EMOJI: IS IT THE NEW INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL LANGUAGE?
The Internet has occupied a large part of our life and has become an essential means of communication, work and study in various ways like websites, smartphones applications and computer programs. And because the Internet is linked to several technological languages, in which emoji is one of the means of communication, therefore, the current research is trying to examine this issue of emoji by raising the following question: Is emoji a communicative language that can be used to translate feelings and convey our messages? In order to do that, this research adopts the descriptive method to answer the above question. The data collection tool is an electronic questionnaire formulated by the researchers, validated by language experts, prepared and distributed using Google forms on students of College of Basic Education- University of Mustansiriyah. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed after collecting 200 random samples according to the frequencies of the answers. The research concluded that emojis are a mature written digital language that plays an important role in daily communication on the Internet. Emoji means a small digital picture or icon that carries a certain emotional message. According to wikipedia, “emoji is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages'' (online:2019). The main purpose of using them is to express emotional and sensational cues which are missing in the typed text or to enrich the meaning of the message ( Crystal, 2018:465) It is a simple way of communication in it’s digital form because emojis are easy to be understood by almost every single human with a smart device. Instead of saying i’m angry in English, انا غاضب in Arabic or estoy enojado in Spanish it’s easier to use this Emoji whatever the language of the person that you are having a written conversation with !
Keywords: Emoji, International Digital Language.