Analysing Emoji used in Social Media as Signs on the basis of Peirce theory of Semiotics
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Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930
Analysing Emoji used in Social Media as Signs on the
basis of Peirce theory of Semiotics
Ankur Jyoti Talukdar1
1. Research Scholar, Department of Assamese, Gauhati University
Abstract: The Twenty-first century saw a boom in the information-technology sector. Due to
this, social media emerged as a new and effective medium of expression. This ‘New Media’
changed lifestyles, ideologies, and even means of communication. Social media
communication is not like conventional or face to face conversation; rather it is a virtual one.
Social media communication is not like a conventional face-to-face conversation rather a
virtual one. Because of its virtual nature, in some cases understanding the real meaning of a
text message become challenging and misleading. Emoji nullify this problematic situation to
some extent. Emoji convey the emotional side of a message. This paper aims to discuss emojis
used in social media from the perspective of semiotics. Specially the idea presented by Charles
Sanders Peirce regarding the philosophical study of signs that revolutionized the human
approach towards signs. Based on his idea emojis can be viewed from the analytical spectrum
and its nature can be understood for fruitful communication.
Keywords: Communication, Emoji, Netspeak, Peircian model, Semiotics, Social Media.
1. Introduction
As a human being, man are associated with signs from the very beginning. Primitive
man might have not known how to use signs as ‘the sign’, but their day to day life is definitely
associated with simple signs. With the advancements of human cognitive capacity signs also
tend to get complex over the years. Now humans live in a world of signs, from the morning
alarm clock to turning off the bed switch, knowingly or unknowingly humans create and
decipher signs every day. Talking about the usage of day to day signs, humans can’t ignore
language. Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure referred to Language as ‘the most important’ of
all of the systems of signs (Saussure, 1983, p. 15). Emojis are not a conventional language. But
because of their communicative nature some scholars like to call it lingua franca for the digital
age (Pardes, 2018).
Today thousands of emojis make communication better. But it dates back to the 80s of
the twentieth century. Primitive emojis are known as emoticons, which were first suggested by
computer scientist Scott Fahlman in September 1982, to the Carnegie Mellon University
message board that :-) and :-( could be used online to distinguish emotional elements from
serious statements. What we call emoji today was first used in an early mobile internet platform
from Japan’s main mobile carrier, DOCOMO in 1990, which were created by Japanese artist
Shigetaka Kurita. Kurita was keen to design an attractive interface so that information could be
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conveyed in a simple yet effective way. Over the past few years emoji has become an
inescapable part of both informal and formal conversation. Showing up in press releases and
corporate emails and making it to entry as "Word" of the year in Oxford Dictionaries in 2015,
features its growing nature and acceptability by mass people. People are aware of its influential,
attractive and user friendly characteristics but might not know that emojis are based on
semiotics. Even when Kurita designed emoji he might also not have thought about semiotics, he
might not have heard the name of Peirce, but intentionally or unintentionally he created one of
the most effective signs of digital media. Today 'semiotics' is an umbrella term which is used to
describe both the pillar tradition of Semiotics, one was known as 'semiology' prescribed by
Ferdinand de Saussure and another was known as 'semiotics' proposed by Charles Sanders Peirce
(Chandler, 2007). Saussure was a Swiss linguist and so his idea of semiotics was round around
language. In contrast to Saussure, Peirce was an American philosopher, logician and
mathematician, so he looked semiotics from a more philosophical perspective. The Peirce model
is definitely more diverse and well equipped to reason the signs other than language. Moreover
unlike Saussure, Peirce theory of semiotics is a triadic model which can describe signs with
multilayered meaning. Emoji stand for something and that something either can have mono or
multilayer meaning. That’s why emojis can be labeled as signs as Chandler (2007) points out that
we refer to ‘sign’… of anything which ‘stands for something (p.02). Thus emoji as signs
encourage academic discussion under semiotics discourse.
