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), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Emojis, Misinterpretation, Culture Difference
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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
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
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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Download@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}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - A Comparative Study of the Interpretations of Emojis in Between U.S. and Chinese Users AU - Sherman Chui Y1 - 2020/04/08 PY - 2020 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12 DO - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12 T2 - International Journal of Literature and Arts JF - International Journal of Literature and Arts JO - International Journal of Literature and Arts SP - 108 EP - 118 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2331-057X UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200803.12 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. VL - 8 IS - 3 ER -
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