Emoji are Gesture

Using LingComm to Debunk Linguistic Misunderstandings (research article)

Abstract

In this article we reflect on a sustained, multi-part myth-busting project to scaffold media discourse around emoji through the production of academic and general consumption media regarding the role of emoji in communication. This work, which commenced in 2017, centred around building an argument that emoji use with text is the equivalent of gesture with speech That is, emoji and text contribute differently to building up a richer multimodal form of communication, an analogy drawing on the extensive literature from the field of Gesture Studies. This work was undertaken as part of our ongoing commitment to communicating about linguistics to general audiences, using our understanding of linguistics to do this work effectively, a practice known as Linguistics Communication (or Ling­Comm, analogous to SciComm). This paper highlights specifically how our knowledge of linguistics practice (such as discourse analysis and metaphor design) and related communications disciplines (debunking in psychology) enriched our capacity to communicate about emoji for a variety of audiences.