Sep 3, 2024 12:30 PM
To be confirmed
Cancelled

How Smiley Faces Can Hurt: Emojis and Offensive Language on Chinese Social Media

How Smiley Faces Can Hurt: Emojis and Offensive Language on Chinese Social Media

Panel:
[PA] Faces Reloaded: Rebirth, Reproduction, Revival, and Regeneration in Digital Semiotics (Massimo Leone, Cristina Voto)
Share it!
Speaker:
Kaixuan Zhang
NingboTech University
See details

In recent years, emojis are becoming an increasingly important component of online communication. As Marcel Danesi (2016) has theorized, emojis can enter different relationships with different languages and cultures. Based on examples from Chinese social media, this paper explores how emojis are used in offensive online expressions from a semiotic perspective. The first part analyzes facial emojis that can convey offensive meanings by themselves. Drawing on Massimo Leone’s (2018) semiotic theory of the face, this part argues that these emojis are considered as offensive because of their emotional ambivalence. The second part probes into two types of frequently used animal emojis in offensive discourses. One type of animal emojis emphasize the nonhuman characteristics of the addressee, and the other type are usually replacements for natural-language words in Chinese Mandarin, dialects, and foreign languages. The third part discusses emojis that can refer to family members and points out the gender difference in these emojis. Whereas emojis of elder males are usually used self-referentially by the addresser, female emojis usually refer to the family members of the addressee. The results of this study reveal not only the social biases behind a new form of offensive online expression but also some of the unique relationships between emojis and the logographic system of Chinese characters.

Location:
0.410 room, WLS (Dobra 55 street)

Explore Sessions

02
September
9:30
-
10:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
Congress events
Opening Ceremony

September 2, 2024
Congress events
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
10:30
-
11:30
Location:
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
From Signs of Language to Semioses of Life: Paradigms and Turns in Global Semiotics

September 2, 2024
Mickiewicz Hall, Auditorium Maximum (Krakowskie Przedmiescie 26/28 str.)
02
September
11:30
-
12:15
Location:
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Catering
Coffee break [catering]

September 2, 2024
Catering
Australia Hall, WLS (Dobra 55 street)
Kaixuan Zhang