Gibson-etal2018

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Gibson-etal2018
BibType ARTICLE
Key Gibson-etal2018
Author(s) Will Gibson, Pingping Huang, Qianyun Yu
Title Emoji and communicative action: The semiotics, sequence and gestural actions of ‘face covering hand’
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Emoji, Semiotics, Speech Act Theory
Publisher
Year 2018
Language English
City
Month
Journal Discourse, Context & Media
Volume 26
Number
Pages 91–99
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2018.05.005
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This paper uses conversation analysis to explore the communicative functions of one emoji in a mobile reading community in China. In contrast to semiotic approaches to emoji that focus on their cultural signification, or that treat them as reflections of users’ inner intensions, we analyse emoji as communication phenomena by exploring their relation to other textual actions in the production of text-talk. The emoji analysed here functioned as a laughter token, and performed specific interactional work related to laughter. We conclude that conversation analysis offers an important corrective to abstracted semiotic analysis and a useful resource for exploring the demonstrable meaning of emoji for interlocutors. However, we also emphasise the importance of capturing the process of composing messages, the challenges of dealing with the variety of forms that emoji take and their relation to gestural and other actions in face to face communication.

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