Emojis nowadays are a huge part of our speech and everyone around us uses them. We are all familiar with emojis but do we really understand what they are and what they represent? We are going to talk a little bit more about this topic.

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   The word “emoji” actually means image+letter, they are original from Japan and they are used all over the world. They are ideograms and smileys used in virtual language such as electronic messages and on web pages. We can count 2,823 emojis in the Unicode Standard and they represent facial expressions, objects, places, animals, signals,

types of weather, among others.

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   There is a thing called Emojipedia (https://emojipedia.org/faq/) which is a dictionary for emojis available for anyone. A fun fact about emojis is that the Face With Tears of Joy emoji (😂) was nominated as “word of the year” in 2015 by the Oxford Dictionary.

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   In 2017 the world got to meet its first emoji translator, Irishman Keith Broni. He completed his masters’ in business psychology at an University in London, where his thesis was on “the influence that emojis can have in digital context when brands are using them to communicate with potential consumers.” On the Vice News website we can find an interview to Keith Broni where he talks about his work as an emoji translator. If you are interested in learning more about this new profession, please check the link below.

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   So, we believe that we are all capable of understanding the growing importance of emoji in our society. The fact that it is used to replace words and even emotions is our generations’ reality. More and more our world is ruled by technology and if we want to be aware of what's going on with it we have to understand its way of expressing.

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By: Francisca Gouveia