Acceso usuarios
Rafat Al Rousan, Bassil Mashaqba, Safwat Al Rousan, Mona Malkawi
This study investigates the illocutionary force of emojis in the e-mails of Jordanian university students to their professors. It draws upon Searle's speech act theory (1969), Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987), and Herring's CMDA (2004). The data were primarily confined to the e-mail messages sent by the students to their professors' e-mail accounts. Specifically, 281 e-mails containing 318 emojis were used for the data analysis. The findings show that the students used 42 different emojis and 24 different speech acts. The 10 most common emojis were: the red heart, cherry blossom, red rose, folded hand, broken heart, face with tears of joy, pleading face, loudly crying face, smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat, and smiling face with smiling eyes. On the other hand, the 10 most frequently used speech acts were: thanking, greeting, requesting, pleading, complaining, apologizing, wishing, congratulating, promising, and correcting. The findings also reveal that emojis can mainly function as strengtheners and softeners of speech acts. Emojis were also used as a politeness strategy to save the face of the sender and the receiver. Generally, this study emphasizes the idea that emojis express politeness, reduce social distance, and establish and maintain relationships.
