The language of emoji: Universal or cross-cultural?
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We use our smartphones daily to send text messages, post on Instagram, and react to TikTok videos. But, for nearly two decades, whenever we found it hard to express ourselves with words or when we needed to?steam up?our expressions, we used Emojis, a whole new keyboard that reshaped forms of communication.
Emojis should not be considered only as expressions or smaller size pictograms. They represent and serve a vastly broader meaning. They have created their own culture, and this culture has taken over the digital world of communication and maybe even the real world.
Today, even politicians and businesses are using emojis as it is considered a global phenomenon that has become mainstream. For example, remember the inflatable angry emoji looming outside the building during the 2019 Facebook Annual Shareholder Meeting — or the student protest in Hungary in 2018.
However, even before modern emojis, humanity always wanted to use symbols and pictures for expression. Cave paintings and hieroglyphics were the earlier examples of visual representation, but with the beginning of the 1990s, emoticons started to show themselves in forms of punctuations. In 1999, designer Shigetaka Kurita became the father of emojis as a Japanese cell phone company launched a set of emoticons for mobile phones for the first time, using Kurita’s designs. Later, the 12-by-12-pixel emoji set was developed in Japan, and the pictogram language has continuously evolved.
Especially after the 2010s, Emojis have become the most popular form of digital communication, with more than 3,000 emojis today, and this number is increasing each year.
Meanings of emojis
Did you ever notice the date on the calendar emoji on our smartphones? It indicates the 17th of July, World Emoji Day, which comes from the initial announcement date of iCalendar for Mac in 2002. Each year the 17th of July is the day you can vote for your most anticipated emoji, while this year, we celebrate the cultural diversity and awareness it brings to people.
Emojis are considered a universal way of communicating and were even described as “incontrovertibly the world’s first truly universal form of communication” by linguistics professor Vyvyan Evans. Even though this is a correct statement regarding the universality of emojis, psychology expert Keith Broni argued otherwise. As he became employed as an emoji translator, he began to wonder why a universal language needed translation if it was accepted and understood globally. This has raised the topic of cultural differentiation in emoji use.
Cross-cultural differences of emojis
Culture and tradition are deeply rooted in the essence of societies, and all cultures carry many different symbols and mechanisms of interaction among their people. For example, mimics, gestures, and signals communicate different emotions and deliver additional messages to other cultures.
At the same time, these messages can also differentiate between smaller groups of people depending on their age, gender, class, political or other differences. Moreover, the culturally diverse world celebrates the distinction between meanings of the same emojis in different cultures. Therefore, emojis should not be considered a single, universal language but a multimodal tool to complement cross-culturalism.
It is inevitable to say that the most significant reason behind the increased popularity of emojis is the rapid use of technology. Each day, we adapt to more colourful and speedy visuals and want to immediately comprehend what we see.
Emojis have helped this prompt communication skills to grow while having a similar impact on the business sphere, especially after the pandemic. As many offices started working remotely and people lost their privilege of seeing each other frequently in real life during the first few months of the Covid-19 pandemic, emojis were a saviour for those who sought a means for deeper communication behind their laptops.
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Putting aside the unifying nature of emojis, they help us celebrate our cultural differences and get gripped by them as we dig deeper into the different meanings of emojis in different cultures. While most of them carry similar meanings in most cultures, some have powerful cultural components that fundamentally differ from each other.
Semiotic uses of emojis in different cultures
As the angel or halo emoji (??)is regarded as threatening and a symbol of death in China, in Western cultures, it is used as a symbol of innocence. The applause emoji (??) is similarly different in different cultures. For example, while it symbolizes congratulations or praise in Western cultures, Chinese people consider it a symbol of making love.
Another surprising difference is that while the emoji of folded hands (??) has religious significance in Christianity, which may mean praying or prayer, contrary to what is believed, it doesn’t carry any symbolism for Islam. Prayer in Islam is signalled with open palms (??).On the other hand, in Japan, the folded hands emoji means ‘to thank’ someone.
The ‘OK’ sign with the thumb and index finger forming a circle (??) also has different meanings in different cultures. For example, it may be an insult in Brazil, while in the American Sign Language, it represents ‘number 9’. In Japan, people usually use it to signify their wealth, and in contrast with the Japanese, people in France use it to symbolize ‘zero’.
The ‘thumbs up’ emoji (??) usually means ‘okay’, while it can be considered an insult in Australia. However, if you look at it from a quantitative perspective, while it resembles number 1 in Germany, it means ‘number 5’ in Japan.
Last, the ‘increasing chart’ emoji (??) also carries a surprising detail. While the chart had an increasing trending line which is usually perceived as a positive incline, that upwards bar is displayed in red, which is actually a negative colour. In the West, the line should be green as it is a positive rise. However, as cultural differences enchant us one more time, the inclination is toward red because Asian countries perceive red as a cheerful colour while seeing green as a negative one.
Language and emojis
On another note, structure and philosophy, which different languages are built upon, also influence how we perceive, use and structure our use of emojis in complex communicative constructs. There are examples where cross-cultural emoji use triggers misunderstandings, confusion and sometimes conflict because of emoji use. Even though emojis are universal signs we use globally, our perception of those signs and our approach to using them are inherently different.
As we use emojis and similar linguistic tools on our smartphones in our daily rush, we fail to see the story behind them and forget how cultural diversity shapes and enriches our life. Yet, these small details shape all forms of communication, and they are invaluable.
That’s how people like Keith Broni become an “emoji translator” who can distinguish the differences in using emojis by different people and cultures.
That’s why businesses like pakt agency exist, to help our clients navigate confidently within different cultures. You can consider us a cross-cultural strategic translator where we decipher the cultural system for you to make better-educated decisions in foreign terrain.
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This article is originally published on our Medium channel at this link and prepared by our Research & Communications Intern,?Begüm Erceber.