Cultural Interpretation of Emoji in Malaysian Context

Abstract

Emoji depicts real-world properties and infer their meaning through universal depictions. However, the interpretation of emoji are not necessarily understood collectively. One of the many factors influencing the interpretation of emoji is culture. The current study investigates the interpretation of emoji among three main cultures in Malaysia, namely the Malays, Chinese, and Indians. The respondents are digital natives from various parts across the country. The focus is on their interpretation of selected facial emoji namely the; sleeping face, tears of joy, loudly crying, blowing a kiss, and screaming in fear emoji. The analysis first identifies the interpretation of the emoji according to each culture, which is then followed by the analysis of differences in semantic misconstrual between the cultures. The results shows; (i) there are common interpretation shared among the three cultures for each emoji, highlighting the universal inherent meaning possessed by emoji, (ii) there are additional interpretations from each culture for each emoji, highlight the culturally specific interpretation for each emoji, and (iii) each culture have different degrees of variation in terms of interpretation for each emoji, highlighting the degree of potential misinterpretation among different cultures in intercultural communication. Overall, the study provides additional evidence of emoji interpretation being influenced by cultural idiosyncrasies, and understanding the differences can assist in smoother intercultural communication within a multicultural society such as in Malaysia.

Keywords: Emojidigital communicationdigital nativesinterpretationculturalMalaysia

Introduction

The fast-evolving technology of the world today has shifted the way we communicate with each other. Digital messenger applications such as Whatsapp messenger, Telegram application, Wechat application, and other various messenger applications are rapidly becoming the norm if not the preference of everyday communication. However, one major disadvantage of online text messaging is the degree of difficulty in expressing emotions and feelings due to the absence of non-verbal cues (such as facial expressions and verbal intonation) which are readily available in face to face communication ( Kelly & Watts, 2015). This is where the use of emoji as supplements in online text messaging allows for a degree of compensation where there is a lack of non-verbal cues ( Miller et al., 2016).

Emoji are pictures or symbols which are commonly used in textual digital communication. Novak et al. ( 2015) describe emoji as visual characters that depict its real-world counterpart, e.g. facial expressions, feelings, weather, automobiles, buildings, food, beverages, animals, natures, activities, and many more. In this sense, emoji deliver their meanings through their similarity and representation of such expressions, feelings, and objects. However, the role of emoji goes beyond representing the literal meaning of pictures/symbols as studies have shown that people also use emoji to manipulate the communication environment in which they are in ( Kelly & Watts, 2015).

There are millions of emoji being used daily in various digital platforms worldwide ( Miller, 2018). In a global analysis of emoji usage, Ljubesic and Fiser ( 2016) found that Southeast Asia countries are among the top frequent users of emoji in the world. Moreover, a study conducted by Swiftkey keyboard application developers in 2015 reported that Malaysians as a whole, uses emoji more than (at least) 16 other different regions and languages around the globe. As a multicultural society, the language/linguistic situation of Malaysia has always been influenced by the diversity of cultures and the needs of the people ( Asmah, 1992). It is clear that in today’s context, emoji are significantly a part of this ever-evolving language/linguistic scenario of Malaysia.

The issue of interpretation (and misinterpretation) has been one of the main concerns in the studies of emoji. Although emoji are intended to represent the state of their real-world counterparts, their meanings, however, are not necessarily understood collectively. Miller et al. ( 2016) claim that even though people frequently use emoji, they do not necessarily have similar agreements in the understanding and interpretation of a given emoji when being used in communication. Users are influenced by their language, culture, and regional characteristics in preference for specific emoji to express their thoughts and feelings ( Guntuku et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2016). In other words, different people associate with different interpretations of a given emoji. This is partly due to the fact that emoji are visual-based items making them open to numerous forms of interpretations. This inherent quality held by emoji could potentially lead to a degree of misinterpretation or misunderstanding between users. This study is interested in understanding how Malaysians interpret (selected) emoji.

Problem Statement

Emoji are nuanced, visually-detailed pictures that may be more open to various kinds of interpretation. However, it is not clear how people interpret the meaning of emoji as people do not interpret a given emoji in the same way ( Miller et al., 2016). In general, there is a lack of studies on the interpretation of emoji in terms of the differences between cultures ( Miller et al., 2016). Most studies on emoji interpretation in terms of culture, commonly focuses on the different interpretations of emoji in different cultures between different countries ( e.g. Barbieri et al., 2016; Guntuku et al., 2019; Li et al., 2019). In other words, studies on emoji interpretation between different cultures within the same country are still lacking ( Barbieri et al., 2016; Guntuku et al., 2019). In culturally diverse countries, there is always a potential for misinterpretation of emoji during communication between the different cultures. This is because different cultures are influenced by their cultural background which is reflected in their communication, influencing their intercultural communication as well. Taking the above points into account, there is thus a need for understanding how different cultures affect emoji interpretation in Malaysia’s multicultural context.

