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The Emoji Code: The Linguistics Behind Smiley Faces and Scaredy Cats
Drawing from disciplines as diverse as linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience, The Emoji Code explores how emojis are expanding communication and not ending it.
For all the handwringing about the imminent death of written language, emoji―those happy faces and hearts―is not taking us backward to the dark ages of illiteracy. Every day 41.5 billion texts are sent by one quarter of the world, using 6 million emoji. Evans argues that these symbols enrich our ability to communicate and allow us to express our emotions and induce empathy―ultimately making us all better communicators.
Vyvyan Evans's Emoji Code charts the evolutionary origins of language, the social and cultural factors that govern its use, change, and development; as well as what it reveals about the human mind. In most communication, nonverbal cues are our emotional expression, signal our personality, and are our attitude toward our addressee. They provide the essential means of nuance and are essential to getting our ideas across. But in digital communication, these cues are missing, which can lead to miscommunication. The explosion of emojis in recent years has arisen precisely because it fulfills exactly these functions which are essential for communication but are otherwise absent in texts and emails. Evans persuasively argues that emoji add tone and an emotional voice and nuance, making us more effective communicators in the digital age.
For all the handwringing about the imminent death of written language, emoji―those happy faces and hearts―is not taking us backward to the dark ages of illiteracy. Every day 41.5 billion texts are sent by one quarter of the world, using 6 million emoji. Evans argues that these symbols enrich our ability to communicate and allow us to express our emotions and induce empathy―ultimately making us all better communicators.
Vyvyan Evans's Emoji Code charts the evolutionary origins of language, the social and cultural factors that govern its use, change, and development; as well as what it reveals about the human mind. In most communication, nonverbal cues are our emotional expression, signal our personality, and are our attitude toward our addressee. They provide the essential means of nuance and are essential to getting our ideas across. But in digital communication, these cues are missing, which can lead to miscommunication. The explosion of emojis in recent years has arisen precisely because it fulfills exactly these functions which are essential for communication but are otherwise absent in texts and emails. Evans persuasively argues that emoji add tone and an emotional voice and nuance, making us more effective communicators in the digital age.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2017
18 people are currently reading
460 people want to read
About the author
Vyvyan Evans
20 books67 followersVyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues including 'The Guardian', 'Psychology Today', 'New York Post', 'New Scientist', 'Newsweek' and 'The New Republic'. His award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction. For further biographical details visit his official website: www.vyvevans.net. For details of his science fiction writing, visit the Songs of the Sage book series website: www.songs-of-the-sage.com.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
February 27, 2018
I read this for class and it's decently interesting, but not really anything new. I think if anything, a book on the history of emojis would have been cool, but this whole book is about how popular emojis are and how they affect our language and i'm just like ..... yeah..... i know......
So I see how this appeals to my elderly professor, but for me, I wasn't wowed.
So I see how this appeals to my elderly professor, but for me, I wasn't wowed.
July 19, 2017
The Emoji Code by Professor Vyvyan Evans Review
“meanwhile the people are dead in their droves
but nobody noticed
well actually
some of them noticed.
You could tell by the emoji they posted.”
- Kate Tempest, From ‘Europe is Lost’ in Let Them East Chaos
Sometimes when I go to my local supermarket on my lunchbreak, I pass a shop selling emoji-shaped backpacks. It is a marker of how ubiquitous they have become that they have escaped the confines of the digital realm and can now be sold, bought and worn as an accessory IRL (‘In Real Life’, for those not savvy to internet abbreviations.).
In The Emoji Code, Professor Vyvyan Evans explores this pictographic phenomenon and posits that Emoji, (capitalised when referring to the system as a whole and not when referring to individual symbols,) rather than substituting for a language, is primarily used in the same way non-verbal gestures, expressions and paralinguistic signals (grunting, coughing, intonation etc.) are used in face-to-face communication. Perhaps a further distinction between physical cues in face-to-face and vocal cues in telephone conversations would have been nice, but since it is not central to the argument, the omission is not a problem.
Evans is very good on historical context and how language is always in flux but I would have liked to have read a comparison to the change between face-to-face conversation and the invention of the telephone, which seems to me the most pertinent previous linguistic transition, as the removal of any facial expression or gesticulation from communication to only words and paralinguistic signals.
He uses plenty of examples and research, with perhaps a little too much reliance on the former, but I doubt there is a wide variety of statistical data available and the anecdotal evidence is, however, illuminating. It is useful to know that some emoji have different meanings in different languages, like that the hands ‘praying’ in the UK would mean ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in Japan.
Another invaluable insight I discovered from the book, among many others, is that anyone can nominate an emoji, that ‘An individual Chinese-American businesswoman has as much influence as […] an American corporate food-giant.’ Professor Evans states that persons living or dead are not eligible for consideration as emoji, but I know that the footballers Neymar Jr and Paul Pogba were promoted as having them, although they may just be downloadable ‘stickers’ without a Unicode character, so I would venture they are not true emoji. If that is the case, they should not be presented as such in the media. Whether the system will continue to be as democratic as Professor Evans declares it is anyone’s guess.
