Cover not available
Article published In:
Internet Pragmatics
Vol. 2:2 (2019) ► pp.206–232

A study of phatic emoji use in WhatsApp communication

| Universidad de Sevilla

Mobile messaging is considered as a prominent site for phatic communication, where interpersonal connection is often foregrounded over information transaction. Though frequently overlooked, a large amount of this interpersonal work is done nonverbally through regular and meaningful emoji use. This exploratory study deals with emoji use within Laver’s (1975) phatic token framework, showing that different relationship structures (e.g., status-differential vs. solidary) correspond to distinct phatic token norms. The article analyzes phatic emoji use in a small-scale corpus of WhatsApp interactions between (a) a teacher and her L2-English students and (b) a teacher and her friends/family. Qualitative and quantitative analyses reveal patterns which widely corroborate Laver’s account of socially marked and unmarked token options: the teacher, the students, and the friends/family members tend towards addressee-specific use of neutral, other-oriented, and self-oriented phatic emojis.

Keywords: electronically-mediated communication, emojis, phatic communion, phatic tokens, pragmatics, WhatsApp
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Review of relevant research
    • 2.1Phatic communion
    • 2.2Phatic tokens
    • 2.3Conceptualizing emojis
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Research questions
    • 3.2Data collection
  • 4.Analysis and findings
    • 4.1Qualitative analysis
      • 4.1.1Neutral tokens
      • 4.1.2Other-oriented personal tokens
      • 4.1.3Self-oriented personal tokens
      • 4.1.4Ambiguous tokens
    • 4.2Quantitative analysis
  • 5.Discussion of findings
    • 5.1Findings summary
    • 5.2Final remarks
  • References
Published online: 7 June 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00029.aul
References
Al Rashdi, Fathiya
2015 “Forms and functions of emojis in WhatsApp interaction among Omanis.” Unpublished PhD dissertation, Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Alcántara Plá, Manuel
2014 “Las Unidades discursivas en los mensajes instantáneos de wasap [Discursive units in WhatsApp instant messages].” Estudios de Lingüística del Español [Studies in Spanish Linguistics] 351: 223–242.Google Scholar
Baron, Naomi S., and Richard Ling
2011 “Necessary smileys & useless periods.” Visible Language 45(1–2): 46–67.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Steven C. Levinson
1978 “Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena.” In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56–311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coupland, Justine
(ed.) 2000 Small Talk. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Coupland, Justine, Nikolas Coupland, and Jeffrey D. Robinson
1992 “ ‘How are you?’: Negotiating phatic communion.” Language in Society 211: 207–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Darics, Erika
2013 “Non-verbal signalling in digital discourse: The case of letter repetition.” Discourse, Context & Media 2(3): 141–148. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Derks, Daantje, Arjan E. R. Bos, and Jasper von Grumbkow
2007 “Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet: The importance of social context.” Computers in Human Behavior 23(1): 842–849. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dresner, Eli, and Susan C. Herring
2010 “Functions of the nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and illocutionary force.” Communication Theory 20(3): 249–268. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Færch, Claus, and Gabriele Kasper
1982 “Phatic, metalingual and metacommunicative functions in discourse: Gambits and repairs.” In Impromptu Speech: A Symposium, ed. by Nils Erik Enkvist, 71–103. Åbo: Åbo Akademi.Google Scholar
Gardner, Rod
1997 “The listener and minimal responses in conversational interaction.” Prospect 12(2): 12–32.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1955 “On face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction.” Psychiatry 18(3): 213–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kavanagh, Barry
2016 “Emoticons as a medium for channeling politeness within American and Japanese online blogging communities.” Language & Communication 481: 53–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kulkarni, Dipti
2014 “Exploring Jakobson’s ‘phatic function’ in instant messaging interactions.” Discourse & Communication 8(2): 117–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laver, John
1975 “Communicative functions of phatic communion.” In Organization of Behavior in Face-to-Face Interaction, ed. by Adam Kendon, Richard M. Harris, and Mary R. Key, 215–238. The Hague: Mouton & Co.. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw
1923 “The Problem of meaning in primitive languages.” In The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, ed. by Charles K. Ogden, John P. Postgate, and Ivor A. Richards, 451–510. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company.Google Scholar
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
2015 “Typographic alteration in formal computer-mediated communication.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences 2121: 140–145. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Michael
2003 “Talking back: ‘Small’ interactional response tokens in everyday conversation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 36(1): 33–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, Vincent
2008 “New media, networking and phatic culture.” Convergence 14(4): 387–400. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Padilla Cruz, Manuel
2004 “On the social importance of phatic utterances: Some considerations for a relevance-theoretic approach.” In Current Trends in Intercultural, Cognitive and Social Pragmatics, ed. by Pilar Garcés Conejos, Reyes Gómez Morón, Lucía Fernández Amaya, and Manuel Padilla Cruz, 199–216. Sevilla: Intercultural Pragmatics Research Group.Google Scholar
2007 “Metarepresentations and phatic utterances: A pragmatic proposal about the generation of solidarity between interlocutors.” In Current Trends in Pragmatics, ed. by Piotr Cap, and Joanna Nijakowska, 110–128. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Pérez-Sabater, Carmen
2019 “Emoticons in relational writing practices on WhatsApp: Some reflections on gender.” Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions, ed. by Patricia Bou-Franch, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 163–189. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Provine, Robert R., Robert J. Spencer, and Darcy L. Mandell
2007 “Emotional expression online: Emoticons punctuate website text messages.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 26(3): 299–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson
1974 “A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation.” Language 501: 696–735. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sampietro, Agnese
2016 “Emoticonos y emojis: Análisis de su historia, difusión y uso en la comunicación digital actual [Emoticons and emojis: Analysis of their history, dissemination and use in current digital communication].” Unpublished PhD dissertation, Universidad de Valencia.Google Scholar
Schandorf, Michael
2013 “Mediated gesture: Paralinguistic communication and phatic text.” Convergence 19(3): 319–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schneider, Klaus P.
1987 “Topic selection in phatic communication.” Multilingua 6(3): 247–256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siebenhaar, Beat
2017 “Accommodation in WhatsApp communication.” Paper presented at the 6th Conference on CMC and Social Media Corpora. University of Antwerp, 17–18 September 2017.
Walther, Joseph B.
1996 “Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction.” Communication Research 23(1): 3–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wichmann, Anne
2004 “The intonation of Please-requests: A corpus-based study.” Journal of Pragmatics 36(9): 1521–1549. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yus, Francisco
2014 “Not all emoticons are created equal.” Linguagem em (Dis)curso 14(3): 511–529. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017 “Contextual constraints and non-propositional effects in WhatsApp communication.” Journal of Pragmatics 1141: 66–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2012 Discourse of Twitter and Social Media: How We Use Language to Create Affiliation on the Web. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Žegarac, Vladimir
1998 “What is ‘phatic communication?’.” In Current Issues in Relevance Theory, ed. by Villy Rouchota, and Andreas Jucker, 327–362. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Žegarac, Vladimir, and Billy Clark
1999 “Phatic interpretations and phatic communication.” Journal of Linguistics 35(2): 321–346. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 17 other publications

