Emoji表情會成爲一種新的語言嗎?
The year 2015 could be called the year of the emoji. They have landed a teenage boy in a police cell and prompted Vladimir Putin's wrath in Russia, and the loveable smiley faces are even set to come to life in their own Hollywood film. Emoji are now used in around half of every sentence on sites like Instagram, and Facebook looks set to introduce them alongside the famous "like" button as a way of expression your reaction to a post.
2015年可以被稱爲表情符號年，他們使一個少年進了牢房，激怒了俄羅斯總統普京，這些可愛的笑臉甚至在關於他們的好萊塢電影中活了過來。現在，在像Instagram這樣的社交網站上的表情符號大概每半句話中就會有他們的出現。Facebook 更是打算將表情符號加入"喜愛"列表來用於表達你對於一條狀態的反應。If you were to believe the headlines, this is just the tipping point: some outlets have claimed that emoji are an emerging language that could soon compete with English in global usage. To many, this would be an exciting evolution of the way we communicate; to others, it is linguistic Armageddon.
如果你同意這個標題所說的話，這正是一個轉折點：已經有人認爲表情符號是一種新興起的語言，很快就快要比肩英語在全球的使用量了。對大多數人來說，這將是一次令人激動的交流方式的進化；對於其他人來說，這是語言學的末日As a linguist concerned with visual communication, I have been interested to explore exactly what lies in these claims. Do emoji show the same characteristics of other communicative systems and actual languages? And what do they help us to express that words alone can't say?
作爲一個關注視覺交流的語言學家，我一直想要找出到底是什麼隱藏在這些說法後面。表情符號真的有着同別的交流系統和真實語言一樣的特點嗎？他們到底幫助我們表達了什麼單靠文字不能表達的意思呢？
When emoji appear with text, they often supplement or enhance the writing. This is similar to gestures that appear along with speech. Over the past three decades, research has shown that our hands provide important information that often transcends and clarifies the message in speech. Emoji serve this function too – for instance, adding a kissy or winking face can disambiguate whether a statement is flirtatiously teasing or just plain mean.
當表情符號在文本上出現的時候，他們一直是作爲增加文字表現力的補充物。這和演講中伴隨出現的手勢是相似的。在過去的三十年中，調查顯示演講過程中我們的手總是能表達出超越語言信息本身的重要信息，並讓我們所想表達的信息更清楚。表情符號也有這樣的功能——例如，在文字中加一個吻或者一個眨眼睛的表情能消除歧義，區分出一句話到底是輕佻的譏諷還是就只是平實的意思。This is a key point about language use: rarely is natural language ever limited to speech alone. When we are speaking, we constantly use gestures to illustrate what we mean. For this reason, linguists say that language is "multi-modal". Writing takes away that extra non-verbal information, but emoji may allow us to re-incorporate it into our text.
這是一個語言使用的關鍵點：自然語言幾乎不被限制在口頭使用。當我們在說話的時候，會不斷地使用手勢來表達我們想說的意思。因此，語言學家認爲語言是"多模態"的。寫作帶走了額外的非口頭的信息，但是表情符號也許能讓我們重新將這些信息融合到文本上。Emoji are not always used as embellishments, however – sometimes, strings of the characters can themselves convey meaning in a longer sequence on their own. But to constitute their own language, they would need a key component: grammar.
然而，表情符號並不是一味只被用做修飾的，有時候成行的表情能夠以更長的序列靠他們自己傳達使用者的意思。但是要組成一個他們自己的語言，必須要有一個關鍵的組成部分：語法。Nevertheless, some may argue that despite emoji's current simplicity, this may be the groundwork for emerging complexity – that although emoji do not constitute a language at the present time, they could develop into one over time.
但是，有人認爲雖然現在表情符號用起來很簡單，這卻可能會是他們以後複雜使用方法的基礎——雖然表情符號眼下還沒成爲一門系統的語言，但是他們一定能夠慢慢發展起來最後成爲一門語言的。
