September 27, 2018
On Tuesday, October 16, 2018, Dr. Jing Ge will give a talk titled, "Communicative Functions of Emoji Sequences on Sina Weibo."
Abstract:
The focus on the meanings, functions, and social uses of single emoji can no longer capture and portray an entire picture of emoji as an emerging graphical language in computer-mediated communication (CMC). In addition to modifying, illustrating and substituting for words, social media users string emoji together creatively to form sequences that function like utterances in online conversations. Such innovative and complex ways that users employ emoji sequences raise challenges for theoretical and practical understandings of emoji use and for the design of graphical elements in CMC. This study employs computer-mediated discourse analysis to analyze the pragmatic meanings conveyed through emoji sequences and their rhetorical relations with accompanying text, focusing on posts by social media influencers and their followers on Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese Microblogging site. The findings show that although emoji sequences can function like verbal utterances and form relations with textual propositions, their usage differs from textual utterances in several respects. This study also observed creative usages that make the sequences more language like, even though there is not (as yet) a fixed grammar of emoji sequences. The resulting systematic and holistic view contributes most directly to the creation and use of a purely graphical language in CMC, provides a conceptual map for non-Chinese users to effectively deploy emoji to communicate with Chinese social media users, and generates new insights to inform emoji design in social media systems.
Biographical Note:
Jing Ge is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Anthropology Department and Co-Chair of the Tourism Studies Group at University of California, Berkeley. She has a Ph.D. in Marketing Communication from the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland, Australia and has close to 10 years of online communication industry experience. Her research focuses on computer-mediated communication (CMC), the language businesses and consumers use on social media, and humour. Her current interests include visual semiotics and graphicons in CMC. In her times away from research, Jing does long-distance trail running and drives a high-performance car on the track.
The talk will take place 3-4:30 pm in room GA 1060 (first floor, Global and International Studies Building).