Emojis play an increasingly vital role in online communication, supporting emotive expression and enhancing the conveyance of subtle ideas. However, despite their communicative value, the interpretation of emojis is not always universal. Cultural background, linguistic conventions, and contextual factors may result in significant variation in how emojis are used and understood. This study investigates how native Japanese speakers employ emojis to express emotions, with the aim of uncovering cultural distinctions in emotional representation. A survey was conducted with 95 Japanese university students, who were asked to identify emojis corresponding to 32 specific emotions. These emotions were originally derived from the development of an English dialogue system using Facebook dialogue data (Rashkin et al., 2019). To provide a comparative perspective, 141 university students from the United States were asked to complete the same survey. The analysis revealed notable cross-cultural differences in emoji selection. Emotions such as impressed, grateful, caring, lonely, disappointed, and terrified showed considerable divergence between Japanese and American respondents. In contrast, about half of the participants in both groups selected the same emoji to represent proud and confident, highlighting subtle cultural nuances in emotional expression. While many emotions were consistently represented by distinct emojis, several emotions were symbolized by the same emoji, suggesting overlapping or culturally shared interpretations. These findings demonstrate that although emojis can effectively bridge communicative gaps, their meanings are not always universal. A deeper understanding of cultural factors in emoji use is therefore essential for promoting accurate and effective cross-cultural communication in the digital age.

Authors:
Nami Takase, Shizuoka University, Japan
Tetsuya Nakamura, Tohoku Bunka Gakuen University, Japan
Keiko Ochi, Kyoto University, Japan
Maya Kobayashi, Independent Scholar, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Nami Takase is a lecturer at Shizuoka University in Japan, teaching English to Informatics and Engineering students. She has been teaching English to Japanese students for over 15 years, from secondary to tertiary level, including corporate business people.

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark