:-) Smile about smileys! (Anne Rooney)

Most of the writers I know are pretty anti-emojis (previously emoticons, and before that just smileys). The common perception is that they are the first resort of people too inarticulate or lazy to express themselves. For example, this study reported in The Daily Telegraph says that emojis suggest to other people that the 'writer' is incompetent. On the other hand, another study suggests they are beneficial to people's relationships, with less articulate people being more likely to add a smiley or kissing face to the end of a message than a kindly sign-off, and that this might help to mend any bridges cracked by less competent phraseology earlier in the message. (Personally, I think if people are too inarticulate to express themselves, we should celebrate something that helps them to do so. If someone is too disabled to walk, we don't say, 'Well, stay where you are then', do we?) Of course, there is a time and a place for everything, and replying to your publisher with a string of emojis is not generally recommended. But then, if you are a writer, you are supposed to be articulate.

Personally, I find emojis fascinating as a phenomenon. Here is a new form of expression, a new type of language, that has returned to the pictographic origins of written languages. It has no spoken form. Its signifiers do not, uniquely, relate to a single word or sound, but to a concept. It is taut, concise, flexible and entirely international. There are limitations, of course, but the same pictogram can be read by someone who speaks English or Croatian or Korean and the meaning will be understood in pretty much the same way. This is astonishingly innovative, and I don't see how people interested in language can fail to be fascinated by it. It has even developed its own metaphors (aubergine=penis, for example). There are a few proper studies of emojis, which I haven't had time to read yet but certainly will. They deal with the semiotics and linguistics, which is far more interesting than the 'it's turning our brains to mush, it's the end of civilization' line.

I wonder, too, if there is a teeny bit of snobbishness here, in that it's perceived as the language of the inarticulate. Which is, of course, a total contradiction in terms, as they are using it to be more articulate. Of course there are people who just string together 25 crying faces to show they are sad about something. But there is a lot of nuance if you want to look for it. This is rather hard to write about in a blog post as it's not going to show the emojis, but there are levels of despondency ranging from the :-( routine 'that's a shame/disappointing/makes me a bit miserable' to the full scale wailing in horror, often repeated to show intensity. Depending on the context, it can show total personal despair or absolute sympathy with someone else's plight — or that someone is making a fuss about nothing. It takes careful contextual reading to pick up whether something is sardonic, sincere or sarcastic. But so do words. Donald Trump writes 'I'm really smart' and it means to his supporters that he's not ashamed to admit he's smart and to his detractors it demonstrates that he's unutterably stupid.

Sometimes I have entirely emoji conversations with my son-in-law. They are short, but here's an example of what we might say:

It means:
Wake up, it's 7 o'clock
- I'm tired, I don't want to get up
You need to cycle to work
- I'm going to put my clothes on and have a cigarette
Do you want a coffee?
- That would be lovely

For me, this is another way of playing with language. And it's also joyful. This exchange makes us both feel better than if it had taken place using words. Indeed, it wouldn't have taken place in words as it's just quotidian reality in all its banality.

The rise of emojis is possibly the most exciting linguistic development in centuries. To dis it because a lot of people use it unimaginatively is like dissing spoken language because a lot of people use that stupidly. Of course it can't do everything. I'd struggle to write 'Dear editor, I can't work out how to end chapter 7; can we have lunch or call to discuss it, please?' Or he might struggle to understand it:

Many (especially older) people see emojis eroding civilization and discourse. But I've always been drawn to the boundaries between language and art. Long ago, in the days before emojis, we had ASCII art. When I was pregnant with my first child, in 1990, my email signature included an ASCII art image of a whale. It said how I felt, and like all forms of language, could be interpreted by those who were part of my 'tribe'. Perhaps it's not being part of the tribe riles the articulate critics of emojis. We can afford more than one means of being articulate, though.

Anne Rooney
blog: Shipwrecked Rhino
Latest book: Dinosaur Atlas (Lonely Planet, 2017)