Because of the resistance to change from those who the author refers to as ‘language mavens’, the book often reads like a defence of Emoji use, focusing on the benefits and none of the downsides. I’m not saying he’s in the pockets of a hypothetical ‘Big Emoji’, but Professor Evans appears to be firmly entrenched on the pro-emoji side.
He points out that Emoji is usually used at the beginning or end of a sentence and is therefore used as a form of multimodality. He mentions people who are actually substituting language with Emoji, such as the artist who rewrote Alice in Wonderland using only the symbols and a journalist who wrote an article the same way, but these are exceptions to common usage. He rarely includes examples where people use single or few emoji, as referred to in the quotation above, where a single emoji is hardly an adequate display of feeling. They may be comparatively rare, but because of the huge amount of usage, might constitute a significant number.
One particular bugbear of mine is the use of the smiley face emoji with tears coming out of the eyes. Like the preceding internet abbreviation for ‘laugh out loud’, lol, which was often used when the person had not actually laughed out loud, how many people are actually crying with laughter when they use this emoji? Is this hyperbole an advantage in communication because it cannot be misconstrued and accurately represents their interior emotion, or is it a disadvantage because it inaccurately depicts the state of the sender? At the present time on emojitracker.com, this particular emoji is the only one to have been used over a billion times. If that many people were actually crying with laughter, we could probably solve any impending water crisis with desalination equipment and the tears of our joy.
What it doesn’t examine is the cause for the lightning-quick proliferation of emoji. My (admittedly speculative) guess would be that although it is not as expressive as video or face-to-face communication, it is more expressive than text, and although they were more convenient than video, previous emoticons and pictograms were not as convenient as text. I would venture that, when the latter obstacle is removed, and each emoji, with some combinatory exceptions, inhabits a single Unicode character and is displayed as an option for predictive text, it is no surprise that Emoji, with its happy synthesis of expressiveness and convenience, has enjoyed such popularity.
In David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which has aspects of speculative fiction, he explains that videophones never took off because people were too vain to get made up for video calls and would often be distracted during the conversation, which led to them being less popular than the telephone, where the illusion of attention can be maintained. I wonder if something similar is not also happening with emoji. After all, they don’t need to get ready and they never seem distracted.
It is possible you may even be limiting your digital emotional vocabulary by not using emoticons. In the epigram at the beginning of Tony Harrison’s ‘v.’, there is a quotation form Arthur Scargill: ‘My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words.’ Whether there will be a circumstance in which your life depends on your power to master emoji is up for debate, but that they are useful is hard to question.
On the whole, The Emoji Code is an excellent primer on a young subject and I can wholly recommend it. I expect there will be a more detailed analysis soon, but for now this serves as a great introduction. I have definitely moved from regarding them as occasionally useful symbols to invaluable as a means of modern digital communication and will probably start using them more, which, if not the book’s aim, is at least the effect.
But I’m still not buying a backpack.
*This review has also been posted on my very occasional blog horsesallthewaydown.com*
“meanwhile the people are dead in their droves
but nobody noticed
well actually
some of them noticed.
You could tell by the emoji they posted.”
- Kate Tempest, From ‘Europe is Lost’ in Let Them East Chaos
Sometimes when I go to my local supermarket on my lunchbreak, I pass a shop selling emoji-shaped backpacks. It is a marker of how ubiquitous they have become that they have escaped the confines of the digital realm and can now be sold, bought and worn as an accessory IRL (‘In Real Life’, for those not savvy to internet abbreviations.).
In The Emoji Code, Professor Vyvyan Evans explores this pictographic phenomenon and posits that Emoji, (capitalised when referring to the system as a whole and not when referring to individual symbols,) rather than substituting for a language, is primarily used in the same way non-verbal gestures, expressions and paralinguistic signals (grunting, coughing, intonation etc.) are used in face-to-face communication. Perhaps a further distinction between physical cues in face-to-face and vocal cues in telephone conversations would have been nice, but since it is not central to the argument, the omission is not a problem.
Evans is very good on historical context and how language is always in flux but I would have liked to have read a comparison to the change between face-to-face conversation and the invention of the telephone, which seems to me the most pertinent previous linguistic transition, as the removal of any facial expression or gesticulation from communication to only words and paralinguistic signals.
He uses plenty of examples and research, with perhaps a little too much reliance on the former, but I doubt there is a wide variety of statistical data available and the anecdotal evidence is, however, illuminating. It is useful to know that some emoji have different meanings in different languages, like that the hands ‘praying’ in the UK would mean ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in Japan.
Another invaluable insight I discovered from the book, among many others, is that anyone can nominate an emoji, that ‘An individual Chinese-American businesswoman has as much influence as […] an American corporate food-giant.’ Professor Evans states that persons living or dead are not eligible for consideration as emoji, but I know that the footballers Neymar Jr and Paul Pogba were promoted as having them, although they may just be downloadable ‘stickers’ without a Unicode character, so I would venture they are not true emoji. If that is the case, they should not be presented as such in the media. Whether the system will continue to be as democratic as Professor Evans declares it is anyone’s guess.
Because of the resistance to change from those who the author refers to as ‘language mavens’, the book often reads like a defence of Emoji use, focusing on the benefits and none of the downsides. I’m not saying he’s in the pockets of a hypothetical ‘Big Emoji’, but Professor Evans appears to be firmly entrenched on the pro-emoji side.
