The word of the year is not a word
I 2015, for the first time ever, the
word of the year is not exactly a word, it is a pictograph. The
Oxford Dictionaries has decided that the Word of the Year in 2015 is an emoji.
More precisely the emoji, which is crying from laughing officially known as
“face with tears of joy” emoji.
Emojis is a Japanese word, from the
90s, which is a combination of e ‘picture’, and moji 'letter,
character'.[1]
Emojis is described as “A small digital
image or icon used to express an idea or emotion in electronic communication”[2]
Shigetaka Kurita, who was working at the phone company NTT DoCoMo’s on their i-mode
mobile Internet platform, invented the first emojis. Since
then emojis dispersed along with the spread of smartphones. [3]
According to data from
Oxford Dictionaries the usage of the word emoji has tripled in the last year.
The most common of all emojis in the world is the “face with tears of joy”. In a
statement the President of Oxford Dictionaries, Casper Grathwohl said: “you
can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the
rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st century communication. It’s not
surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those
gaps—it’s flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully. As a result emoji
are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends
linguistic borders.” [4]
Emojis are taking over the social
media world. As Oxford Word’s
blog described it: Emojis are no longer
the preserve of texting
teens – instead, they have been embraced as a nuanced form of expression, and
one which can cross language barriers. [5]
With the change to web 2.0, the Internet is playing a large role in
communication. On social media sites users interact with each other. The
Internet now focuses on user-generated content.
With the transition from face-to-face communication, to communication
via texts or chat we meet some obstacles. When you communicate
face-to-face you can see how the other person is feeling or if they are
offended by what has been said. When you communicate via text or social media
you can’t see how the message is received. Nowadays people seem mad if they
don’t put an emoji in their texts. We
use emojis to show our feelings when we communicate online.
In
2014 three social network sites were launched where you only communicate by emojis.
One of them was Emojicate. Emojicate – A whole new way to communicate without
words, which is branded as an “Emoji only chat and Social networking app”.[6] Emojicate have created their own emojis for
the app, which gives the app a larger emoji- vocabulary. The app is kind of
similar to twitter, which is a mikroblogging site.[7]
“The aim is clearly to come up with something that could feasibly be
used for actual communication: a picture of a friend’s face, followed by a pint
glass, a clock with the hands set at 7pm, and a question mark, is readily
understandable as an offer of after-work drinks. But is anyone really going to
be using an emoji-based social network for actual communication?”[8]
How
much do we actually communicate through emojis? An example of communication
with emojis can be seen on twitter. In the US it is possible to order a pizza
from Domino’s if you tweet them the pizza-emoji.
Coca-Cola
became the first brand to pay twitter too give their users access to a Coca-Cola
emoji which the company can use in their communication.
Another
example of how emojis are used can be seen on Hillary Clinton’s twitter profile.
She asked her twitter followers to answer her tweet with three emojis or less. This
is a part of her political campaign where she is really active on social media.
As
seen, emojis can be used in a lot of different contexts. The emoji of an eye
has become a symbol for anti bullying on social media. The symbolic in the eye-emoji
is that people are staying together and are keeping an eye on each other. But
even if it is marketing, to spread a political message, or to make your tweet
more relatable, it is clear that emojis are making an impact in the social media
world.
[3] http://politiken.dk/kultur/medier/ECE2934567/oxford-dictionary-kaarer-glaedestaarer-emojien-som-aarets-ord/
[4] http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/11/16/oxford-dictionaries-word-of-the-year-emoji/
[6] http://emojicate.com
[7] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/12/emoji-social-networks-app-emojli-emojicate-steven
[8] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/12/emoji-social-networks-app-emojli-emojicate-steven
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