Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Syntax in Emoji Sequences on Social Media Posts

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems ((LNNS,volume 987))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 24 Accesses

Abstract

With the standardization of emojis, by the Unicode consortium, their use was quickly adopted in publications on social networks. Since then, several studies have been carried out on the functions of emojis in digital communication. Emojis were assigned meanings of emotion, sentiment, semantics, digital gestures, and syntax. We sought to understand the points of view of authors who defend the existence of emoji grammar or emoji syntax and those who, on the contrary, defend that emojis have a function of digital gestures.

The research for this review was conducted using the PRISMA model. In this study, we tried to understand whether social media users have a syntactic concern when using emoji sequences. We only considered studies that work with messages published on social networks, or equivalent data, such as messages exchanged via computer or mobile applications.

The literature on the use of emoji sequences on social media distinguishes the use of repeated emojis from the use of non-repeating emojis. In the latter, it is possible to find sequences with syntax features. Although these studies used small corpus sizes, we concluded that some users show syntactic concerns when using emoji sequences. The authors propose to use Emoji Semantic Extractor combined with EmojiNet to search for the existence of syntactic sequences of emojis in large blocks of messages.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 219.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Negishi, M.: Meet Shigetaka Kurita, the father of emoji. Wall Street J. 26 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ayvaz, S., Shiha, M.O.: The effects of emoji in sentiment analysis. Int. J. Comput. Electr. Eng. 9, 360–369 (2017). https://doi.org/10.17706/IJCEE.2017.9.1.360-369

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Wijeratne, S., Balasuriya, L., Sheth, A., Doran, D.: A semantics-based measure of emoji. Similarity  8 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1145/3106426.3106490

  4. Wijeratne, S., Balasuriya, L., Sheth, A., Doran, D.: EmojiNet: building a machine readable sense inventory for Emoji. LNCS, vol. 10046, pp. 527–541 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47880-7_33

  5. Miller, H., Thebault-Spieker, J., Chang, S., Johnson, I., Terveen, L., Hecht, B.: “blissfully happy” or “ready to fight”: Varying interpretations of emoji. In:  Proceedings of 10th International Conference on Web and Social Media, ICWSM 2016, pp. 259–268 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Berengueres, J., Castro, D.: Differences in emoji sentiment perception between readers and writers. In: Proceedings of 2017 IEEE International Conference on Big Data 2017, pp. 4321–4328  (2018).  https://doi.org/10.1109/BigData.2017.8258461

  7. Eisner, B., Rocktäschel, T., Augenstein, I., Bosnjak, M., Riedel, S.: emoji2vec: Learning Emoji Representations from their Description, pp. 48–54, w16–6208 (2016) 

    Google Scholar 

  8. Barbieri, F., Ronzano, F., Saggion, H.: What does this emoji mean? A vector space skip-gram model for twitter emojis. In: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC 2016, pp. 3967–3972. European Language Resources Association (ELRA) (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Barbieri, F., Marujo, L. s., Karuturi, P., Brendel, W., Saggion, H.: Exploring emoji usage and prediction through a temporal variation lens. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings 2130, 1–5 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Na’aman, N., Provenza, H., Montoya, O.: Mojisem: Varying linguistic purposes of emoji in (Twitter) context. In: ACL 2017 - 55th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics Proc. Student Res. Work, pp.136–141, P17–3022 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Hu, T., Guo, H., Sun, H., Nguyen, T.V.T., Luo, J.: Spice up your chat: The intentions and sentiment effects of using emojis. In: Proceedings of 11th International Conference Web Social Media, ICWSM 2017, pp. 102–111 (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Danesi, M.: The Semiotics of emoji The rise of visual language in the age of the Internet. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, London (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  13. McCulloch, G., Gawne, L.: Emoji grammar as beat gestures. In: CEUR Workshop Proceedings 2130, pp. 3–6 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Ge, J., Herring, S.C.: Communicative functions of emoji sequences on Sina Weibo. First Monday (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Herring, S.C., Ge, J.: Do emoji sequences have a preferred word order? In: 14th International AAAI Conference on Web Social Media, pp. 1–5 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Ferrari, E.: The study of emoji linguistic behaviour: an examination of the theses raised (and not raised) in the academic literature. Commun. Soc. (Formerly Comun. y Soc. 36, (2023). https://doi.org/10.15581/003.36.2.115-128.

