Abstract
The phenomenon of emojis has had many implications for the future course of writing, literacy, communications, and the nature of representation itself. This paper looks at the implications of emoji use through the filter of Saussurean semiotics and through the lens of theories of visuality, which claim that visual writing is having radical effects on literacy and cognition. The historical background to the rise of visual writing is used as a backdrop to the semiotic analysis of the emoji phenomenon. The way we read and write messages today with visual elements such as emoji may indicate a radical shift away from a linear mode of processing information, as imprinted in alphabetic forms of writing, toward a more holistic and imaginative mode. However, because emoji usage and creativity depend on specific technologies, it remains to be seen if such writing can survive as technologies change. The main argument in this paper is that emojis are more part of parole than they are a separate langue, but they nonetheless reveal changes that the latter is undergoing in an age of digital multimodal communication.
About the author
Marcel Danesi (b. 1946) is Full Professor of Linguistic Anthropology and Semiotics at the University of Toronto. His research interests span areas from semiotic theory and pop culture analysis to metaphorical analysis and mathematical representation. Recent publications include: Marshall McLuhan: The unwitting semiotician (2018), Ahmes’ legacy: Puzzles and the mathematical mind (2018), An anthropology of puzzles: The role of puzzles in the origins and evolution of mind and culture (2018), and Memes and the future of pop culture (2019).
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