Linking with Lexie Tucker
LEXIE’S TASK #6 BLOG POST
MY COMMENT ON HER POST
Hi Lexie,
I honestly can say I have no idea the title or what your emoji story is portraying. However, it was fun trying to figure it out! Did I try to google different phrases based on your initial emoji title, yes I did! Do I feel I like I succeeded? Nope! Although, from your emoji choices, I could decipher the general plot and the unfolding of events; and I’m ever so curious as to what it is.
You make an insightful observation about emojis being used to add context rather than being its own language. I myself use emojis to add “tone” to a text. For example, adding the “smiling with one drop of sweat/tear on head” or ???? if you can see it, to indicate a feeling of light nervousness or “whoops” in a text. (I also just googled it and it’s actually called “Grinning Face with Sweat” emoji, in case you curious). However, I completely agree that there are far too many implications between emoji visuals; spanning across regions, cultures and languages. It’s not universal enough. I had thought about this during my own engagement with this task, but do you think that emoji keyboards range between regions and cultures? Or is it likely just used differently based on the various meanings?
MY SUMMARY AND REFLECTION
Lexie outlining that emojis have been described as a new lingua franca was certainly thought-provoking. It was enlightening to think of emojis as a combinations of languages. I wonder if emojis would ever reach that point in language? If there was a way to create linguistic rules for it, as any other language has? At this rate, I think it would take hundreds of years, and not in our lifetime. In particular, thinking about how language evolves over time and has been born from a combination of dialects. As well, languages seem to move in an incredibly fast and slow pace. Fast, in the sense that slang and the emergence of new ways to communicate language, ie. social media and instant messaging, seems to constantly shift. There is always new slang that I only slightly understand because I am on apps like TikTok. Yet, it is slow, ironically due to the fast-paced, ever-changing nature of slang. Words may not necessarily “stick” and completely change language and linguistical rules, because there is always a new way to express something.
I quite agree with Lexie that emojis provide context to written text and that it “lacks narrative power”. I thought about this as I engaged with the task and the time it took to decide which emoji would best represent the thought, in the most “universal” way. I feel that Lexie took a similar approach. She used multiple emojis to represent a single action or event, in the same way I used them to portray a passage of time.