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Top1. Introduction
The ability of effective communication, one of the most robust characteristics of humans, has been shaped with different methods and tools over time. One of them, text messaging (or texting), has become a significant component of daily communication thanks to improvements in technology. Because synchronous communication methods like voice call require more spare time (preparing technical and individual manner, waiting for each other, etc.) than the duration of communication itself, they may not be preferred most of the time. Text messaging provides an opportunity to remain connected to any social network from any place or situation (Skierkowski & Wood, 2012). Moreover, texting has not been affected by environments in general. Light intensity or noise may affect a voice or video call but not texting. Furthermore, of course, it may provide confidentiality in both personal and professional manners.
Texting may provide significant advantages, but it is insufficient to state specific emotions (Zhou et al., 2017). This deficiency brings emoticons, which are some of the new concepts and behavior types brought via texting into daily communication. Emoticons are symbolic representations for facial expressions based on artificial combinations of keyboard symbols, which could contain alphanumerical, punctuation or other characters (Lu et al., 2016; Walther & D’Addario, 2001; Zhou et al., 2017). The usage of emoticons has grown in both individual messaging and online communication environments. With technical improvements, emoticons allowed the rise of emoji. Emoji, which comprise symbols used to express different statuses and emotions, appeared in 1999 and were standardized upon their acceptance with the Unicode Consortium in 2009 (Emoji Statistics, 2020). With the rise of emoji, individuals have begun to prefer emoji. In a study, which compared emoticons and emoji, it was shown that understanding of emoji messages was higher than those including emoticons (Rodrigues et al., 2018).
All new instruments used in written communication aim to provide inexpensive, effective, fast and meaningful communication. It is generally assumed that a message is created to transfer meaning. The producer of the message aims to give an idea, information or anything else to another person who is the message receiver. There are a few ways to do this in written communication. The first and most common is text. Still, although people are almost entirely adept in using communication with text, the meaning intended by the producer of the message may differ markedly from the meanings perceived by the interpreter (Graber, 1989). It is possible to perceive multiple meanings from a word or group of words.
Moreover, an emotional, psychological or instant situation may be affecting the perception of a message producer or receiver. Thus, how can one be sure that a message is understandable by all sides? On the other hand, it may not be about perception. Some words may have just one meaning, but still, there are many words which have multiple meanings.
Rise of emoji may be about the difficulty described above. In studies related to emoji, one usually encounters the “text + emoji” formula. People may be trying to reduce the number of the potential meanings of a message. An emoji can also give meaning alone. When a text message is used with an emoji, the meaning of the message must be an intersection of text and emoji. In a study, a participant stated that they had adopted emoji because text was not always sufficient. Many participants called text messages boring, dry and limited in the expressiveness they allowed (Zhou et al., 2017). The comment of the participant may show us that it is not only about meaning, but also the tone of the message. Das et al. (2019) stated that a positive emoji makes the message more positive, and a negative emoji makes it seem more negative. Emoji not just allow for expression of many emotional states but also enable users to decorate messages or replace words with visual stand-ins (Pohl et al., 2017). Even though the producer and receiver of the message meet at a point about meaning, emotions may be missing. Apparently, emoji have the mission to carry meaning that cannot be carried with text.