专家:表情符号造成表达力感受力下降的担忧可能被夸大了

科技2yrs ago (2022)update 澎湃新闻
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“表情符号”是个很宽泛的概念,目前至少包括颜文字、绘文字(emoji)、静态贴图、GIF动画等(后二者统称为“表情包”)。若追根溯源,表情符号并非“新鲜事”,包括图画文字、标点符号、信息图和漫符技法等都可视为其前身,它们都是为满足人类的视觉本能而涌现的。

这种本能在电子信息时代得到了前所未有的释放,越来越多的人开始使用表情符号,其中伴随着电视、动画、电子游戏和互联网成长起来的年轻一代无疑是最活跃的力量。作为年轻一代的大学生对此兴趣盎然,在笔者讲授的《现代语言学》课堂上,他们通过小组讨论、课堂展示和读书报告等形式各抒己见,乃至催生了题为“21世纪emoji使用指南”的集中性研讨。大学生关心的话题包括“表情符号的形式变异”“表情符号的功能变异”“表情符号的得失利弊”等,下面是他们的反思实录。

专家:表情符号造成表达力感受力下降的担忧可能被夸大了

基于绘文字进行变形或合成的表情包受到大学生的欢迎

在各种表情符号之中,目前最常见的是绘文字和表情包。孙诗琪等同学认为大学生现在最常使用的其实是表情包,我们已经从绘文字时代跨入表情包时代。绘文字与表情包具有不同的内在逻辑,人们对绘文字的统一性表现出反抗,创造了一种介于绘文字和表情包之间的变体,即基于绘文字进行变形或合成的表情包,比如“无限”伸长的伸大拇指表情包。

表情符号不仅出现了多种类型,而且同一类型在不同平台上呈现出不同的样式。梅之语等同学调查了腾讯软件(如微信、QQ)内置绘文字与输入法内置绘文字的差异,发现更多的人会使用前者而非后者。一些绘文字的功能变异正和平台有关,比如发生语义变异的“微笑”表情主要出自腾讯软件;再如“嘻嘻”表情在三星平台上表现得异常可爱,在其他平台上则没有那么可爱。他们对绘文字进行了拆解,发现小黄脸表情的构成为“底色+脸型+表情”,其形式选择与面部表情心理学、漫符表达手法以及网络用语流变有关。

表情符号在使用中也表现出各种各样的变异。陈晶等同学基于哔哩哔哩网站的调查发现,人们使用最多的几个绘文字是“狗头”“知识增加”“辣眼睛”和“笑哭”,其中“狗头保命”被誉为“免死金牌”,可用来判断发言者是在较真还是在开玩笑;人们在使用绘文字时,最喜单用,偶尔连用则表达强烈或复杂情绪,但连用数量越大使用频率越低;绘文字出现频率最高的位置是句尾,其次句首,极少句中,可以明确想要传达的情绪或为整句话的态度定调。

同一个表情符号配合不同的文字,可能表现出相去甚远的意义

相对于语言文字,表情符号的意义更加模糊,其使用和解读强烈依赖于语境。魏子超等同学发现,同一个表情符号配合不同的文字,可能表现出相去甚远的意义。

表情符号的赋义具有较大灵活性,也正因为如此,表情符号在功能或语义上表现出无穷多的变异,包括情景变异,像“微笑”“再见”“偷笑”“龇牙”等表情都出现本义之外的使用义,如“再见”的本义为“再见”,使用义为“不想理会对方、绝交、友尽”;个体变异,他们提到有人曾在课堂群里发了一学期的“恶魔”和“闪电”,直到期末才知道前者表示“得意地笑”,后者表示“我去也”;性别变异,有一项调查发现女性使用表情符号的比例多于男性,分别为78%和60%;代际变异,如年轻人较难接受所谓“中老年表情包”,而中老年人也很难理解“流汗”“咖啡”的含义,等等。“emoji背后的含义”曾一度登上微博热搜,也说明人们对表情符号的功能变异具有很强的自觉性。

表情符号将作为交际行为的一部分持续发挥作用,可能在将来被其他手段替代

表情符号之所以能“席卷全球”,要得益于它对文字的补充、对社交的润滑以及对审美的满足,但是它的流行也引发了人们的担忧。

有人担心,表情符号的变异会加深交际鸿沟。孙玲瑶等同学对此表示认同:变异固然使表情符号更加丰富多彩,但是也出现了传达意图不明确、容易造成双方误解的问题,从而可能进一步扩大不同群体之间已有的鸿沟。还有人担心,表情符号滥用会导致语言能力下降。

