Chapter 7 distills from the empirical studies their implications for emoji theories overall and for their applicability to the educational and healthcare realms. The studies have borne a number of concrete implications for emoji theory in general, including how they fit in with communication theories, including nonverbal aspects. Several theoretical notions are developed as well, generalizing them from previous chapters, including the apparent function of emoji as “annotators” of meaning, not just conveyors of prosodic or gestural features in writing. Another notion is that of episodic meaning, whereby the placement of an emoji in the episodes that constitute a message adds to it semiotically. Emoji grammar is thus more appropriately characterized as an episodic grammar.

Speech is normally used for verbal interaction between at least two persons, called interlocutors. Researchers have measured rate of information transfer by speech across languages and have found a relatively constant value across languages. Spoken language is very different from written language in a number of important ways. Speech is perceived by hearers based primarily on the acoustic information contained in the speech signal, but modified by a number of factors, including top--down processing. Perception is made more complex by factors such as the necessity of segmenting and variance in the signal caused by individual differences and conditions of the speech environment. Speaker normalization is required by the hearer. The ear and hearing mechanism play an important role in speech perception. Rapid pressure variation of sound is converted to fluctuations in the viscous fluids of the inner ear or cochlea. This conversion occurs through the middle ear in which the principle of the lever, and the principle of collecting energy over a large area and concentrating it, play roles.

The Phaedo portrays Socrates in a long discussion with members of his inner circle, which leads the dialogue to portray a very different sort of conversation from those found in most of Plato’s other dialogues. The chapter begins by considering why Plato makes Phaedo the narrator of such a significant event: the death of Socrates. The chapter also discusses Socrates’ main interlocutors, Simmias and Cebes. I argue that both are skilled, both make mistakes, and both need to be cautious lest they fall into misology. They are sympathetic to a variety of Pythagorean and Orphic ideas, but are by no means committed followers of Philolaus, a Pythagorean. The end of the chapter turns to the portrayal of Socrates, arguing that Socrates seeks not to be treated as an authority and that the Phaedo presents Socrates’ questions and views as naturally emerging from those in the Socratic dialogues.

This chapter analyses the move of historians away from text and towards the interpretation of visuals. Starting with art history’s turn to the social and the cultural, it traces the interest of historians for an ever wider group of images, including popular images. It also highlights the emergence of perspectivalism and transdisciplinarity in the field of visual history. The main bulk of the chapter is taken up with presenting a range of examples showing how the visual turn in historical writing has contributed to deconstructing national identites, class identities and racial/ethnic identities. Ranging widely across different parts of the globe it also discusses the deconstruction of religious and gender identities through visual histories that have in total contributed much towards a much higher self-reflexivity among historians when it comes to the construction of collective identities through historical writing.