ANALYSIS OF EMOJI IN INSTAGRAM POSTS OF RUSSIAN AND AMERICAN BLOGGERS

Abstract

In the last few years, emoji have aroused considerable interest. Researchers explore emoji from various perspectives. However, no attempt has been made, to the best of our knowledge, to reveal cultural peculiarities of their usage and interaction with verbal text and punctuation, so in this respect our research provides a novel perspective. The present paper aims at investigating emoji in Instagram posts of Russian and American bloggers. The methods employed include quantitative, qualitative and comparative analysis. Notable similarities and differences in the usage of emoji were revealed. Bloggers in both cultures tend to complement or duplicate verbal messages with emoji, generally avoid using emoji to accentuate or contradict the meaning of the verbal text and typically place them at the end of the sentence substituting the full stop. However, the results suggest that American bloggers use emojis less often than Russian bloggers do. Moreover, patterns of complementing and substituting verbal cues with non-verbal ones display variation affected by cultural context. National preferences concerning the position of emoji in the verbal message and type of their interaction with punctuation marks have also been discovered. The theoretical significance of our findings lies in their contribution to the theory of non-verbal means, especially written non-verbal cues. Our conclusions have practical implications for L2 students writing texts on the Internet and EFL teachers developing cross cultural communication skills. Further studies, which investigate emoji usage in comments in Instagram and compare the data with the findings on their usage in posts, will need to be undertaken.