The use of emoticons and emojis in communication

On April 4 at 6:15 p.m., Sintija Ķauķīte from the University of Latvia will give a guest lecture. The aim of the lecture is to give a report on the analysis of the role of emoticons and emojis in texts of different genres: fiction, mass media, and the Internet.

Nowadays, the structure of a text changes depending on the style, genre, context, and purpose of the communication. Both fiction and mass media have changed, and various internet genres exist and are emerging. The use of language depends on the communication situation, the social roles of the communication partners, the socio-cultural context, the possibilities offered by the media, communication habits, etc.

The expression of emotions in the text is becoming increasingly important, and these attempts can be seen in writing by linguistic (lexicostylistic) and non-linguistic means (images, sound, audio-visual messages, punctuation, emoticons, and emojis). With graphical means – punctuation marks, emojis, emoticons, etc. – the author of a text is partly trying to express what prosody and paralinguistic cues – facial expressions, gestures – express in spoken language.

Sintija Ķauķīte is a research assistant at the Latvian Language Institute of the University of Latvia (scope: sociolinguistics). She is an applicant for a scientific degree (PhD in Philology), and her dissertation topic is "The role of Punctuation and Graphical Signs in Text-formation".

The lecture will be in English, and everyone interested is welcome.

The lecture is supported by the project "Strengthening of the capacity of doctoral studies at the University of Latvia within the framework of the new doctoral model”, identification No. 8.2.2.0/20/I/006.