2. Literature Review
Scholars have been interested in theories of signs that appear throughout the history of
philosophy from ancient times onwards. Scholars like Todorov (1982), points out this historical
background in his book Theories of the Symbol. It is known that (Romeo, 1977) Saint Augustine
or Augustine of Hippo was the first person to introduce a thematic proposal for uniting ‘sign
(signum) and ‘symbol’ under the notion of "sign" (signum). In his book Basics of Semiotics,
Chandler (2007) added the first explicit reference to semiotics as a branch of philosophy
appearing in John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding(1690). But contemporary
semiotics can’t be traced back to the nineteenth century. In his book Course in General
Linguistics (1916 ) Ferdinand de Saussure first proposed a dyadic model to describe ‘Semiology’
(semiotics). While Saussure studies the role of signs as part of social life Peirce did a range of
studies (semeiotics), which closely related to logic. By defining a sign, Peirce wrote, ‘‘I define a
sign as anything which is so, determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines
an effect upon a person, which effect I call its interpretant, that the later is thereby immediately
determined by the former’’(Peirce, 1931:58). Peirce's thoughts were instrumental for many
scholars like Emberto Eco (1976), Charles Morris (1938), Elizabeth W Bruss (1978), in the later
years. Inspired by Peirce idea, Ferreira et al. (2000) characterized sign as only a considerable
thing when it is interpreted by someone as sign. According to him, if a person can’t interpret
something as ‘signifying’, which referring to or standing for something other than itself, surely
that can’t be a sign (chandler, 2007). Chandler (2007) also pointed out that people interpret
things as signs largely unconsciously and that too because people can relate them to familiar
systems of conventions.
As Chandler (2007) stated in his book that Signs can take the form of either words,
images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and
become signs only when we invest them with meaning. Semiotics is only concerned with this
meaningful use of signs. Thus emoji can also look with the prism of such. All the academic
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discussion around emoji started in the last fifteen years or so. This discussion started with
accepting emoji as an added meaning to certain text (Derks et al., 2007; Alshenqeeti, 2016;
Thompson and Filik, 2016). Some researchers concluded emoji as an emotional tone to a digital
conversation for enhancing social relationships (Riordan, 2017; Danesi, 2016; Kaye et al., 2016).
The term ‘Semiotics’ comes under investigation for several times as scholars or researchers like
Hamza Alshenqeeti (2016) in his publication Are emojis creating a new or old visual language
for new generations ? A socio-semiotic study carefully examines how people with different
backgrounds with culture, age, gender or level of experience treat or understand digital
graphicons differently. Taking it a further Will Gibson, Pingping Huang and Qianyun Yu (2018)
in their paper entitled Emoji and communicative action: The semiotics, sequence and gestural
actions of ‘face covering hand’ argued how Conversational Analysis (CA) approach can be a
useful tool to the examination of emoji’s communicative purpose. The semiotics of emoji: the
rise of visual language in the age of the Internet is one of the prime literatures in this academic
discourse. In his book Marcel Danesi (2016) proposed the idea that ‘‘emoji code might well be
the universal language that can help solve problems of comprehension that international
communications have always involved in the past” (p. vii). Moreover this book made a careful
attempt to look at the background of the emergence of emoji stating its roots back to semiotics of
Japanese manga cartoons, American counterculture of 1960s, the acid house movement of
1980s/90s and internal marketing campaign of a life insurance company in Massachusetts. Some
other publications (Moschini, 2016; Stark and Crawford, 2015) also supported this historical
development. Supporting Danesi’s idea on universality of meaning of emoji, Alshenqeeti (2016)
remarked that as a part of language form, emojis may be able to bring clarity in cross-cultural
communication. On the other hand, this idea is criticized by Kerslake and Wegerif (2016) in their
research work. They emphasis on cultural competence by arguing that emoji can only be
decoded with cultural competence. And cultural competence is not universal but relative to
cultural background. There are some other scholars (Baron, 2004; Lo, 2008; Markman and
Oshima, 2007; Nishimura, 2015) who proposed cultural background of Emoji user define the
meaning of it. It is clear that scholars aagreed on the role of the interpreter in the process of
decoding the meaning. Similarly some of them believed in the rich socio-semiotic history of
Emoji, which creates a complex domain of potential meanings (Moschini, 2016). This opens up
the discussion scope of Emoji from the perspective of semiotics proper. Neither the Saussurean
model nor Peircean model is tested on the academic domain of Emoji study. Semiotic’s model
have been conceptualized as theoretical framework in analyzing other communicative vehicle
like Advertisement (Ravichandran, 1993; Bua, 2014; Lal, 2017) and User Interfaces (Islam,
2013), but not in Emoji. This research gap will be tried to fill-up in the current paper.
