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Emotional Wellbeing and the Semiotic Translation of Emojis

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Exploring the Translatability of Emotions

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting ((PTTI))

Abstract

Emoji constitute a pictorial language that complements (and sometimes even replaces) textual writing in informal digital communications. They have evolved into a form of visual discourse allowing for the expression of mood, point of view, and emotional states, expressed by prosodic features in oral speech. As such, they serve mainly the emotive functions of communication, constituting communicative surrogates for the social protocols of face-to-face interaction. This chapter deals with the main emotive functions of emoji, and especially how they vicariously convey feeling states. As such, they can have practical applications, helping to shed light on how wellbeing, subjectivity, and culture are interlinked via the emoji. This arguably has implications for public health policies, as well as for the conduct of medical research into patient perceptions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Marcel Danesi

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  1. Marcel Danesi
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Correspondence to Marcel Danesi .

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  1. The University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy

    Susan Petrilli

  2. The University of Sydney, Sydney, ACT, Australia

    Meng Ji

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Danesi, M. (2022). Emotional Wellbeing and the Semiotic Translation of Emojis. In: Petrilli, S., Ji, M. (eds) Exploring the Translatability of Emotions. Palgrave Studies in Translating and Interpreting. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91748-7_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91748-7_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-91748-7

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