The Emoji Is the Birth of a New Type of Language (NO JOKE)
In essence, we’re watching the birth of a new type of language. Emoji assist in a peculiarly modern task: conveying emotional nuance in short, online utterances. “They’re trying to solve one of the big problems of writing online, which is that you have the words but you don’t have the tone of voice,” as my friend Gretchen McCulloch, a linguist and author, says.
Purists sniff. What have we become, children with crayons? Surely words alone can convey emotional tone? Maybe—if you’re a novelist with years of experience in the patient forging and editing of prose, McCulloch says. But we thumbfolk are writing speedily and conversationally, in bursts on SMS or Facebook. Of the 20 most frequently used emoji, nearly all are hearts, smilies, or hand gestures—the ones that emote. In an age of rapid chatter, emoji prevent miscommunication by adding an emotional tenor to cold copy.
We also use emoji to convey a sort of ambient presence, when words aren’t appropriate. Ryan Kelly, a computer scientist at the University of Bath, has found that when texters finish a conversation, they often trade a few emoji as nonverbal denouement. “You might not have anything else left to say,” Kelly says, “but you want to let the person know that you’re thinking of them.” So you send a couple of pandas. Or telescopes! Or some other symbol that seems witty. This is another aspect of emoji—many are open-ended. You’d think that would make them less language-like, but in fact friends use that malleability to invest specific emoji with their own private meanings. (My wife and I use the Easter Island head to connote absurdity.)
Well dang I had not thought about emojis this way. 👍🏻💥☕️