3. Objective of the Research
The following research objectives are the focus point of the study:
1. To reduce the research gap that is available in the academic discourse of Emoji.
2. To present a semiotic analysis of the subject based on Peirce theory or Peircean model.
3. To highlight Emoji as the different types of signs as prescribed by Peirce.
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4. Methodology
Research paper has collected data from www.emojipedia.com and priorities are given
to those which are extensively used in social media platform. Emojis have been observed from
a qualitative approach. For discussion, every semiotic details and types and level of Peircean
theory is systematically categorized. The content and structure of each category are explained
with three or two different Emoji as examples to understand the theme. This is carefully
maintained throughout the Research prepare also to ensure the harmony in the text of this
research work. Research paper systematically categorised with tittles and subtitles and
formatted according to the Chicago Manual. .
5. Results and Discussion
From 1999 to 2020, Emoji has grown in every aspect, from quantitative to qualitative
development, from social acceptance across the culture to technical upliftment in every
renowned user interface from Google, Microsoft, Apple. Every year new emojis are added to the
existing lot with a detailed and systematic process by Unicode. It all started in 2010, when
Unicode officially adopted emoji and added emotic expressions like cat faces emoting
happiness, anger, and tears and hundreds more. Emoji got more diverse and update in 2015 with
five new skin tones and a set of same-sex couples. Emojis like single dad, pride flag, and
weightlifting woman were added with a new update in 2016. 2021 will see 217 new emoji,
which included a heart on fire, a woman with a beard, face in the clouds and new mixed skin
tone options for couples. Compared to previous updates, this is a relatively minor update from
Unicode. But this is a clear indication of its ever growing nature. Before examining them as signs
from Peirce point of view, it would be necessary to have a careful look at what he actually
proposed in his ideas.
5.1 Peirce Model of Sign
Peirce was instrumental at his time for introducing a triadic model for understanding the
signs. Though in his intellectual lifetime, Peirce made continuous attempts to revise and
developed his ideas of sign or semiotics. However, despite this modification, Peirce ideas
regarding basic structure and significance of sign mostly remain uniform throughout the period.
His idea of sign consists of a) The Representamen, b) An Interpretant and c) An Object.
5.1.1 The Representamen: In simple words, it can be said that the form which the sign
takes is called Representamen. In Peirce's own words ‘The representamen stands to
somebody for something in some respect or capacity.’(Chandler, 2005, p.29) For this
signifying element Peirce used numerous terms that include ‘sign’, ‘representamen’,
‘representation’, and ‘ground’. Due to this some theorists call it the ‘sign vehicle’
(Zalta(ed.), 2006, para. 5)
5.1.2 An interpretant: Interpretant is nothing but the sense made of the sign. According
to Andersen the The interpretant (meaning) is therefore the sign created in the mind of
the perceiver or the reaction caused by the object in the perceiver (1992).
5.1.3 An object: The object (referent) is the actual thing the sign stands for or that needs
to be interpreted through representation.
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These three elements work simultaneously in order to bring a sign into effect. Unlike Saussure it
is not a cause and effect paradigm. So to simplify things chandler says “The sign is a unity of
what is represented (the object), how it is represented (the representamen) and how it is
interpreted (the interpretant). (2005, p. 29) We can take an Emoji as an example. (Figure 1 )
Figure: 1
Figure 1 shows an Emoji named ‘Faced with zipper’, this works as a represtamen to an object
(Shut the mouth). Object is projected through representamen or the prescribed Emoji to be
interpreted to mind as ‘This sign is to keep the mouth shut’.
