Those who think that the initial exclamation mark ( ¡ ) is a prerogative of the Spanish language are mistaken. In 1668, John Wilkins suggested using that same mark to mark any statement that should not be interpreted literally, which, in short, he defined as the punctuation mark of irony .

It may seem paradoxical that two centuries later, Alcanter de Brahm proposed using a kind of inverted question mark ( ⸮ ), called point d’ironie , for the same purpose. And in 1982, Scott Fahlman, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, suggested adding the :-) sign to electronic conversations to mark statements that were not to be interpreted literally, after a joke caused serious problems on the institution’s forum.

It’s striking that the need to convey irony in writing is one of the recurring motivations for the introduction of special symbols. Signaling non-literal meanings is also one of the main functions of emojis today. Contrary to popular belief, emojis help make digital interactions more understandable and help the recipient more clearly grasp what we’re trying to convey.

What are emojis?

The term “emoji” comes from the Japanese絵文字, a compound word of e (image) and moji (character); a more apt transliteration might be “pictogram.” Until a few years ago, emojis were believed to have been created by Shigetaka Kurita , an employee of the Japanese company DoCoMo, who added a set of colored characters to the i -mode mobile phone model , launched in 1999.

However, later findings identified Kurita’s as simply the first set in color. Black and white emojis have even been found on the ancestors of cell phones, pagers.

Specifically, Matt Stephton (@gingerbeardman) discovered in 2024 that the Japanese Sharp PA-8500 model, released in 1988, already had a set of 102 black and white pictograms, including a broken heart, an airplane, a gift, and a smiley face, among others.

It’s no surprise that emojis emerged so early in Japan. First of all, one of the Japanese writing systems is ideographic, meaning it represents ideas or concepts through graphic symbols (ideograms). Furthermore, manga and anime (from whose design the first emojis draw heavily) and the cultural phenomenon of “kawaii” originate from Japan . This term is used to describe elements that evoke a feeling of tenderness and sweetness, and is applied to a wide variety of characters, animals, and objects.

Emojis appeared on Western phones around 2009, when Apple wanted to market its devices in Japan. In that country, phones without emojis could no longer be sold.

What do emojis contribute to digital interaction?

Since the first (and most commonly used) emojis are the familiar yellow faces, such as , it’s inevitable to think that their primary function is to convey emotions. This is partly true: emojis show the emotional “attitude” with which a message should be read; for example, saying “I see it ” (and I’m glad) is not the same as saying “I see it ” (and it saddens me). In spoken interaction, these small differences can be expressed through tone of voice or gestures, which are not available in writing.

Studies conducted by linguists on real conversations indicate that these pictograms can also perform other functions in interaction.

Emojis can show informality, mark when a conversation is over (“See you ”) or a turn (“How are you? ”), reinforce what’s written (“Thank you so much ”), contextualize (“Congratulations ”), and signal humor. For example, using the emoji (face with tears of joy) at the end of a message is often a way to indicate that what precedes it should be understood non-literally. If I write “Too bad ,” the emoji helps my interlocutor understand that I actually mean the opposite.

The emoji is particularly relevant, not only because of its association with humor, but also because of its success. It was named Word of the Year 2015 by the Oxford Dictionary and is the most used emoji across all platforms, except for a brief hiatus in 2021, when it was surpassed by (a face crying profusely) on Twitter (now X). However, these achievements aside, the use of the face with tears of joy is not universal.

For example, many readers will be surprised to learn that young people use the skull emoji to express laughter. This usage emerged on TikTok a few years ago; on that social network, has replaced in video comments. The skull metaphorically alludes to the expression “dying of laughter,” which also exists in English, the first language in which this usage spread.

The use of is not limited to TikTok, but has spread to other platforms and, from a linguistic perspective, can be considered an example of the development of visual youth slang.

An identity of its own

We use language for many purposes; one of them is to mark group membership. Young people use language in specific ways to differentiate themselves from older people. In the case of emojis , if everyone uses the face with tears of joy to mark laughter, young people will choose other emojis or even other modes of expression, such as stickers , to differentiate themselves.

Marking group membership is also the function of some of the emojis in the Netflix series Adolescence , which has been the subject of recent debate. Members of the incel (involuntary celibate ) community, for example, use the red bean emoji to signal their membership in that group.

These specific uses of emojis have generated some concern and have been seen as signs of the generational gap between adolescents and adults. However, young people, great drivers of linguistic change, have always sought out their own ways to communicate. It’s part of their search for identity as they transition into adulthood. If we’re concerned about the terrible consequences of the radicalization of misogynistic groups on social media, let’s change society, not emojis.

Emojis help us understand each other better in digital interactions, where many of the small signals we use face-to-face to make ourselves understood are missing. Their use is booming, and their catalog continues to grow. There will come a day when they will become obsolete and we will stop using them, but right now, let’s enjoy using them, knowing that they are the modern solution to the age-old problem of lack of written communication.

Author Bio: Agnese Sampietro is Associate Professor at Universitat Jaume I