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Volume 33, Issue 3
  • ISSN 1018-2101
  • E-ISSN: 2406-4238
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Abstract

Abstract

Online communication has created new ways to express emotions, including emoji and reaction GIFs. Emoji are often discussed as signs for meaning-making, adding emotional tone to communication. Reaction GIFs express emotions and attitudes in a playful manner. This study shows that through the lens of cognitive pragmatics, these phenomena are not distinct. Both are cases of non-verbal communication pointing to the communicator’s emotional state. Drawing on relevance-theoretic notions of the and , along with relevance-theoretic analyses of metaphor and irony, I argue that emoji and reaction GIFs provide clues to ostension and communicate emotions by virtue of perceptual resemblance between what they represent and the communicator’s emotional state. I will also argue that both emoji and GIFs can involve echoic use of language, enabling the communicator to convey their attitude.

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2022-08-01
2024-12-13

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/content/journals/10.1075/prag.21058.sas
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): communication of emotion; irony; metaphor; perceptual resemblance; relevance; the showing-meaning continuum

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