5.2 Categories and Correlate of Sign
Apart from representamen, interpretant and object, Peirce suggested three categories,
according to him which are necessary and sufficient to account for all of human experience.
These categories have been designated as "firstness", "secondness", and "thirdness".
Peirce characterised Firstness as one conception, which is independent of anything else.
Firstness has no boundaries or parts, and no cause or effect, it signifies completeness, pure and
latent potentiality. Emotional experiences come under firstness. Secondness is nothing but the
mode of being or existence that is in relation to something else. The individual, existence, fact,
action-reaction includes here. Practical experience can be corresponded as secondness.
Thirdness is a moderator through which the firstness and the secondness are brought into
relation. Rules and laws belong to the domain of Thirdness. It can be categorized by thought,
representation, language and experience. Moreover Thirdness coincides with intellectual
experience.
According to Nicole Everaert-Desmedt (2011) people distinguish firstness, secondness and
thirdness in the three correlate of sign- representamen or first correlate (1C), in representamen-
object relations or second correlate (2C), and in the way the interpretant implements the
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relationship between representamen and object or third correlate (3C). These correlates
correlate are three
different ways to view sign- presentative (1C), representative (2C) and Communicative (3C). (3C)
Vincius Romanini (2020) said Correlates are like the questions, what’s the sign? (1C), what’s the
sign about? (2C) and what the sign ca causes? (3C). These three categories
tegories and correlates results in
nine different types of sign (Table
Table 11).
Firstness Secondness Thirdness
First Correlate (1C) Qualisign Sinsign Legisign
Second Correlate (2C) Icon Index Symbol
Third Correlate (3C) Rhema Dicisign Argument
Table: 1
5.2.1 First Correlate: Qualisign,
ualisign, Sinsign and Legisign
How the sign presents itself regardless of obje
object and effect is the prime question in first correlate.
In other words we can say that 1C concentrate
concentrates on the representamen or sign itself. First
correlate is all about immediate experience of the sign, whether it is a quality, an
a existence or a
law/pattern, if the sign presents itself
self as a quality than its categorized as Qualisign,
Quali If it is an
existence, then it is called Sinsign, similarly
similarly, a sign that representss law or pattern is known as
Legisign. Emoji can be examinedd from this first correlate (1C) –
Qualisign
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
Sign presents itself as a Sign represent itself as a Sign brings immediate
Present As six colored quality. quality in consist of pink experience as bright
color orange color, which is
also a quality
Rainbow emoji was Lipstick emoji was Safety Vest emoji was
Details of the
approved in 2010 as part approved in 2010 as part approved in 2019 as part
Emoji
of Unicode 6.0 and in of Unicode 6.0 and in of Unicode 12.0 and in
2015 it was added 2015 it was added 2019 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 12.0 .
Table: 2
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Sinsign
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
Sign presents itself as a Sign represent itself as a Sign brings immediate
Present As existence of dried maple existence of increased rate experience of existence of
leaf in thermometer blood
Maple Leaf emoji was Face with Drop of Blood emoji was
Details of the
approved in 2010 as part Thermometer emoji was approved in 2019 as part
Emoji
of Unicode 6.0 and in approved in 2015 as part of Unicode 12.0 and in
2015 it was added of Unicode 8.0 and in 2019 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 . 2015 it was added to Emoji 12.0 .
to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 3
Legisign
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
Sign presents itself as a A pattern can be found in By Convention, red
Present As law governed sign, used this sign, which showing a signifies anger,
to indicate that something person putting litter or aggression, that pattern of
is not permitted
permitted. waste in the trash bin knowledge is used in this
emoji to may showcase
more intense degrees of
anger, e.g., hate or rage
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Prohibited emoji was Litter in Bin Sign Pouting Face emoji was
Details of the
approved in 2010 as part emoji was approved in approved in 2010 as part
Emoji
of Unicode 6.0 and in 2010 as part of Unicode of Unicode 6.0 and in
2015 it was added 6.0 and in 2015 it was 2015 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 . added to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 4
Hence, Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4 clearly points out how Emoji can be blended in first
correlate (1C) as Qualisign, Sinsign or Legisign. However, it is important to note that Qualisign,
Sinsign or Legisign doesn’t stand alone, they are interrelated or interdependent. Legisign can
only signify through an instance of it, which is Sinsign. So it means Legisigns cannot act until
embodied as sinsigns. (Everaert
Everaert-Desmedt,
Desmedt, 2011) Similarly Sinsign can only signify because it
has certain qualities or Qualisign. So a sign can pose firstness, secondness
ness and thirdness at the
same time or more specifically a sign can act as a Qualisign, Sinsign and Legisign at a one go.
