I attempted this assignment by thinking of how to represent characters, objects, and ideas from the movie I watched. I did not rely on syllables as that is not how I use emojis. Generally, I chose emojis to represent the actions of the characters in the film. On occasion, I used multiple emojis to represent a single action or event. In one (repetitive) instance I chose an emoji to represent something completely different because the generic name of the thing depicted is a homonym of what another noun.
In the weeks leading up to this assignment, I finally got around to reading a book that had been sitting on my bookshelf for some time, The Emoji Code by Vyvyan Evans. This book was quite interesting as Evans (2017) described the history of Emoji and compared it to various languages in an attempt to better understand it. Evans (2017) uses the term Emoji to describe the code that is all of the individuals emojis. While Stern (2015) referred to emoji as the new lingua franca, Stern (2015) and Evans (2017) both indicated that while certain emojis may act as substitutes for different words, they do not (yet) represent a true language. At this point, there is still too much ambiguity. I think this ambiguity and limited ability of emojis makes it challenging to “write” in Emoji. As Bolter (2001) wrote, “picture writing lacks narrative power. The picture elements extend over a broad range of verbal meanings: each element means too much rather than too little” (p. 59). While Bolter did not reference emojis specifically (he does make mention of emoticons), his argument about the vagueness of images applies to the emoji. While it might be said that emojis act like a lingua franca, Evans (2017) has described examples of emojis that having different meanings in various regions of the world.
At this point, emojis help to provide additional information and context to the written text. Evans (2017), Stern (2015), and Bolter (2001) have described the ability of emojis (or in Bolter’s case, emoticons) to add to the written text by shedding light on elements like emotions and context. Without the information provided by facial expressions, gestures, and intonation, written text can be easily misunderstood, especially with regards to humor and sarcasm. At present, the power of emojis is to provide that context to our writing.
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). The breakout of the visual. In Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.) (pp.47-76). Mahwah, N.J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Evans, V. (2017). The emoji code: The linguistics behind smiley faces and scaredy cats. Picador.
Stern, J. (2015, May 19). How I learned to love writing with emojis. The Wall Street Journal. http://graphics.wsj.com/how-i-learned-to-love-writing-with-emojis/
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?