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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 31:1 (2021) ► pp.144–172

The pragmatics of text-emoji co-occurrences on Chinese social media

ORCID logo | Shanghai Jiao Tong University
| City University of Hong Kong

This paper explores the pragmatics of emojis co-occurring with or embedded in text on Chinese social media with this central research question: what are the patterns and the communicative functions manifested by emojis in co-occurrence with Chinese text? Building on the metafunctional approach of multimodal analysis, popular online posts from Sina Weibo which contain both emoji(s) and text have been collected and analyzed to discover the representational, interactive, and compositional features manifested by emojis co-occurring with text. We have found that these emojis on Weibo appear most frequently at the end of the posts and reflect some unique Chinese cultural and linguistic features. Based on recurring pragmatic and functional patterns of text-emoji co-occurrences, it is proposed that emojis are used to perform speech acts, highlight subjective interpretations, and enhance informality, while substituting, reinforcing, and complementing the meanings conveyed by verbal language.

Keywords: text-emoji co-occurrence, metafunctions, multimodal analysis, componential patterns, pragmatic functions, speech acts
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Research question and object of study
  • 2.Theoretical framework and background
    • 2.1Multimodal studies and the metafunctional approach
    • 2.2Special features of Weibo emojis
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Framework of analysis
  • 4.Emojis in representation
    • 4.1Visual-semantic features of Weibo emojis
    • 4.2Visual patterns of text-emoji co-occurrences
  • 5.Emojis in social interaction
    • 5.1Speech acts of emojis
    • 5.2Highlighted subjective interpretation
    • 5.3Enhanced informality
  • 6.Compositional and componential patterning of text-emoji co-occurrences
    • 6.1Compositional relations
    • 6.2Componential patterning
  • 7.Conclusions, limitations, and prospective studies
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 25 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18018.yan
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