Let’s take some examples from prior tables.
Sl. No. Emoji Qualisign Sinsign Legisign
Seven Existence of Natural Law signifies
(i) Colored Rainbow that Rainbow occurs
presentation after rain in the
environment, which
means such atmospheric
atm
incidents just happens.
happens
Brown Color Existence of a From environmental
(ii) is the quality dead maple pattern
attern it is clear that
that is leaf maple leaves tend to fall
presented in the Autumn season.
through the That means autumn is
Emoji around the corner.
Red color is Existence of From habitual
(iii) presented Round red knowledge people know
through the circle with a that this particular
Emoji as a with a diagonal diagram means ‘not
quality. line through permitted’ in any sense
the middle, where it is applied.
from top-left to
bottom right
Table: 5
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Table 5 shows how one Emoji can work as different signs simultaneously at a time. “Rainbow”,
“Maple leaf” and “Prohibited” Emoji are Sinsign as they projected existence; they contain
certain qualities that’s why it can be seen as Qualisign; these signs have some conventional
meaning too and thus they can also be tagged as legisign.
5.2.2 Second Correlate: Icon, Index and Symbol
Relationship between sign/representamen and object in context of firstness, secondness and
thirdness is the prime focus point of second correlate (2C). It inquires how the sign represents its
object. Aforesaid relation between sign and object can be based on either similarity,
resemblance; or material and causal connection or convention and habit. Because Becaus of these
different possibilities a sign can be called (1) an Icon, (2) an Index or (3) a Symbol,
Symbol respectively.
If the sign resembles the object then the reference between a sign and its object is called iconic.
Actually a pure icon doesn’t make any distinction between the object and itself. An index
represents its object by being really materially or causally connected to it. The index
in represents
existence by being affected by the object. A symbol represents it itss object by some habit or
convention. In the symbol the relation between the representamen and object is conventional and
based on a habit or law connects the sign with its object. Table 6, Table 7 and Table 8 shows
some of the examples of Emoji being obse observed from this second correlate -
Icon
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
Sign representss its object A cyclist (object) perfectly There isn’t any difference
Reresent with pure resemblances looks like the sign or in between sign and
object As to a physical butterfly. other words there isn’t any representamen in this case
distinction between sign too. A landscape is
and object. portrayed as it is in the
emoji.
Butterfly emoji was Person Biking emoji was National Park emoji was
Details of the
approved in 2016 as part approved in 2010 as part approved in 2014 as part
Emoji
of Unicode 9.0 and in of Unicode 6.0 and in of Unicode 7.0 and in
2016 it was added 2015 it was added 2015 it was added
to Emoji 3.0 . to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 6
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Idex
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
This kiss mark represents Compass represents sides This index sign (tornado)
Reresent a kiss by being really with a material represents existence
object As materially or causally connection. Specifically through being affected by
connected to it. we can say that changes in the object (sudden change
the object are clearly in the atmosphere).
noticeable in the sign.
Kiss Mark emoji was Compaas emoji was Tornado emoji was
Details of the
approved in 2010 as part approved in 2018 as part approved in 2014 as part
Emoji
of Unicode 6.0 and in of Unicode 11.0 and in of Unicode 7.0 and in
2015 it was added 2018 it was added 2015 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 11.0 . to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 7
It is important to note that based on the context of the conversation, an Emoji appears
appear as an
indexical sign in social media usages
usages.. It is not like the indexical sign that appears
appear in the
physical world. Material or causal connection in between sign/representamen and object only
can be established through conversation
conversational analysis from pragmatics.