Bai, Qiyu, Qi Dan, Zhe Mu & Maokun Yang
2019. A Systematic Review of Emoji: Current Research and Future Perspectives. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Dai, Yuan-fu, Xiao-yan Gao, Wen-wu Leng, Chen Huang, Wen-jing Yu & Chang-hao Jiang
2024. Congruent or conflicting? The interaction between emoji and textual sentence is not that simple!. Heliyon 10:12 ► pp. e32984 ff. DOI logo
Escouflaire, Louis
2021. Signaling irony, displaying politeness, replacing words. Lingvisticae Investigationes 44:2 ► pp. 204 ff. DOI logo
Fernández-Amaya, Lucía
2020. Managing conflict originated by feminism. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 8:1 ► pp. 88 ff. DOI logo
Fernández-Amaya, Lucía
2021. Online disagreement in WhatsApp groups: A comparative study of Spanish family members and work colleagues. Discourse & Communication 15:5 ► pp. 542 ff. DOI logo
Gibson, Will
2024. Flirting and winking in Tinder chats. Internet Pragmatics DOI logo
Koltsova, Elena A. & Faina I. Kartashkova
2022. Digital Communication and Multimodal Features: Functioning of Emoji in Interpersonal Communication. RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 13:3 ► pp. 769 ff. DOI logo
Messerli, Thomas C. & Miriam A. Locher
2021. Humour support and emotive stance in comments on Korean TV drama. Journal of Pragmatics 178 ► pp. 408 ff. DOI logo
Sampietro, Agnese
2021. Emojis and the performance of humour in everyday electronically-mediated conversation. Internet Pragmatics 4:1 ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Sampietro, Agnese, Samuel Felder & Beat Siebenhaar
2022. Do you kiss when you text? Cross-cultural differences in the use of the kissing emojis in three WhatsApp corpora. Intercultural Pragmatics 19:2 ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Scheffler, Tatjana, Lasse Brandt, Marie de la Fuente & Ivan Nenchev
2022. The processing of emoji-word substitutions: A self-paced-reading study. Computers in Human Behavior 127 ► pp. 107076 ff. DOI logo
Smith, C. Estelle, Hannah Miller Hillberg & Zachary Levonian
2023. "Thoughts & Prayers" or " ❤️ & 🙏 ": How the Release of New Reactions on CaringBridge Reshapes Supportive Communication in Health Crises. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 7:CSCW2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Tragel, Ilona & Aimi Pikksaar
2023. Authority and solidarity on the Estonian COVID-19 signs: In line with the government's guidelines, we ask you to wear a mask. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence 5 DOI logo
Xie, Chaoqun, Francisco Yus & Hartmut Haberland
2021. Introduction. In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Yang, Xiran & Meichun Liu
2021. The pragmatics of text-emoji co-occurrences on Chinese social media. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:1 ► pp. 144 ff. DOI logo
Zappavigna, Michele & Lorenzo Logi
2021. Emoji in social media discourse about working from home . Discourse, Context & Media 44 ► pp. 100543 ff. DOI logo
الدبيان, إبراهيم بن علي
2023. الإيموجي وأثرها في اكتساب اللغة الثانية وتعزيزها. Journal of Tikrit University for Humanities 30:3, 1 ► pp. 344 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.