Fluxus Editions

Abstract. In this article, I present a formal linguistic analysis of affective emojis (i.e., emojis that are used to add tones to text messages) in computer-mediated communication (CMC) and lay out some preliminary thoughts on CMC linguistics. My analysis, which builds on the root-based approach to semilexical elements in generative syntax, separates CMC data with affective emojis into a non-CMC-specific part (i.e., the linguistic text) and a CMC-specific part (i.e., the emoji), with the latter functionally wrapping around the former and thereby setting its tone. This analysis can be applied to other CMC-specific affective elements too, such as memes and background music. The special nature of the digital modality has nontrivial ramifications for CMC linguistics. I argue that until the “legibility conditions” of the cyber-digital system are ascertained, the safest linguistic tools to use in research on CMC-specific phenomena are those that are not designed exclusively for the cognitive domain of language.

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Chenchen Song (2022), “Sentence-Final Particle vs. Sentence-Final Emoji. The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface in the Era of Computer-Mediated Communication,” in Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2022 (Yannis Haralambous, Ed.), Grapholinguistics and Its Applications, Vol. 9, Brest: Fluxus Editions, 157–192.


@INPROCEEDINGS{gla9-song,
   AUTHOR = {Chenchen Song},
   EDITOR = {Haralambous, Yannis},
   TITLE = {{Sentence-Final Particle vs. Sentence-Final Emoji. 
The Syntax-Pragmatics Interface in the Era of Computer-Mediated Communication}},
   BOOKTITLE = {{Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2022}},
   SERIES = {{Grapholinguistics and Its Applications}},
   VOLUME = {9},
   PUBLISHER = {Fluxus Editions},
   ADDRESS = {Brest},
   YEAR = {2022},
   PAGES = {157--192},
   DOI = {https://doi.org/10.36824/2022-graf-song},
}