He points out that Emoji is usually used at the beginning or end of a sentence and is therefore used as a form of multimodality. He mentions people who are actually substituting language with Emoji, such as the artist who rewrote Alice in Wonderland using only the symbols and a journalist who wrote an article the same way, but these are exceptions to common usage. He rarely includes examples where people use single or few emoji, as referred to in the quotation above, where a single emoji is hardly an adequate display of feeling. They may be comparatively rare, but because of the huge amount of usage, might constitute a significant number.
One particular bugbear of mine is the use of the smiley face emoji with tears coming out of the eyes. Like the preceding internet abbreviation for ‘laugh out loud’, lol, which was often used when the person had not actually laughed out loud, how many people are actually crying with laughter when they use this emoji? Is this hyperbole an advantage in communication because it cannot be misconstrued and accurately represents their interior emotion, or is it a disadvantage because it inaccurately depicts the state of the sender? At the present time on emojitracker.com, this particular emoji is the only one to have been used over a billion times. If that many people were actually crying with laughter, we could probably solve any impending water crisis with desalination equipment and the tears of our joy.
What it doesn’t examine is the cause for the lightning-quick proliferation of emoji. My (admittedly speculative) guess would be that although it is not as expressive as video or face-to-face communication, it is more expressive than text, and although they were more convenient than video, previous emoticons and pictograms were not as convenient as text. I would venture that, when the latter obstacle is removed, and each emoji, with some combinatory exceptions, inhabits a single Unicode character and is displayed as an option for predictive text, it is no surprise that Emoji, with its happy synthesis of expressiveness and convenience, has enjoyed such popularity.
In David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which has aspects of speculative fiction, he explains that videophones never took off because people were too vain to get made up for video calls and would often be distracted during the conversation, which led to them being less popular than the telephone, where the illusion of attention can be maintained. I wonder if something similar is not also happening with emoji. After all, they don’t need to get ready and they never seem distracted.
It is possible you may even be limiting your digital emotional vocabulary by not using emoticons. In the epigram at the beginning of Tony Harrison’s ‘v.’, there is a quotation form Arthur Scargill: ‘My father still reads the dictionary every day. He says your life depends on your power to master words.’ Whether there will be a circumstance in which your life depends on your power to master emoji is up for debate, but that they are useful is hard to question.
On the whole, The Emoji Code is an excellent primer on a young subject and I can wholly recommend it. I expect there will be a more detailed analysis soon, but for now this serves as a great introduction. I have definitely moved from regarding them as occasionally useful symbols to invaluable as a means of modern digital communication and will probably start using them more, which, if not the book’s aim, is at least the effect.
But I’m still not buying a backpack.
*This review has also been posted on my very occasional blog horsesallthewaydown.com*
August 3, 2020
I really like this book!!!!! 😂📗📗📗📗📗📖📖📖📖📖📖📚📚📚📚
January 2, 2021
Изследване за ролята на емотиконите в съвременния език, книгата отговоря на въпроси относно статута на емотиконите като самостоятелен елемент в онлайн комуникацията, ролята им да предават „невидимите“ мимики и език на тялото в дигиталната онлайн комуникация, бъдещето им като самостоятелен език и прочее любопитни теми, които бяха преминавали краткотрайно в мислите ми през годините, но никога не би спряла да се замислям повече над тях. Тогава по случайна препоръка миналата година ми попадна тази книга и най-сетне дойде ред да я прочета.
Проф. Еванс дава изчерпателна, макар не твърде детайлна информация за мястото, отредено на емотиконите в начините, по които се възползваме от тях, за да обогатим и подплатим казаното. Макар да изглежда, че този модерен елемент на комуникацията вреди на речта, трябва да се съглася с основното авторово твърдение, опозиция на тази гледна точка. Според автора основна роля на емотиконите е да бъдат своеобразен преводач, уплътнител на писмената реч, заместител на неизказаното. Когато комуникираме на живо, ние не само чуваме какво е казано, но приемаме постоянен поток от информация за чутото чрез интонациата, мимиките, езика на тялото на говорещия. Елементи, които безвъзвратно губим, в разговора онлайн. Тезата на Еванс, че основната роля на емотиконите е да предадат тази загубена информация, определено звучи привлекателно.
Той не е изчерпателен на фона на тенденции да бъдат пренаписвани книги чрез емотикони (ПР изпълнение, но не се сдържам да го спомена), така че не мога да се съглася изцяло с абсолютния позитивизъм на проф. Еванс относно каква благословия са емотиконите.
Любопитно за мен беше пропуснатата възможност да се спомене ролята на емотиконите във форумите и всички видове ранни чат програми ала Скайп и прочее. В английския израз емотикон и емоджи имат донякъде различно значение и се употребяват разделно, но въпреки това са взаимосвързан компонент, и употребата на емотикони от дълги години доказва до голяма степен тезата на Еванс, че емоджито не може напълно да замени речта като такава (засега).
Някои интересни късчета информация в книгата са разказа как може да се създаде емотикон (доста любопитно!), както и защо емотикона не може да се класира като език, от по-интересните моменти се откроява кратка история на емоджитата, както и някои любопитни статистики за позитивно/негативно възприятие и употреба в позитивен/негативен контекст на емотикони, които иначе може да сте възприемали като просто усмихната жълта сфера. Поставени в рамките на милиони онлайн потребители, нещата стават интересни.
