They add an emotional level to the text and can prevent misunderstandings. What we can express in words or in a nonverbal way in real life is accomplished by emojis with rather short texts in real-time communication. We write emails and we chat on WhatsApp, Facebook or Snapchat. Our communication increasingly turns digital. Wrinkle our nose in disapproval or let our voice ooze with irony.

Widen our eyes in surprise or raise our hands in alarm. We look to the side when we're embarrassed. This happens through our facial expressions, our gestures, our body language and the tone of our voice. Graphic representation of emoticons – emojisĬommunication with our counterpart is not just about the words pronounced.įor we also communicate in a nonverbal way, that is, without using spoken language. On July 17, people celebrate the unofficial World Emoji Day. In 2015, the great popularity of emojis led to the Oxford Dictionary choosing an emoji as the Word of the Year.ĭue to its overcoming of language barriers, the face with tears of joy 😂 chosen as the most used emoji. Emojis are very popular and are regularly used by 92% of Internet users. The graphic no longer needs to be rotated by 90°. They also offer options for adaptation, such as hair color. In contrast to emoticons, emojis offer a larger variety of facial expressions. Emojis have been available on our mobile phones since 2010. To display emojis, the Unicode is converted into a graphic. This allows for more expressive communication.Įmoticons are now automatically converted into emojis in word processing programs or online services. Objects, food, activities, animals, plants, places and other associations can also be displayed. He was working on a pager service for a Japanese mobile provider and thereby wanted to boost its marketing among young people.įacial expressions and gestures are shown in the form of faces and people. Inspired by the manga world, software engineer Shigetaka Kurita developed 176 emojis in the 1990s. The term is composed of an 'e' for image and 'moji' for character. The step from the stick man face to the image took place in Japan.

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