  17. Page, M.J., et al.: Others: The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. Int. J. Surg. 88, 105906 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Ge, J.: Emoji sequence use in enacting personal identity. In: Companion World Wide Web Conference on WWW 2019, pp. 426–438 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3308560.3316545

  19. Pasternak, R., Tieu, L.: Co-linguistic content inferences: From gestures to sound effects and emoji. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 75, 1828–1843 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1177/17470218221080645

  20. Arafah, B., Hasyim, M.: Linguistic functions of emoji in social media communication. Opcion 35, 558–574 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Saidi, A.I., Puspitasari, D.G., Hermawan, F.F.: The Function Of Emoji In Digital Communication In Indonesia. Webology (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Sun, Y.: Changes from the Internet Language to Emoji. In: 6th International Conference on Education, Language, Art and Inter-Cultural Communication (ICELAIC 2019), pp. 508–511 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Stamatov, E.G.: Do emoji use a grammar? Emergent structure in non-verbal digital communication, Arno (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Makhachashvili, R., Bakhtina, A., Kovpik, S., Semenist, I.: Hieroglyphic Semiotics of Emoji Signs in Digital Communication. In: International Conference on New Trends Language, Literature Social Communication (ICNTLLSC 2021), pp. 182–192 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Cohn, N., Foulsham, T.: Meaning above (and in) the head: combinatorial visual morphology from comics and emoji. Springer (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Thamsen, L., Engelen, J.A.A.: Impact of linearity on emoji sequences. Limitations of emoji, Arno (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Floc’h, J.L.: Standardisation et différenciation des emplois des emoji sur Facebook : observations à partir d’un exercice pédagogique en DUT. Communiquer 28, 35–51 (2020).  communiquer.5397

    Google Scholar 

  28. Khandekar, S.: OPICO: A platform for collecting and analyzing emoji usage. Core (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  29. Khandekar, S., Ryu, C.W., Higg, J., Talton, J.O., Bian, Y., Kumar, R.: OPICO: a study of emoji-first communication in a mobile social app. In: Companion World Wide Web Conference 2019, vol. 18, pp. 450–458 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3308560.3316547

  30. Ge-Stadnyk, J.: Communicative functions of emoji sequences in the context of self-presentation: A comparative study of Weibo and Twitter users. Discourse Commun. 15, 369–387 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1177/17504813211002038

  31. Cohn, N., Engelen, J., Schilperoord, J.: The grammar of emoji? Constraints on communicative pictorial sequencing. Cogn. Res. 4, 1–18 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-019-0177-0

  32. Gawne, L., McCulloch, G.: Emoji as digital gestures. Language@Internet (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Pereira, A., Pestana, G.: Is there meaning in the emoji sequences used on social media? the architecture of a model for emoji sequences analysis. World Conf. Inf. Syst. and Tech. Springer Int. Pub. (2022).  https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04819-7_28

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Applied Communication, Culture and New Technologies (CICANT) – Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Lisbon, Portugal

    Alexandre Pereira

  2. School of Technology, Setúbal Polytechnic University, Setubal, Portugal

    Gabriel Pestana

Authors
  1. Alexandre Pereira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Gabriel Pestana
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexandre Pereira .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Álvaro Rocha

  2. College of Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Hojjat Adeli

  3. Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Gintautas Dzemyda

  4. DCT, Universidade Portucalense, Porto, Portugal

    Fernando Moreira

  5. Institute of Information Technology, Lodz University of Technology, Łódz, Poland

    Aneta Poniszewska-Marańda

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Pereira, A., Pestana, G. (2024). Syntax in Emoji Sequences on Social Media Posts. In: Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Dzemyda, G., Moreira, F., Poniszewska-Marańda, A. (eds) Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 987. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60221-4_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation