4 - Metaphors and Moral Panics

Summary

moves to consider in more detail how emoji operate as a means of communication and how people use them to express themselves. It addresses the question of whether emoji are a language in their own right. Do they have their own grammar? And is the consortium that oversees their official identity the modern equivalent of a language academy? It asks whether they’re ruining English and producing a generation of infantilised communicators. Or are attitudes such as this just the latest in a long line of moral panics over the way that language and communication practices are forever changing? In discussing these questions the chapter explains the linguistics and semiotics behind emoji, as well as the influence (such as it is) that they’re having on everyday spoken and written language.