"Emoticon" is a very broad concept. At present, it at least includes facial text, Emoji, static mapping, GIF animation, etc. (the latter two are collectively referred to as "Emoji package"). If we trace back to the source, emoticons are not "new". They can be regarded as their predecessors, including picture writing, punctuation, information map and diffuse symbol techniques. They all emerge to meet the human visual instinct.
This instinct has been released unprecedentedly in the electronic information age. More and more people begin to use emoticons. Among them, the young generation growing up with television, animation, video games and the Internet is undoubtedly the most active force. As a young generation of college students, they are very interested in this. In the modern linguistics class taught by the author, they express their views through group discussion, class presentation, reading reports and other forms, and even gave birth to a centralized discussion entitled "a guide to the use of Emoji in the 21st century". The topics concerned by college students include "the form variation of emoticons", "the function variation of emoticons" and "the pros and cons of emoticons". The following is their reflection record.
The expression package based on the transformation or synthesis of drawing text is welcomed by College Students
Among all kinds of emoticons, the most common ones are drawing words and emoticons. Sunshiqi and other students think that the most commonly used expression packs by college students are actually expression packs. We have stepped into the era of expression packs from the era of drawing words. Drawing characters and expression packs have different internal logic. People resist the unity of drawing characters and create a variant between drawing characters and expression packs, that is, expression packs that are deformed or synthesized based on drawing characters, such as "infinite" extended thumb expression packs.
Emoticons not only have many types, but also the same type presents different styles on different platforms. Mei Zhiyu and other students investigated the difference between the built-in painted text in Tencent software (such as wechat and QQ) and the built-in painted text in input method, and found that more people would use the former rather than the latter. The functional variation of some painted characters is related to the platform. For example, the "smile" expression with semantic variation mainly comes from Tencent software; Another example is that the "hee hee" expression is extremely cute on the Samsung platform, but not so cute on other platforms. They disassembled the painted characters and found that the expression of Xiao Huang's face is composed of "background color + face shape + expression", and its form selection is related to the psychology of facial expression, the expression technique of diffuse symbols and the evolution of network language.
Emoticons also show various variations in their use. Based on the investigation of BiliBili website, Chen Jing and other students found that the most commonly used words are "dog head", "knowledge increase", "hot eyes" and "laughing and crying". Among them, "dog head protects life" is known as the "gold medal for avoiding death", which can be used to judge whether the speaker is serious or joking; When people use drawing characters, they prefer to use them alone, and occasionally use them together to express strong or complex emotions, but the larger the number of consecutive uses, the lower the frequency of use; The highest frequency of pictorial writing is at the end of a sentence, followed by the beginning of a sentence. In very few sentences, you can clarify the emotion you want to convey or set the tone for the attitude of the whole sentence.
The same emoticon with different words may show different meanings
Compared with language, the meaning of emoticons is more vague, and their use and interpretation strongly depend on context. Wei Zichao and other students found that the same emoticon with different words may have different meanings.
The meaning of emoticons has great flexibility. Just because of this, emoticons show infinite variation in function or semantics, including situational variation. Expressions such as "smile", "goodbye", "snicker" and "show your teeth" all have meanings other than their original meanings. For example, the original meaning of "see you again" is "goodbye", and the meaning of "do not care about each other, break up friendship and make friends"; Individual variation, they mentioned that someone once sent "devil" and "lightning" in the class group for a semester. It was not until the end of the term that they knew that the former meant "smiling with pride" and the latter meant "I will go too"; Gender variation: one survey found that women use emoticons more than men, 78% and 60% respectively; Intergenerational variation, for example, it is difficult for young people to accept the so-called "middle-aged and elderly expression package", and it is also difficult for middle-aged and elderly people to understand the meaning of "sweating" and "coffee", etc. "The meaning behind Emoji" once appeared on the microblog hot search, which also shows that people have a strong consciousness of the functional variation of Emoji.
Emoticons will continue to play a role as part of communicative behavior and may be replaced by other means in the future
The reason why emoticons can "sweep the world" is due to its supplement to words, the lubrication of social interaction and the satisfaction of aesthetics. However, its popularity has also aroused people's concern.
Some people worry that the variation of emoticons will deepen the communication gap. Sunlingyao and other students agreed with this: although variation makes emoticons more colorful, there are also problems of unclear communication intention and easy misunderstanding between both sides, which may further expand the existing gap between different groups. Others worry that the abuse of emoticons will lead to a decline in language ability.
This view is very popular, which is the same as the worry about network language, but zhaowenxuan and other students doubt it: emoticons make up for the lack of pure words in conveying some intentions, but increase the communicative wisdom; Emoticons are mainly used in informal occasions and will not affect formal occasions too much.
Others worry that the abuse of emoticons will lead to the degradation of sensory ability. In their view, only language can express complex thinking and delicate emotions. If language ability degenerates, the ability to feel will naturally degenerate. Sunshiqi and other students expressed certain recognition, because emoticons mostly blaspheme and distort things that people have opinions about through collage, parody and spoof, and they do not have in-depth analysis and rational understanding of many things. These superficial, flat and visual emoticons ignore the complexity of human beings.
The above is the reflection of college students. Finally, let's briefly talk about the author's point of view. At present, there is a contradiction in the evaluation of emoticons: emoticons play an important role as paralanguage, and the formula of "100% face-to-face communication =7% language +38% expression +55% body language" is usually quoted, which can be said to be "highly praised"; On the other hand, he said that emoticons are "shallow" and "fragmented" communication, which can only "lay a hand" on language. This contradiction stems from a narrow view of language. In fact, only when we regard communication as a whole can we give emoticons an objective and fair evaluation. When interpreting language changes and variations, linguists usually seek a balance between economy and efficiency, which is also applicable to emoticons: from the perspective of economy, emoticons are vivid and concise in form. The hardware and software they are based on are faster and faster, and the user experience is more and more humanized (for example, software can automatically recommend emoticons according to input characters); From the perspective of efficiency, emoticons have played an increasingly irreplaceable role in the functions of greetings, communication and social interaction. At present, emoticons do a good job in their own work, and can not replace other parts of communicative behavior, such as language. Of course, it may also have no intention to arrogate.
Reflecting on emoticons, I think that the variation of emoticons is not terrible, but people are enjoying it. In addition, the fear that emoticons may cause the decline of expression and perception may also be exaggerated, because humans have been using paralanguage or other media similar to paralanguage, but never caused any irreversible serious consequences. Some people have proposed that "we can relax our vigilance on emoticons", but the reason is not that "many emoticons will be retained and stabilized", but that they will continue to play a role as part of communicative behavior. It may be a substitute for some means in the past, or may be replaced by other means in the future. But form is temporary, function is eternal.
Author: Yangxu unit: School of Arts, Wuhan University