Струва си да се спомене и че голяма част от тази книга е обяснения за езиците и начините на комуникация, след чието детайлно изложение, следва интерпретация на емотикона в рамките на представената информация.
Авторът пропуска (извън контекста на книгата е донякъде) да засегне проблема с вредите над междуличностната комуникация лице в лице, нанесени от повишаването на онлайн комуникацията. Комуникацията онлайн става все по-предпочитана от младежите, които макар да се научават да изразяват емоциите си чрез емотикони майсторски (както твърди авторът), намаляват живата връзка и губят уменията си да говорят и комуникират на живо. А тук трябва да вземем предвид и факта, че младежите като такива са по-неопитни комуникатори пер се, тъй като са във възрастта, в която полират и развиват значително комуникационните си модели. Колко хора днес предпочитат да си пишат с приятел, вместо да говорят по телефона, да чатят, вместо да си уговорят среща, и когато рано или късно се окажат в рамките на жива комуникация лице в лице започват да изпитват тревога и изразяват несигурност в начина, по който предават чувствата и мислите си.
Така че емотиконите сами по себе си може да ни помагат в ерата на дигиталната комуникация, но имаме ли нужда от още улеснения и поводи да се отдалечаваме от живия контакт?
Проф. Еванс дава изчерпателна, макар не твърде детайлна информация за мястото, отредено на емотиконите в начините, по които се възползваме от тях, за да обогатим и подплатим казаното. Макар да изглежда, че този модерен елемент на комуникацията вреди на речта, трябва да се съглася с основното авторово твърдение, опозиция на тази гледна точка. Според автора основна роля на емотиконите е да бъдат своеобразен преводач, уплътнител на писмената реч, заместител на неизказаното. Когато комуникираме на живо, ние не само чуваме какво е казано, но приемаме постоянен поток от информация за чутото чрез интонациата, мимиките, езика на тялото на говорещия. Елементи, които безвъзвратно губим, в разговора онлайн. Тезата на Еванс, че основната роля на емотиконите е да предадат тази загубена информация, определено звучи привлекателно.
Той не е изчерпателен на фона на тенденции да бъдат пренаписвани книги чрез емотикони (ПР изпълнение, но не се сдържам да го спомена), така че не мога да се съглася изцяло с абсолютния позитивизъм на проф. Еванс относно каква благословия са емотиконите.
Любопитно за мен беше пропуснатата възможност да се спомене ролята на емотиконите във форумите и всички видове ранни чат програми ала Скайп и прочее. В английския израз емотикон и емоджи имат донякъде различно значение и се употребяват разделно, но въпреки това са взаимосвързан компонент, и употребата на емотикони от дълги години доказва до голяма степен тезата на Еванс, че емоджито не може напълно да замени речта като такава (засега).
Някои интересни късчета информация в книгата са разказа как може да се създаде емотикон (доста любопитно!), както и защо емотикона не може да се класира като език, от по-интересните моменти се откроява кратка история на емоджитата, както и някои любопитни статистики за позитивно/негативно възприятие и употреба в позитивен/негативен контекст на емотикони, които иначе може да сте възприемали като просто усмихната жълта сфера. Поставени в рамките на милиони онлайн потребители, нещата стават интересни.
Струва си да се спомене и че голяма част от тази книга е обяснения за езиците и начините на комуникация, след чието детайлно изложение, следва интерпретация на емотикона в рамките на представената информация.
Авторът пропуска (извън контекста на книгата е донякъде) да засегне проблема с вредите над междуличностната комуникация лице в лице, нанесени от повишаването на онлайн комуникацията. Комуникацията онлайн става все по-предпочитана от младежите, които макар да се научават да изразяват емоциите си чрез емотикони майсторски (както твърди авторът), намаляват живата връзка и губят уменията си да говорят и комуникират на живо. А тук трябва да вземем предвид и факта, че младежите като такива са по-неопитни комуникатори пер се, тъй като са във възрастта, в която полират и развиват значително комуникационните си модели. Колко хора днес предпочитат да си пишат с приятел, вместо да говорят по телефона, да чатят, вместо да си уговорят среща, и когато рано или късно се окажат в рамките на жива комуникация лице в лице започват да изпитват тревога и изразяват несигурност в начина, по който предават чувствата и мислите си.
Така че емотиконите сами по себе си може да ни помагат в ерата на дигиталната комуникация, но имаме ли нужда от още улеснения и поводи да се отдалечаваме от живия контакт?
January 31, 2020
A friend gifted this to me since she had previously found it interesting and knew it was a quick read.
Going in with the thought I would learn something but not have to invest much time or energy (a nice reprieve after finishing Les Misérables!), I feel The Emoji Code was just what I wanted it to be.
For the most part, I don’t think much about emoji. I use them with some frequency, but I hadn’t ever taken the opportunity to consider just how they fit into the larger language structure of the world.
This book is fast and easy to read, and it gives a great overview. You’ll get a bit of a history lesson (linguistic and beyond), a study of language, and some analysis.