Symbol
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
As a symbol sign, in No Face with symbols on A classic
classi love heart emoji,
Reresent Mobile Phones Emoji the mouth emoji represents its but how has this been
object As relation between the object with only habitual accepted over the years
representamen and object connection. People with and
nd generation? Answer
is habitual or law. the help of conventional lies in conventional use of
Looking at the sign thinking easily can it and framing the same as
anyone with prior distinguish that symbols expression of love
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conventional knowledge stand for abusive or swear irrespective of geography
would understand what it or obscene words. and culture.
means.
No Mobile Phones Face with symbols on Red Heart emoji was
Details of the
emoji was approved in mouth emoji was approved approved in 1993 as part
Emoji
2010 as part of Unicode in 2017 as part of Unicode of Unicode 1.1 and in
6.0 and in 2015 it was 10.0 and in 2017 it was 2015 it was added
added to Emoji 1.0 . added to Emoji 5.0 . to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 8
Like the first correlate, different categories of second correlate are also intertwined with each
other. A symbol can also act as an index with an iconic quality. No Mobile Phones Emoji from
Table: 8 (sl. No (i)) is a symbol because its relation with an object is formulated a priori by
convention. Apart from thirdness, this sign has a mobile phone to portray below the prohibition
mark, that illustration of mobile phone in the emoji has a proper resemblance with a physical
mobile phone; from that perspective No Mobile Phones Emoji can be called an icon sign. Now if
in any social media informative platform, an exam conducting authority uses this Emoji
following ‘in the examination hall’ statement in instruction for the candidate, then based on its
material connection with the object we can label the aforesaid Emoji as index sign. Similarly an
icon sign of emoji can perform as a symbol sign and vice-versa. Butterfly Emoji from Table: 6
(sl. no (i)) is primarily an iconic sign, but depending on variation of conventional knowledge, it
can act as a symbolic sign and signifies the emergence, the inevitable, the ideas of beauty and
happiness (www.emojipedia.org). In contrast to this, Face with symbols on mouth Emoji from
Table: 6 (sl. no (i)) is primarily a symbolic sign, but symbols that are used to describe the
abusive language are special characters of English language and these are identical with the
object. That makes it an iconic sign too.
5.2.3 Third Correlate: Rhema, Dicisign and Argument
The third correlate is nothing but the effect of the sign that produced the interpreter. This
correlate presents the triadic relation and because of it, sign is able to communicate information
from object to interpreter. Its firstness is known as Rhema, secondness is Dicisign, thirdness is
Argument.
Rhema refers to nothing but the qualities of the representamen. It is a pure possibility of
interpretation. It could also be an interpretation that is a feeling. The rhema is neither true nor
false. Some emojis do act as Rhema sign, here are some examples-
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Rhema
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
This emoji can affect Looking at Face without Interpretation of Sunrise
Communicate interpretant with different mouth emoji interpretant over Mountains emoji has
object As possibilities, or in other could either feel sad, different possibilities.
words, they can bring frustration, Some may feel positive,
different feelings to disappointment or some may feel the energy,
different interpretant. Speechlessness. Neither is some may feel relief, and
Some may feel the true or false. That makes it some may even feel
beauty; some may feel a Rhema sign. anxious. From that
the vastness of the perspective this Emoji
universe. stands as Rhema.
Milky Way emoji was Face without mouth Sunrise over
Details of the
approved in 2010 as part emoji was approved in Mountains emoji was
Emoji
of Unicode 6.0 and in 2010 as part of Unicode approved in 2010 as part
2015 it was added 6.0 and in 2015 it was of Unicode 6.0 and in
to Emoji 1.0 . added to Emoji 1.0 . 2015 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 9
Dicisign draws the interpreter’s attention towards “something”. It conveys the fact about
something of the world, that claim is either true or false
false.
