point of view, the analogy. Icon - it is as if the word is not, as its root. It can be interpreted both as a verb and as a noun and as a adverb. This is how the icon - is an idea that can take different verbal expressions. For example, if you draw the bus, it can mean "bus", and "take the bus" and something else connected with the bus. Therefore, when we are dealing with a pre-written, can not say that the text before us. This is a kvazitekst you can compare the different texts. He can not be read in a unified manner.

Emoji are on the same semiotic level - the level of pre-written. This is not the language, although there are clear semiotic system and outside of language, such as road signs. And here we are dealing with a huge variety, because Internet users are coming up with more and more new Emoji. But all this is more for the sake of aesthetics, not for the sake of communication.

As a historical stage, it is, of course, typical for children.

In my opinion, the use Emoji - is rolled back to childhood, if you like, in the childhood of humanity, or simply to the childhood of each of us: suddenly people around are beginning to use pictures in the text.

I'm not sure that Emoji have some perspective, in contrast to the emoticons that have taken their place.

In principle, and Emoji could be some kind of semiotic system, but in a spontaneously evolving Internet is very difficult. Now, if some world government village and decided: we will use Emoji in such a way... But it will not happen. Although Emoji today are embedded in the code table, agree on the rules of their use until no one even tries.

Against this background, curious to see what happened with emoticons. We see that they are now used in all cultures present on the Internet. But in different cultures, they are used differently in different messengers There are different sets of emoticons. That is, we understand about how to use them, but rather at the level of trends than the rules or regulations that we agreed. The unification took place, but touched just a few emoticons.

We understand what it means to smile, we understand what it means to a gloomy face, but a giant set of fifty and more emoticons hardly used.

At the same emoticons, in my opinion, very interesting communicative phenomenon in which the Internet has its own non-trivial function. Partly emoticons serve as punctuation marks, partly - facial expressions, intonation. They interact in interesting ways with the text: replacing point climb by certain rules into the proposal, complete it. Emoticons compensate for the severity of the formal written language, give her emotional speech orally. Therefore, we can say that the people in them have not played enough.

It seems to be partly absorbed Emoji Emoticons - for example, they are being squeezedEmoticons vs. Emojis on Twitter: A Causal Inference Approach their tweetsMore emojis, less :) The competition for paralinguistic function in microblog writing, And it is not to limit the number of characters. But what will happen to the Emoji on, it is not yet clear. To a large extent it depends on who will use them as Emoji will characterize the author. Today smiley almost does not characterize the man, and if he is younger than a certain age, it is almost a mandatory element of writing for him. A Emoji - an optional element, and the person who uses the Emoji, thereby making it clear that he belongs to a particular group, it is such a special samoharakteristika in terms of communication.

Therefore, in my opinion, too early to call Emoji some important achievement of our culture, too early to say that this is a stable writing element. We have to wait another five to ten years.

Here I could Emoji slapped with fir tree, because I write these lines, sitting at the cottage, but clear rules in this regard is not, so I think I will refrain.

read also

• How to improve the relationship Emoji →
• TEST: Guess the movie by Emoji →
• TEST: What is the Emoji? →