What’s so enjoyable about The Emoji Code is that it’s very simple to follow. There are more advanced explanations provided, but all of them are given in a way that anyone with a mild academic interest could follow.
So, if I liked it that much, why am I only giving this book two stars?
Frankly, I consider two stars to be an average rating. And while I’m glad to have learned from The Emoji Code, it also wasn’t really something that pulled me in enough to earn a third star.
This is one of those books I would encourage people to read if they want a quick interlude and find linguistics of at least mild interest, but I wouldn’t suggest putting aside a title that excites you in favor of it.
Going in with the thought I would learn something but not have to invest much time or energy (a nice reprieve after finishing Les Misérables!), I feel The Emoji Code was just what I wanted it to be.
For the most part, I don’t think much about emoji. I use them with some frequency, but I hadn’t ever taken the opportunity to consider just how they fit into the larger language structure of the world.
This book is fast and easy to read, and it gives a great overview. You’ll get a bit of a history lesson (linguistic and beyond), a study of language, and some analysis.
What’s so enjoyable about The Emoji Code is that it’s very simple to follow. There are more advanced explanations provided, but all of them are given in a way that anyone with a mild academic interest could follow.
So, if I liked it that much, why am I only giving this book two stars?
Frankly, I consider two stars to be an average rating. And while I’m glad to have learned from The Emoji Code, it also wasn’t really something that pulled me in enough to earn a third star.
This is one of those books I would encourage people to read if they want a quick interlude and find linguistics of at least mild interest, but I wouldn’t suggest putting aside a title that excites you in favor of it.
May 2, 2019
It's impossible to ignore that only 60-70% of this book is actually about emojis. The author goes on and on about examples that stray too far from the emoji code, and then tries to reel the reader back in with "and how does all of this relate to emojis?" questions that quickly wrap up the subjects at hand. This could easily have been 50 pages shorter, at least. I can't help but compare the purpose of this book with Marcel Danesi's The Semiotics of Emoji, which is far more rich in this specific content. If you're looking into reading Evans' work for research, like I was, this is a good introduction, but it does lack depth in comparison to similar works. The final 20 pages or so highlight the most interesting discussions of the whole book.
August 9, 2017
I won this book from Goodreads. The only I knew about emojis is they are the symbols people use on Facebook posts to show their feelings. This book talks about the origins of language. The Emoji signs show our attitude towards people. It is kind of a fun way to get our ideas across.
July 2, 2018
Not sure what I thought of this book. One of the central arguments is that the use of Emoji is not a fad, yet this books seems to exist solely to capitalize on the popularity of it's use. As if someone went casting about to find someone to write a popular treatment of the topic and went trolling around academia for a knowledgeable author.
Evans certainly knows what he's talking about, but he does that thing where he can't help but share all he knows about linguistics and the development of languages. I recognize it because I tend to do the same thing! Many chapters focus on aspects of language and communication in general, only pulling the topic back to the use of Emoji every once in a while.
What he does have to say about Emoji is quite interesting, especially about how it came to be, but I'm not sure there was a 250-page book here. His idea that Emoji serves a parallel role that punctuation did in writing is really quite interesting. He argues that something like emoji is necessary to give electronic communication, and texting, specifically, an emotion depth. I don't think he's wrong. I just think all of this required an entire book.
Also, while this had been on my reading list for a while, I'd put off reading it because of the stupid cover. I just don't feel like I know what this book wants to be.
Evans certainly knows what he's talking about, but he does that thing where he can't help but share all he knows about linguistics and the development of languages. I recognize it because I tend to do the same thing! Many chapters focus on aspects of language and communication in general, only pulling the topic back to the use of Emoji every once in a while.
What he does have to say about Emoji is quite interesting, especially about how it came to be, but I'm not sure there was a 250-page book here. His idea that Emoji serves a parallel role that punctuation did in writing is really quite interesting. He argues that something like emoji is necessary to give electronic communication, and texting, specifically, an emotion depth. I don't think he's wrong. I just think all of this required an entire book.
Also, while this had been on my reading list for a while, I'd put off reading it because of the stupid cover. I just don't feel like I know what this book wants to be.
November 29, 2021
The first argument the book tries to sell is that emoji use correlates with communication and the ability to get laid and I can guarantee you that that is almost quantifiably false.
March 1, 2018
This may very well be the first book looking at the phenomenon of communication by Emoji in the context of language, and this original approach made the book well worth the couple of hours it took to read it. For people with even a basic interest in language and/or cognitive neuroscience, there is not much new here- this is linguistics "light" for people who have never thought about this before. So there are short introductions to the history of language, the different types of writing systems, and the importance of non-verbal contributions to our communication. The main point that the author wants to make is that while Emojis in themselves are a poor tool for communicating complex sentences and concepts, their strength is to function as either those non-verbal indicators of mood, tone, ironic vs. serious intent, as well as some type of punctuation. I had never looked at Emojis from that point of view, and found that interesting (and I intuitively agreed with that insight). There was also some background on where Emojis come from, how they are accepted into the lexicon, and some fascinating pictures of how the Emojis intended to carry the same meaning, such as "gun" or "grinning" can appear totally different in the different platforms (Google vs. Apple vs. Android vs. Samsung). So this introduces a hitherto unsuspected potential communication pitfall : what if you send the message "gun" with an Emoji of a water squirter, and it pops up on your friend's screen as a dangerous-looking revolver Emoji? What about the "grinning face" Emoji, which, depending on the platform, can look anywhere between friendly and positively evil? So there is some food for thought here, and that's always a good thing in a book. Because this topic is original, and the book is written in a very accessible style, I give it 4 stars.