这种观点十分盛行,和针对网络语言的担忧如出一辙,但是赵文萱等同学对此表示怀疑:表情符号弥补了纯文字在传达某些用意上的不足,反而是增加了交际智慧;表情符号主要用于非正式场合,并不会过多地影响到正式场合。

还有人担心,表情符号滥用会造成感受能力退化。在他们看来,只有语言才能表达复杂思维和细腻情感,如果语言能力退化了,感受能力自然也将退化。孙诗琪等同学表达了一定认同,因为表情符号大多是通过拼贴、戏仿和恶搞的方式对人们有意见的事物进行亵渎和歪曲,对很多事物并没有深入剖析和理性认识,这些浅表化、扁平化、可视化的表情符号忽略了人类的复杂性。

以上是大学生的反思,最后简单说说笔者的观点。目前针对表情符号的评价表现出一种矛盾:一面说表情符号作为副语言发挥了重要作用,通常会援引“100%面对面沟通=7%语言+38%表达方式+55%身体语言”的公式,可谓“赞誉有加”;一面又说表情符号是“浅层次”“碎片化”的交流,只能给语言“打下手”。这种矛盾性源出于对语言的狭隘看法。事实上,我们只有把交流行为视为整体,才能给予表情符号客观公正的评价。语言学家在解释语言变化与变异时通常求诸经济性与效率性之平衡,这也适用于表情符号:从经济性来看,表情符号具体生动、形式凝练,所基于的硬件和软件越来越快,在用户体验上也越来越人性化(如软件可以根据输入字符自动推荐表情符号);从效率性来看,表情符号在寒暄功能、传情功能和社交功能上都发挥了越来越不可替代的作用。目前来看,表情符号在自己的分内工作上做得很好,尚无法取代交际行为的其他部分如语言,当然它可能也无意僭越。

据此反思表情符号,我认为,表情符号的变异并不可怕,人们反而正在享受这种变异。另外,表情符号造成表达能力和感受能力下降的担忧可能也被夸大了,因为人类一直在使用副语言或类似于副语言的其他媒介,但从未造成什么不可逆的严重后果。有人曾提议“我们可以对表情包放松警惕了”,但是笔者认为理由并非“很多表情符号会保留和稳定下来”,而是它将作为交际行为的一部分持续发挥作用,它可能是对过去一些手段的替代,也可能在将来被其他手段替代。但形式是暂时的,功能才是永恒的。

作者:杨旭单位:武汉大学文学院

This instinct has been unprecedentedly released in the electronic information age, and more and more people begin to use emoticons, among which the younger generation growing up with television, animation, video games and the Internet is undoubtedly the most active force. As a younger generation of college students, they are very interested in this. In the Modern Linguistics class taught by the author, they express their opinions in the form of group discussion, class presentation and book report, and even give birth to a concentrated discussion entitled “Guide to the use of emoji in the 21st Century”. The topics that college students are concerned about include “formal variation of emoji”, “functional variation of emoji”, “pros and cons of emoji” and so on.

 

Emojis based on emoji are popular among college students.

Among all kinds of emoticons, the most common ones are emoji and emojis. Sun Shiqi and other students believe that memes are most commonly used by college students now, and we have stepped into the era of emojis from the era of emoji. Emoji and emoji have different inherent logic, and people resist the unity of emoji, creating a variant between emoji and emoji, that is, emojis that are transformed or synthesized based on emoji, such as “infinite” extended thumb memes.

There are not only many types of emoticons, but also different styles of the same type on different platforms. Mei Zhiyu and other students investigated the difference between built-in emoji in Tencent software (such as Wechat and QQ) and input method, and found that more people would use the former rather than the latter. Some functional variations of emoji are related to the platform, such as the semantic variation of the “smile” expression is mainly from Tencent software; for example, the “hee hee” expression is extraordinarily cute on the Samsung platform, but not so cute on other platforms. They disassembled the emoji and found that the composition of the expression of the small yellow face is “background color + face shape + expression”, and its form selection is related to the psychology of facial expression, the expression of cartoon characters and the evolution of network language.

