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A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users

Received: 27 February 2020     Accepted: 12 March 2020     Published: 8 April 2020
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Abstract

In recent years, Emojis have permeated online communications. They constantly show up in text messages, chats and emails, playing a significant role in business and daily interaction. Although designed to replace language text and to convert some universal emotions through icons, there are no rules governing people how to correctly define the sentiments behind them. Therefore, users with different cultural background may interpret emojis differently. This have often led to misinterpretation and miscommunication from different user groups. This study examines the correlation of the sentiments felt from a group of U.S. users versus a group of Chinese users by having them rate their sentiments from positive to negative for the top 15 most popularly used emojis. The survey was circulated in U.S. and China respectively and received 402 responses. The study weighted the scores of both user groups and analyzed the reasons behind the misalignment, including the structure of the icon, the local culture background etc. It founded that of the 15 emojis tested, over 60% of them had major or minor interpretation differences between the U.S. users and the Chinese users, and only 40% were aligned. The final conclusion was that the sentiment that the user intended to send with an emoji may not be received to the degree that it was intended among U.S. and Chinese users.

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 3)

This article belongs to the Special Issue Humanity and Science: China’s Intercultural Communication with the Outside World in the New Era

DOI 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12
Page(s) 108-118
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Emojis, Misinterpretation, Culture Difference

References
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[3] Beltrone, G. Everyone is an emoji in this bizarre and terrifying French McDonald’s ad. 11 August 2015. 10 Jan 2020. www.adweek.com/adfreak/everyone-emoji-bizarre-and-terrifying-french mcdonalds-ad-166335.
[4] Cramer, H., de Juan, P., and Tetreault, J. “Sender-intended functions of emojis in US messaging.” The 18th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services. 2016, pp. 504–509.
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[9] Grabowski, P. Could a smiley make you buy? How using emoji in marketing affects conversions [AdEspresso’s Experiment] 23 March 2016. 12 Jan 2020. https://adespresso.com/academy/blog/emoji-marketing-affects-conversions.
[10] Gülşen, T. T. “You Tell Me in Emojis.” Computational and Cognitive Approaches to Narratology. Ed. Ogata, T., Akimoto, T. New York: IGI Global, 2016, pp. 356-378.
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[13] Herring, S. C. and Ashley, D. “Nice picture comment! Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads,” the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Hawaii. 2017, pp. 2185–2194.
[14] Kang, L., C. H. Tan., and J. L. Zhao. “The impact of intra-transaction communication on customer purchase behavior in E-commerce context.” H. Deng, and C. Standing, Eds. Melbourne: RMIT University, 2013, pp. 1-12.
[15] Li, X. S., Chan, K. W. A., and Kim, S. (2019). Service with emoticons: How customers interpret employee use of emoticons in online service encounters. Journal of Consumer Research 45: 973-987.
[16] Miller, H., J. Thebault-Spieker, S. Chang, I. Johnson, L. Terveen, and B. Hecht. “Blissfully happy or ready to fight: Varying interpretations of emoji.”ICWSM, 2016, pp. 259-268.
[17] Novak, P. K., Smailović, J., Sluban, B., and Mozetič, I. (2015). Sentiment of emojis. PLOS ONE, 10: 1–22.
[18] Park, J., Vladimir, B., Clay, F., and Meeyoung, C. “Emoticon Style: Interpreting Differences in Emoticons Across Cultures.” ICWSM '13, 2013.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Sherman Chui. (2020). A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(3), 108-118. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12

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    ACS Style

    Sherman Chui. A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(3), 108-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12

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    AMA Style

    Sherman Chui. A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(3):108-118. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12,
      author = {Sherman Chui},
      title = {A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users},
      journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
      volume = {8},
      number = {3},
      pages = {108-118},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200803.12},
      abstract = {In recent years, Emojis have permeated online communications. They constantly show up in text messages, chats and emails, playing a significant role in business and daily interaction. Although designed to replace language text and to convert some universal emotions through icons, there are no rules governing people how to correctly define the sentiments behind them. Therefore, users with different cultural background may interpret emojis differently. This have often led to misinterpretation and miscommunication from different user groups. This study examines the correlation of the sentiments felt from a group of U.S. users versus a group of Chinese users by having them rate their sentiments from positive to negative for the top 15 most popularly used emojis. The survey was circulated in U.S. and China respectively and received 402 responses. The study weighted the scores of both user groups and analyzed the reasons behind the misalignment, including the structure of the icon, the local culture background etc. It founded that of the 15 emojis tested, over 60% of them had major or minor interpretation differences between the U.S. users and the Chinese users, and only 40% were aligned. The final conclusion was that the sentiment that the user intended to send with an emoji may not be received to the degree that it was intended among U.S. and Chinese users.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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    AB  - In recent years, Emojis have permeated online communications. They constantly show up in text messages, chats and emails, playing a significant role in business and daily interaction. Although designed to replace language text and to convert some universal emotions through icons, there are no rules governing people how to correctly define the sentiments behind them. Therefore, users with different cultural background may interpret emojis differently. This have often led to misinterpretation and miscommunication from different user groups. This study examines the correlation of the sentiments felt from a group of U.S. users versus a group of Chinese users by having them rate their sentiments from positive to negative for the top 15 most popularly used emojis. The survey was circulated in U.S. and China respectively and received 402 responses. The study weighted the scores of both user groups and analyzed the reasons behind the misalignment, including the structure of the icon, the local culture background etc. It founded that of the 15 emojis tested, over 60% of them had major or minor interpretation differences between the U.S. users and the Chinese users, and only 40% were aligned. The final conclusion was that the sentiment that the user intended to send with an emoji may not be received to the degree that it was intended among U.S. and Chinese users.
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Author Information
  • School of English for International Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

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