January 7, 2020
I find this a bit dry, and there's a chunk of history missing!
Having lived through the development of emoji, i am confused by his statement that emoji were introduced as standard in 2011-2013 and were only widely used since 2015; He talks about text smilies ;), referring to thosr as "emoticons", but doesnt seem to acknowledge that we used pictorial emoticons for years, from the late 90s onwards, in online messaging. Us Millenials didn't use phones to text much in high school in the early years around/just after 2000; we were all on our computers, on AIM, ICQ and MSN messenger and YOU BET we used emoticons! The girl/boy hug pair, kisses, happy and sad faces, thumbs up and down and a bunch of others. They had text shortcuts that you typed to insert them, but they weren't text. They were basically emoji, but the name hadn't been heard of yet, so back then they were called Emoticons. We used them for all the things prof Evans describes; indicating tone of text, single emoji on their own, and sentences of emoji where appropriate.
They were used on forums too - deviantArt, phpbb and many others had a standardised :emoji: syntax.
The cultural development where we as a generation got used to using emoji was in online messaging, years before 2011 - and honestly, I'm a bit baffled that such a scholarly and otherwise clearly widely researched book completely misses this key chapter in emoji history!
Having lived through the development of emoji, i am confused by his statement that emoji were introduced as standard in 2011-2013 and were only widely used since 2015; He talks about text smilies ;), referring to thosr as "emoticons", but doesnt seem to acknowledge that we used pictorial emoticons for years, from the late 90s onwards, in online messaging. Us Millenials didn't use phones to text much in high school in the early years around/just after 2000; we were all on our computers, on AIM, ICQ and MSN messenger and YOU BET we used emoticons! The girl/boy hug pair, kisses, happy and sad faces, thumbs up and down and a bunch of others. They had text shortcuts that you typed to insert them, but they weren't text. They were basically emoji, but the name hadn't been heard of yet, so back then they were called Emoticons. We used them for all the things prof Evans describes; indicating tone of text, single emoji on their own, and sentences of emoji where appropriate.
They were used on forums too - deviantArt, phpbb and many others had a standardised :emoji: syntax.
The cultural development where we as a generation got used to using emoji was in online messaging, years before 2011 - and honestly, I'm a bit baffled that such a scholarly and otherwise clearly widely researched book completely misses this key chapter in emoji history!
August 13, 2017
I have a confession to make. When it comes to emojis, my mother is better at them than I am. (I’m 41, so you can do the math — no need to face my mom’s wrath over disclosing her age publicly!) Seriously, my mom’s SMS messages and Facebook posts are full of them. Me? I can do a smiley face. Maybe a LOL. Part of the problem may lie in the fact that my smartphone right now is rather old, and doesn’t have the latest icons downloaded into it (and getting them would be a pain — I really need a new phone), and part of it is education. Are there, like, hot keys that I should be using on Facebook? Can someone help a brother out?
Anyhow, it was with great interest that I received The Emoji Code from the fantastic publicists at Picador. I wanted to know where emojis came from, and just how popular they might be. I think the book answered most, if not all, of my questions, but be warned. Vyvyan Evans is a bit of an academic, despite having magazine and newspaper publishing credits, so some of this book delves into the confusing and archaic world of linguistics and grammar.
Read the rest of the review here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...
Anyhow, it was with great interest that I received The Emoji Code from the fantastic publicists at Picador. I wanted to know where emojis came from, and just how popular they might be. I think the book answered most, if not all, of my questions, but be warned. Vyvyan Evans is a bit of an academic, despite having magazine and newspaper publishing credits, so some of this book delves into the confusing and archaic world of linguistics and grammar.
Read the rest of the review here: https://medium.com/@zachary_houle/a-r...
October 23, 2017
Well it’s hard to go wrong with this subject matter, and the book is interesting, especially when it summarizes the development of emojis. However, I never got the feeling that Evans had figured out who his intended audience was. There are a lot of mini lectures on basic linguistics, and these tend to come across as reductive, and at times irrelevant to his points. What’s more, Evans never fully proves his main argument, that emojis are a positive development because they fill the gap created through the absence of paralinguistic data in text. This gap has been a thing for roughly 5000 years— why do we suddenly need to pepper our correspondence with mini cat heads?
If I were feeling cantankerous, I might suggest that a piece of writing that relies on a sarcasm emoji to make its point needs to be rewritten until the meaning is clear through the words alone.
I am not necessarily an anti emoji person, at least not anymore, but I would have liked Evans to have done a better job of convincing me.
June 25, 2025
A Brilliant Dive into the Soul of Digital Language
Professor Vyvyan Evans doesn’t just decode emojis, he decodes us. The Emoji Code is a fascinating, witty, and surprisingly human deep-dive into the evolution of communication in the digital age. At first, I thought this would be a light read about smiley faces and hearts. What I got instead was a mind-expanding journey through linguistics, neuroscience, and the very essence of human connection.