Emoticons also show a variety of variations in use. Based on a survey on bilibili’s website, Chen Jing and other students found that the most frequently used emoji are “dog head”, “knowledge increase”, “hot eyes” and “laughing cry”, among which “dog head protecting life” is known as “death-free gold medal”. It can be used to judge whether the speaker is serious or joking. When using emoji, people prefer to use it alone, occasionally to express strong or complex emotions, but the greater the number, the lower the frequency; the position with the highest frequency of emoji is at the end of a sentence, followed by the beginning of a sentence, and in very few sentences. You can make clear the emotion you want to convey or set the tone for the attitude of the whole sentence.

The same emoji with different words may show very different meanings.

Compared with language, the meaning of emoji is more vague, and its use and interpretation are strongly dependent on context. Wei Zichao and other students have found that the same emoji with different words may show very different meanings.

The meaning of emoticons is more flexible, and because of this, emoticons show infinite variations in function or semantics, including situational variations. expressions such as “smile”, “goodbye”, “grin” and “grin” all have meanings other than the original meaning, such as “goodbye” means “goodbye”, and the use meaning means “do not want to pay attention to each other, break up friends and do friends”. Individual variation, they mentioned that someone had sent “demons” and “lightning” in the classroom group for a semester, and it was not until the end of the term that they knew that the former meant “smirk”, while the latter meant “I will go”. A survey found that women use more emoticons than men, 78% and 60% respectively. Intergenerational variation, such as it is more difficult for young people to accept the so-called “middle-aged and elderly emojis”, and it is also difficult for middle-aged and elderly people to understand the meaning of “sweating” and “coffee”, and so on. “the meaning behind emoji” was once a hot search on Weibo, which also shows that people are highly aware of the functional variation of emoticons.

Emoji will continue to play a role as part of communicative behavior and may be replaced by other means in the future.

Emoji can “sweep the world”, thanks to its supplement of words, social lubrication and aesthetic satisfaction, but its popularity has also caused people’s concern.

Some people worry that the variation of emoticons will deepen the communication gap. Sun Lingyao and other students agree that although the variation makes emoji more colorful, it also has the problem of unclear communication intention and easy misunderstanding between the two sides, which may further widen the existing gap between different groups. There are also concerns that the abuse of emoticons will lead to a decline in language ability.

This view is very popular, just like the worries about online language, but students such as Zhao Wenxuan are skeptical: emoticons make up for the lack of pure text in conveying certain intentions, but increase their communicative wisdom; emoticons are mainly used in informal situations and do not affect formal situations too much.

There are also concerns that the abuse of emoticons can lead to sensory degradation. In their view, only language can express complex thinking and delicate emotions, and if the language ability is degraded, so will the sensory ability. Sun Shiqi and other students expressed a certain agreement, because emoticons mostly desecrate and distort things that people have opinions by means of collage, parody and parodies, and do not have in-depth analysis and rational understanding of many things. these superficial, flat, visual emoticons ignore the complexity of human beings.

The above is the reflection of college students, and finally briefly talk about the author’s point of view. At present, the evaluation of emoji shows a kind of contradiction: on the one hand, emoji plays an important role as paralanguage, usually citing the formula of “100% face-to-face communication = 7% language + 38% expression + 55% body language”. It can be described as “praise”; on the other hand, it is said that emoji is a “shallow” and “fragmented” communication, which can only be used in language. This contradiction originates from a narrow view of language. In fact, only when we regard communication as a whole, can we give emoji an objective and fair evaluation. Linguists usually strike a balance between economy and efficiency when explaining language change and variation, which is also applicable to emoji: from an economic point of view, emoji is specific and vivid, concise in form, and based on faster and faster hardware and software. it is also becoming more and more humanized in the user experience (for example, software can automatically recommend emoticons based on input characters). From the perspective of efficiency, emoticons play a more and more irreplaceable role in greeting function, emotional function and social function. At present, emoji does a good job in its part and cannot replace other parts of communicative behavior, such as language, and of course it may not intend to overdo it.

Based on the reflection of emoji, I think that the variation of emoji is not terrible, but people are enjoying it. In addition, concerns about the decline in expression and perception caused by emoticons may also be exaggerated, as humans have been using paralanguage or other media similar to paralanguage, but have never had any serious irreversible consequences. Some people have suggested that “we can relax our guard against emojis”, but the author believes that the reason is not that “many emoticons will be retained and stabilized”, but that they will continue to play a role as part of communicative behavior. it may be a substitute for some means in the past, or it may be replaced by other means in the future. But the form is temporary and the function is eternal.

Author: Yang Xu & nbsp; unit: school of Arts, Wuhan University

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