Internet Pragmatics - Current Issue

This study delves into the use of graphicons, their frequency and their pragmatic functions in a corpus formed of 353,128 words/69,646 private texts on WhatsApp exchanged by adult users and teenagers. The messages were first examined to investigate graphicon usage. A second pragmatic analysis focused on the functions of emojis. The results show that, in utterances exchanged by adults in groups, emojis work as relational elements. Conversely, in adults’ dyadic exchanges and teenagers’ texting, conventional emojis are not so pervasive; other strategies are used for signalling mutual affinity. Interestingly, young texters base their dyadic interactions on messages formed nearly exclusively by text (72% of their messages) and some personalized GIFs, stickers, and multimedia content (13% of the messages). The novelty of this article lies in (i) the exploration of a large private corpus and (ii) the comparison of pragmatic functions of emojis and other graphicons across different age groups.

Emojis play a crucial role in facilitating face-work in online communication. While studies have examined the illocutionary effects of emojis on their co-text in online face management, it remains largely unexplored how face management is achieved through the combined use of politeness strategies realized by emojis and their co-text. Based on a corpus of comments from the Chinese social media platform Bilibili, this study explores how the Doge emoji and its co-text interact to perform face-work regarding illocutionary effects and politeness strategies. Findings reveal that this emoji frequently functions as an illocutionary force indicating device, adjusting verbal speech acts in a positive direction. Meanwhile, it serves as a politeness device, complementing verbal politeness strategies to flatter or maintain the interlocutors’ face. The interaction between the Doge emoji and its co-text is shaped by factors such as social distance, real-life politeness norms, and the speaker’s prioritization of face concerns.

Emojis are mentioned in online child sexual grooming (OCSG) studies. However, research on such emojis in OCSG contexts is still in its infancy. In this investigation, we report the findings of the first linguistic analysis of emojis in OCSG discourse. The data comprise 70 chat logs (103,386 words, 3604 emojis) between offenders and real minors. The analysis, using a corpus-assisted discourse studies approach (Partington 2010), indicates that groomers predominantly use rapport enhancement and maintenance orientated emojis (Spencer-Oatey 2005). This suggests that groomers employ emojis to shape their interactions feigning a false love relationship/friendship with their victims, which reveals their clear manipulation tactics. Finally, an analysis of collocates for two of the most frequent emojis (‘red heart’ and ‘smirking face’) is presented. The results show that they collocate with endearment terms, sexually vague and explicit terms, which highlights that emojis are a strategy employed in groomers’ discourse for a certain purpose.

Research shows that emoji are not only used to express emotions but also to enhance the illocutionary force of messages or build social rapport (Pérez-Sabater 2019; Sampietro 2019; Alfano et al. 2021). The interaction between text content and emoji can influence perceptions of both the message and the sender (Butterworth et al. 2019; Hand et al. 2022). However, in professional contexts, emoji may negatively impact perception of competence (Glikson, Cheshin and van Kleef 2018). In the case of political figures, where their profile may intend to show a combination of friendliness and professionality, the use of emoji becomes particularly relevant. This paper examines the use of emoji in the Twitter/X bios of 350 Spanish members of parliaments (2019–2023). Results reveal that male right-wing politicians use emoji more frequently, while left-wing usage is mainly by women. Both groups primarily use emoji to emphasize political messages and personal information, highlighting their role in shaping politicians’ online personas.

This paper investigates the function of visual and textual elements in stancetaking, using a small corpus of 58 multimodal reply posts containing GIFs/images along with co-text and/or embedded text. The posts respond to nine Twitter reposts from the sub-reddit “Am I the Asshole?”, in which users post situations in which they, or another person, may have been acting reprehensibly and ask the readers for their judgement. Reply GIFs, images, and texts relate to each other and to the original post in different ways, frequently constructing multiple stances, which may be simultaneously positive towards one stance object, and negative towards another, thus achieving the communicative goal of passing judgement on the events. Stances can be conveyed explicitly or implicitly, and riff on the original not only through text but also through the visuals, taking a stance through the combination of text and image.

Large, colorful, and dynamic, GIFs are a staple of computer-mediated communication and have been hypothesized to perform similar discursive functions to other graphicons (e.g., emoticons, emoji). This research assesses how individuals interpret the discursive uses of GIFs in one-on-one conversations. Twenty dyads shared four GIF-containing text message conversations and privately indicated which of 14 proposed functions each GIF served. Respondents then selected two predominant functions of each GIF. The results show that GIFs are multi-functional and can perform all functions, although respondents showed a preference for riffing and reaction. Some commonly selected functions were less likely to be selected as predominant uses, such as tone modification and acknowledging the mood of the conversation. In concluding, it is considered whether GIFs and graphicons in general should be viewed as having one predominant or many simultaneous uses and whether fine-grained taxonomies or broad simplified taxonomies should be utilized in future graphicon research.

Screenshots have become a ubiquitous form of visual communication in current digital discourse. Despite similarities to photographs, screenshots differ in the mechanical nature of their production and blur the boundaries between written text and images, often displaying written text seamlessly integrated as visual attachments in written conversations. Drawing on a sample of excerpts from WhatsApp chats among young people in Spain, this study uses digital conversation analysis (DCA) as a methodological framework to analyse the sequential position of screenshots in instant messaging interactions, as well as intermodal coherence and cohesion. In addition to providing a better understanding of this distinct form of visual discourse in everyday interactions, the findings also provide insight into the role of screenshots in contemporary digital literacies.