Evans argues, persuasively and brilliantly, that emojis aren’t ruining language; they’re rescuing it. In a world where nonverbal cues vanish behind screens, emojis are our emotional lifelines. He makes complex ideas digestible and compelling, showing how these digital symbols enrich tone, emotion, and meaning.
It’s not often you find a book that’s both deeply academic and ridiculously readable. This is that book. If you’ve ever sent a 😂 or a 🙃 and wondered if it meant more than just a laugh, read this. Evans will make you think twice about every character you type.
Professor Vyvyan Evans doesn’t just decode emojis, he decodes us. The Emoji Code is a fascinating, witty, and surprisingly human deep-dive into the evolution of communication in the digital age. At first, I thought this would be a light read about smiley faces and hearts. What I got instead was a mind-expanding journey through linguistics, neuroscience, and the very essence of human connection.
Evans argues, persuasively and brilliantly, that emojis aren’t ruining language; they’re rescuing it. In a world where nonverbal cues vanish behind screens, emojis are our emotional lifelines. He makes complex ideas digestible and compelling, showing how these digital symbols enrich tone, emotion, and meaning.
It’s not often you find a book that’s both deeply academic and ridiculously readable. This is that book. If you’ve ever sent a 😂 or a 🙃 and wondered if it meant more than just a laugh, read this. Evans will make you think twice about every character you type.
August 13, 2017
Who knew that there is so much information about emoji that you can write a book? And who knew that actually this book will be fun to read?
Emoji is part of our every day life. We use them to communicate, to express feelings and emotions, to send a message. They are fun, and often quicker , than writing the whole word. Emoji comes from two Japanese words: "e"- picture and "moji"- character. They are global form of communication. they are a cultural phenomenon.
I had no idea that actually it takes so much time and effort to make emoji available on all platforms. Emoji has to go over strict criteria and be approved by Unicode Consortium.
Emoji, like language, changes, involves and develops. It became universal way to communicate and it doesn't look like emoji is going to be removed any day soon. Quite contrary- it becomes stronger form of communication. "Viva Emoji".
Emoji is part of our every day life. We use them to communicate, to express feelings and emotions, to send a message. They are fun, and often quicker , than writing the whole word. Emoji comes from two Japanese words: "e"- picture and "moji"- character. They are global form of communication. they are a cultural phenomenon.
I had no idea that actually it takes so much time and effort to make emoji available on all platforms. Emoji has to go over strict criteria and be approved by Unicode Consortium.
Emoji, like language, changes, involves and develops. It became universal way to communicate and it doesn't look like emoji is going to be removed any day soon. Quite contrary- it becomes stronger form of communication. "Viva Emoji".
September 28, 2017
I enjoyed this so much. I only wish I could add emojis to these book reviews. Emojis are not emoticons, they're real faces and pictures of things. The book was so much more than a look at little emoijs. The author takes you through the world of language, how is develops and changes in place and time. He introduces you to wonderful words like tingo (Polynesian), a word for slowly borrowing your neighbor's things and never returning them. The author offers up marvelous little known words like metrosexual, toska, dor and provides interesting backgrounds of words like welsh, jazz, conundrum, ambo and arvo.
Loved the book, love emojis. They're evolving, keep your eye on 'em :)
And yes, that's an emoticon not an emoji ;)
Loved the book, love emojis. They're evolving, keep your eye on 'em :)
And yes, that's an emoticon not an emoji ;)
July 20, 2019
I really liked the book! It was interesting and gave me a better understanding of emojis as a whole.
I liked Professor Evans stance on the whole subject and her writing style was very easy to understand! My only negative criticism towards the book would be that it is a bit long and expands on subjects a little too much that might have not needed expanding.
However, I feel like the target audience this book was written for were people with a less knowledgable background about linguistics than me, so the explanations concerning certain linguistic features might have made the book feel longe Ethan necessary just to me personally.
Overall, a really good book and I’m happy I bought and read it!
I liked Professor Evans stance on the whole subject and her writing style was very easy to understand! My only negative criticism towards the book would be that it is a bit long and expands on subjects a little too much that might have not needed expanding.
However, I feel like the target audience this book was written for were people with a less knowledgable background about linguistics than me, so the explanations concerning certain linguistic features might have made the book feel longe Ethan necessary just to me personally.
Overall, a really good book and I’m happy I bought and read it!
October 21, 2022
It’s not a bad read, just a little repetitive, a little boring, and - in my opinion - fails to deliver on its own premise. I can see how it might capture the attention of those who are younger than me, those who didn’t grow up with the rise of Emoji and haven’t literally lived through this. I can see also how it might capture the attention of those older who seek an explanation for a phenomenon that, to my age group, was as natural as the rise of messaging and the decline of the landline. I found that this book disregarded the rise of Emoji usage too, really limiting it to text messaging - but who doesn’t remember their MSN or AOL name and tagline being full of them! It’s not bad, it’s just not for me. 2.5 rounded up.
September 26, 2017
An interesting premise, but I have to express some disagreement with the author's brief discussion of emoticons. Evans speaks of them in the past tense, and dismisses them as formerly useful but less so by comparison to emoji--almost as a sort of earlier evolutionary step. However, that disregards both the closed system of emoji and the huge creative variety present in emoticons. If anything, emoticons are a more living and vibrant form of textual expression than emoji because of that.
