Emoticon vs. emoji: Which shows depth?
any chance of miscommunication, the correct placement of an emoji is at the end of a sentence as a form of visual punctuation. When an emoji is used as a word or in the middle of a sentence, miscommunication increases, thus making the emoji useless in the text.
“Emojis disambiguitize texts, and it’s not just the faces that do this,” Ms. Riordan said. “They are necessary because the speaker tends to put responsibility on the recipient to understand sarcasm, but it’s incumbent on the speaker, not the recipient, to make that distinction clear.”
Interestingly, people who are not very proficient in technology tend to see emojis as pictograms (real), so they will stick to the actual meaning of the face or thing, whereas most of society sees emojis as ideograms (represents an idea), making the meanings more flexible. This endless flexibility can lead to friction between both parties when texting because no one truly knows what an emoji means — it’s based on the memories one has with that person in the context of the text.
“Emojis are used to deepen interpersonal relationships especially since we have a different social role with different types of people such as husband to wife and best friend to best friend,” said Ms. Riordan. “They help us perform these actions we are feeling over text — we aren’t actually laughing with tears.”
Psychology behind emojis
As a result, an emoji can have both cultural and interpersonal meanings. And, Ms. Riordan has found, it all has to do with the social roles of the speaker and the recipient.
There are 2,300 emojis on the keyboard, and a small percentage are actually faces, said Ms. Riordan. “And, an emoji can mean something different from its cultural association between two different people.”
An example of this is the texting relationship between Ms. Riordan and her husband versus Ms. Riordan and her friend and how they use the unicorn emoji. Ms. Riordan is rarely on time, so when she texted her husband saying that she would be on time for lunch, he sent her back the unicorn emoji, which in world culture is the universal symbol for “rare.” The unicorn meant “rare” between Ms. Riordan and her friend until they tried to throw a unicorn-themed birthday party for her friend’s 4-year-old daughter. After many failed attempts to bake a unicornshaped cake, they opted for a sheet cake with My Little Pony on top. Now, the unicorn emoji between her and her friend means “massive failure.”
“Every emoji is an ideogram. and it’s cool because you can decide what it means,” Ms. Riordan said.
Through her studies of the psychology behind all types of emojis, she has found they’re predominantly associated with joy.
“The Emoji Movie,” written and directed by Tony Leondis, humorously represents the stereotypes of emotions that are depicted by certain emojis. Ms. Riordan is not worried that the movie could affect how viewers perceive and communicate with emojis.
Right now, there is no standard form for emojis. There are many different apps that offer various types and designs. Apple is working with the Unicode Standard, a nonprofit that sets the global standard for emoji and text characters in order to increase compatibility among phones.
Ms. Riordan is often asked whether emojis have the potential to become their own language. No, she says, because emojis don’t have syntax or grammar, so communication with emojis alone wouldbe impossible.
“It’s like a hieroglyphic sentence that archaeologists spend their entire lives trying to analyze the meaning of,” she said. “They can analyze it to death and still not get the exact meaning, and an emoji sentence would be the same way.
“Emojis are a form of art and you can entertain yourself with a great number of meanings.”