The Use of Emojis in Language Communication on Social Media Platforms

Yasminar Amaerita Telaumbanua, Nita Trima Niat Telaumbanua, Mercy Dwiyul Halawa, Benedikta Gulo, Dian Margaretha Enjelina Halawa, Elvi Krisnawati Waruwu

Abstract


Emojis have become crucial in digital communication, enhancing emotional expression and clarity on social media. However, discrepancies exist in how emojis are interpreted across different cultural and contextual settings. This study aims to explore emoji usage and interpretation among university students inEnglish Language Education Study Program at UniversitasNias. Employing a qualitative phenomenological approach, the research examines how emojis influence message meaning and clarity. Findings reveal that while emojis significantly enhance emotional nuance and expressiveness, their interpretation varies widely based on context and cultural background. This can lead to misunderstandings if emojis are not used appropriately. The study highlights the importance of understanding cultural and contextual nuances to ensure effective communication. Conclusively, while emojis enrich digital interactions, users must be mindful of their context-aware and culturally informed usage to maximize clarity and minimize misinterpretations.

Keywords


Emojis;Language communication;Social media.

Full Text:

PDF

References


Adler, R. B., Rodman, G., & du Pré, A. (2019).Understanding Human Communication.Oxford University Press.

Baron, N. S. (2015)."Language use in computer-mediated communication." In S. Norris & R. H. Jones (Eds.), Discourse in action: Introducing mediated discourse analysis (pp. 205-230). Routledge.

Burgoon, J. K., Guerrero, L. K., & Floyd, K. (2016).Nonverbal Communication.Routledge.

Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Crystal, D. (2015). Making sense of emoji.Oxford University Press.

Danesi, M. (2016). The semiotics of emoji: The rise of visual language in the age of the Internet. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Davis, M., & Edberg, P. (2016). The Unicode Standard, Version 9.0. Unicode Consortium.

Derks, D., Bos, A. E. R., & von Grumbkow, J. (2021). Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet: The importance of social context. Computers in Human Behavior, 23(1), 842-849.

Erle, T. M., Schmid, K., Goslar, S. H., & Martin, J. D. (2021).Emojis as Social Information in Digital Communication.Emotion. Advance online publication.

Evans, V. (2017). The Emoji Code: The Linguistics Behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats. Picador.

Evans, A. (2022). Digital Communication and Society.Oxford University Press.

Flick, Uwe. (2018). The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Collection. SAGE Publications.

Gawne, L., & McCulloch, G. (2019). Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. Riverhead Books.

Kalman, Y. M., &Gergle, D. (2022). Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication: Social Motives and Social Context. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(3), 615-631.

Kaplan, A. M., &Haenlein, M. (2016). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media.Business Horizons.

Kelly, R., Watts, L., &Durrant, A. (2020). "The multimodal construction of identity on social media: A systemic-functional analysis of Facebook profiles." Functions of Language, 27(1), 76-101. DOI: 10.1075/fol.18015.kel.

Leavy, P. (2017). Research Design: Quantitative, Qualitative, Mixed Methods, Arts-Based, and Community-Based Participatory Research Approaches. Guilford Press.

Lee, J., & Park, H. (2021).Understanding Emoji Misinterpretation in Digital Communication.Journal of Communication Research, 45(3), 345-360.

Masuda, Y., & Masuda, K. (2018). The influence of context and culture on interpretation of emoji: A study of English and Japanese. Information.doi:10.3390/info9100260.

McCulloch, G. (2019). Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.Riverhead Books.

Miles, Matthew B., Huberman, A. Michael, & Saldana, Johnny. (2014). Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook, Third Edition. SAGE Publications.

Miller, H., Thebault-Spieker, J., Chang, S., Johnson, I., Terveen, L., & Hecht, B. (2016). "Blissfully happy" or "ready to fight": Varying interpretations of emoji. In Proceedings of the Tenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2016).

Miller, D., &Sinanan, J. (2017).Visualising Facebook: A comparative perspective.UCL Press.

Miller, C. (2023). Digital Semiotics: New Perspectives. MIT Press.

Page, R., & Thomas, M. (2016). New narratives: Stories and storytelling in the digital age. UCL Press.

Robertson, A., Ross, B., & Hall, M. A. (2018).Emoji misinterpretation in cross-cultural communication. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (p. 239). ACM.

Seargeant, P. (2019). The Emoji Revolution: How Technology is Shaping the Future of Communication.Cambridge University Press.

Schnoebelen, T. (2017)."Graphing the grammar of emoji: A corpus-driven approach to emoji discourse." Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, 1(1), 19-52. DOI: 10.17759/langt.2017010102.

Statista (2021).Distribution of social media users worldwide as of January 2021, by platform.

Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. L. (2016). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods (4th ed.). Wiley.

Thurlow, C., & Mroczek, K. (2017). "The digital nexus: Identity, agency, and political engagement." In K. Tusting (Ed.), Handbook of linguistic ethnography (pp. 134-149). Routledge.

Veblen, T. (2016). The emoji code: The linguistics behind smiley faces and scaredy cats. Profile Books.

Winstein, K., & Athalye, A. (2016). Emoji autocomplete. Proceedings of the 15th Workshop on Hot Topics in Operating Systems (HotOS XV).

Zappavigna, M. (2018). Searchable talk: Hashtags and social media metadata. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Zega, S. D. F., Telaumbanua, Y. A., Harefa, A. T., & Zebua, E. P. (2023). The Descriptive Analysis of Verbal Interaction between Teacher and Students in the Classroom by Using FLINT System at the Eighth Grade of UPTD SMP Negeri 3 Gunungsitoli Utara in 2022/2023. Jurnal PSSA: Pendidikan, Sains Sosial, dan Agama, 9(2), Desember 2023.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.31004/jele.v9i4.524

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2024 Yasminar Amaerita Telaumbanua, Nita Trima Niat Telaumbanua, Mercy Dwiyul Halawa, Benedikta Gulo, Dian Margaretha Enjelina Halawa, Elvi Krisnawati Waruwu

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.