Dicisign
Sl. No. (i) (ii) (iii)
Sign
This emoji co
conveys the Folded Hands emoji says Footprints emoji draws
Communicate message of having a fact about two hands the interpreter’s attention
object As haircut
rcut to the folding together in the towards the existence of
interpretant. Whether the non-virtual world footprints in the real
claim was true or false world.
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can be justified later.
Person Getting Haircut: Folded Hands emoji was Footprints emoji was
Details of the
Light Skin Tone emoji approved in 2010 as part approved in 2010 as part
Emoji
was added to Emoji 2.0 of Unicode 6.0 and in of Unicode 6.0 and in
in 2015. 2015 it was added 2015 it was added
to Emoji 1.0 . to Emoji 1.0 .
Table: 10
The Argument is a sign that formulates the rule to join representamen with object. This sign is
interpreted at the level of thirdness
thirdness. Nicole Everaert-Desmedt
Desmedt (2011) pointed out that an
argument always has a legisign as its representamen and a symbol as its object.
object Table 11 will
showcase emoji that fits in this sign system –
Argument
Sl. No. Sign Communicate object As Details of the Emoji
In this emoji, the rule that Police Car Light
binds the representamen to its emoji was approved in
(i) object is deduction based. 2010 as part of Unicode
“Every time there is this red 6.0 and in 2015 it was
light emoji in the conversion, added to Emoji 1.0 .
there is a sense of emergency
in any context”
This emoji means muted Muted Speaker emoji was
(ii) volume, which can be approved in 2010 as part
communicated to interpretant of Unicode 6.0 and in
based on induction rule of 2015 it was added under
"Wherever there is red thee name of “electric light
cancelation stroke over bulb’ to Emoji 1.0 .
anything, there is prohibition
of that particular thing"
Table: 11
6. Conclusion
It has already been established that Emoji has grown inte intensively
nsively over the years. Social media
m
played a crucial role in its growing nature by providing worldwide platforms and millions of
users. Emojis are instrumental in connecting people from different cultures and national
languages through social media intera interactions,
ctions, with the help of its universal characteristics.
Whether this solves the problems of comprehension of international multilingual communication
or not, that is best left for time to validate. But one thing is clear that emoji
emojis are nothing but a
sign system that helps the process of communication in the most effective way possible. After
looking at them from the prism of Peirce theory or model of semiotics, emoji appears to have all
the three categories of sign system
system- firstness, secondness and thirdness ss respectively. When it
comes to correlates, emojis are dominated by the first two correlates. But it doesn’t conclude the
Volume XIII, Issue I, 2021 Page No: 224Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930
exclusion of the third correlate. Unlike the first two correlates, third is dependent on how the sign
is communicated to the interpretant, which can vary from culture to culture. Initial emojis with
round and yellow faces were not iconic. Maybe they were given those attributes to make them
ethnographically and culturally as neutral as possible. In the later inclusion of emoji, this
approach went through a change. Due to this, emoji database is filled with iconic signs with
different shades and sizes to counter the cultural diversities. Apart from iconic signs, symbolic
signs are represented mostly via emoji. Even emoji databases have a subcategory named as
‘symbol’ which includes some most used symbols of real life. As a sign most of the emoji do not
stand alone. They often intertwine with different categories within the correlate or outside of the
one correlate. Coming back to the first correlate, firstness (qualifying) and secondness (sinsign)
in this correlate are possessed by mostof the emojis, where thirdness (Legisign) is limited in
comparison with the first two.
Every emoji is a sign in some category or correlate. Some are higher in universal meaning than
others. These signs helped the communicators to understand the register, vocal intonation, hand
gestures and facial expressions to some extent, which are essentially important to understand the
discourse and usually hard to convey through normal words or alphabets in social media. They
can function as cultural entities that usually a conversation carries apart from linguistic
modalities. Peirce was the pioneer in institutionalizing non-linguistic signs and emojis are one of
the most effective non linguistic signs that exchange discourses. Despite little variations over the
different social media platforms, its acceptability and universality made its way forward for
being an artificial language of net speak of social media at least till new technological
development comes to the surface. Until then emoji code will serve as one of the popular sign
systems of sign dominated world.
Declaration of Conflicting Interest: The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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