April 11, 2018
Contrary to other reviews, I think Vyvyan's book is a pretty detailed history of Emoji's humble beginnings, plus a well-rounded speculation of where emojis will fit into the grand scheme of digital communication in and outside of the English-speaking community. Some of it is pretty silly—like the 1.5-page analysis of the communicative genius of the "monkey with hand over mouth" emoji—but it's a quick read, sometimes dry but overall enjoyable.
September 6, 2018
Interesting. I was expecting a quick read. But this is heavy stuff. I loved the comparison between dialects and the versions of a given emoji on different platforms.
I recommend it for anyone interested in communication, languages & language learning.
I recommend it for anyone interested in communication, languages & language learning.
September 27, 2017
The history and pros/cons of Emoji when used in everyday communication. 🙂🙃
December 29, 2017
A fascinating read; it has made me strive to use more emojis in the coming year.
December 2, 2020
This had some really good ideas in it, and I liked reading it, but it was really... rambly? Tangential? I learned things but a lot of random things, and not so much about emojis....
March 23, 2021
Quite entertaining. The linguistic information was not overly technical, making this a light read that entertained as it meandered through its explanation of how emojis relate to language.
December 3, 2017
3.5 stars.
By the end, I had the feeling I was reading a high school paper, albeit written by a really good student. In particular, it had all the qualities of those papers that go way over the page limit, the writer insists it couldn't have been shorter, but reading it, it's obvious they tried to stuff everything they had possibly come across in the course, and not just the topic of the paper. It also felt like he had a whole background on linguistics, and then for the assignment had been handed a handful of references on emojis and tried to make the most of that.
My main problem is that there was not enough information on emojis, to the point where the author had to repeat the same information multiple times, as well as pad the rest of the book with increasingly irrelevant, sometimes banal information. If you pick up a book on emojis, would you really have expected there to be a digression on binocular vision? Instead, a little more information on how emoji use has changed over time, how it changes based on platforms, what people think about emojis, who designs them, digitally what they are, emoji etiquette, etc, would have been nice. I also felt that the author got a few things wrong, like classifying it as art. This speaks more of ignorance of what art is rather than emojis, but it's a bit painful.
My secondary problem with the book was how it was structured. The flow between background on language and emoji relevance was terrible. I would be reading about the origin of the english language with absolutely no idea why. If you're going to go into tangents, the least you can do is explain their relevance.
But the book has a few things going for it. For one, the actual topic. Emojis are here now, and they deserve to be studied. Like the author says, they reveal much about language, communication and society. A lot of people look down on emojis, but they are genuinely filling a void in communication, and making them more mainstream will only be a benefit.
There was interesting information in here, including the legal status of emoji communication, the ambiguity of some of the symbols, and the process of adding emojis. I also rather liked how the author makes clear how emojis are an entirely new communicative phenomenon, in that they act as both punctuation, gestures, and just symbolic short hand.
Also, it's a light and pleasant topic. In the middle of hurricanes, earthquakes, orange presidents, and political turmoil, it's nice to read something completely different. Not to mention the subliminal effect of reading a book covered in smiley faces.
By the end, I had the feeling I was reading a high school paper, albeit written by a really good student. In particular, it had all the qualities of those papers that go way over the page limit, the writer insists it couldn't have been shorter, but reading it, it's obvious they tried to stuff everything they had possibly come across in the course, and not just the topic of the paper. It also felt like he had a whole background on linguistics, and then for the assignment had been handed a handful of references on emojis and tried to make the most of that.
My main problem is that there was not enough information on emojis, to the point where the author had to repeat the same information multiple times, as well as pad the rest of the book with increasingly irrelevant, sometimes banal information. If you pick up a book on emojis, would you really have expected there to be a digression on binocular vision? Instead, a little more information on how emoji use has changed over time, how it changes based on platforms, what people think about emojis, who designs them, digitally what they are, emoji etiquette, etc, would have been nice. I also felt that the author got a few things wrong, like classifying it as art. This speaks more of ignorance of what art is rather than emojis, but it's a bit painful.
My secondary problem with the book was how it was structured. The flow between background on language and emoji relevance was terrible. I would be reading about the origin of the english language with absolutely no idea why. If you're going to go into tangents, the least you can do is explain their relevance.
But the book has a few things going for it. For one, the actual topic. Emojis are here now, and they deserve to be studied. Like the author says, they reveal much about language, communication and society. A lot of people look down on emojis, but they are genuinely filling a void in communication, and making them more mainstream will only be a benefit.
There was interesting information in here, including the legal status of emoji communication, the ambiguity of some of the symbols, and the process of adding emojis. I also rather liked how the author makes clear how emojis are an entirely new communicative phenomenon, in that they act as both punctuation, gestures, and just symbolic short hand.
Also, it's a light and pleasant topic. In the middle of hurricanes, earthquakes, orange presidents, and political turmoil, it's nice to read something completely different. Not to mention the subliminal effect of reading a book covered in smiley faces.
Want to read
September 26, 2017Note: I received a digital review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley.
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