Research Questions

The objective of the study is to identify the cultural differences in the interpretation of (selected) emoji in Malaysian context. The study aims to answer the research question of, what are the cultural differences in the interpretation of (selected) emoji in Malaysian context.

Purpose of the Study

As stated above, there seems to be a gap in the literature in terms of intercultural emoji interpretation. This current study intends to shed some light on how the three main cultures in Malaysia interpret emoji, and to understand whether their cultures influence the interpretation of the selected emoji. The outcome of this study will benefit the field of emoji studies in general, especially on emoji interpretation with different cultures within the same country. Furthermore, this study may also help to improve intercultural communication when using emoji in Malaysian context.

Research Methods

This study uses a qualitative approach to analyse the differences in the interpretation of the selected emoji. The sampling technique used to acquire respondents is purposive homogenous sampling as this study focuses on the characteristics of culture. The population of Malaysia is approximately 32.6 million with Bumiputera being the largest ethnic group (69.3%), followed by the Chinese (22.8%) and Indians (6.9%) ( Department of Statistics Malaysia Official Portal, 2019). Bumiputera includes the Malays and the natives of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak ( Ramlee et al., 2008). The current study only focuses on the three main cultures namely the Malays, Chinese, and Indians. Data were collected form a total of 180 respondents (60 from each culture). The respondents are from various parts across Malaysia, grouped as originating from the northern region (Perlis, Kedah, Pulau Pinang, and Perak), the central region (Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, and Negeri Sembilan), the southern region (Melaka and Johor), the east coast region (Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu) and, Sarawak and Sabah. The respondents are all digital natives, i.e. those who were born after 1983 ( Helsper & Eynon, 2010), ranging between 19 to 34 years of age. The digital natives are the perfect respondents as they grew up with computers, live with the Internet, and made online language as their native language ( cf. Molnár et al., 2017).

In 2015, Swiftkey keyboard application developers conducted an analysis on the usage of emoji and reported the 15 frequently used emoji by Malaysian includes; sleeping face, baby face, clapping hands, victory hand, thumbs up, thumbs down, pig, ram, frog, turtle, poo/feces, rainbow, man running, dashing away, and woman raising hand. Conversely, in a study by Guntuku et al. ( 2019) on emoji usage between Western and Eastern cultures, the top 5 most used emoji in the Eastern culture were; tears of joy, loudly crying, folded hands, blowing a kiss, and screaming in fear. Taking the information above into consideration, only the facial expression emoji of sleeping face [

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An online-based open-ended questionnaire was administered. The respondents were presented with the selected emoji and instructed to give their interpretation/meaning for each of them. This study adheres to Clark’s (1996) theory where communication is seen as a form of joint action between different parties. Any kind of verbal or non-verbal actions can be considered as a form of communication. Both the sender and receiver construe (i.e. interpret) the verbal and non-verbal actions in a particular way during communication ( Clark, 1996). In other words, when a sender performs an action during communication, the receiver construes what he or she thinks the sender intended by the action. If however, the receiver’s interpretation varies from the sender’s original intention, a misconstrual occurs.

Extending this idea to the current study, the use of emoji in digital messaging is considered as a joint action between different parties, and in order for an emoji to be correctly construed, the receiver needs to interpret the emoji with the same intended meaning by the sender. The analysis of the data adopts the emoji semantic misconstrual score by Miller at al. (2016). The measure calculates the average score by taking into account the different interpretations of emoji within the same culture, and dividing them by the respondents for each culture. The range of the score is between zero and one. Higher average score for an emoji signifies more variation in interpretation.

Findings

The results were divided according to the selected emoji under study by analyzing the general and the additional interpretation of each culture, followed by the differences for the semantic misconstrual score between the three cultures.

Conclusion

Language operates in a manner that is relatively open to different interpretation, be it in verbal or written form. Emoji add the means in which users can further express themselves in today’s world of digital communication. Although not completely identical, emoji does to a larger degree function similarly to how language operates. From this study, it is clear that despite the universality in meaning imposed by emoji, their interpretation changes and varies across different cultures. This study provides further evidence on how users are influenced by their cultural idiosyncrasies when using emoji in communication. It is thus important not only to acknowledge but also to try to understand the varieties of intracultural interpretation of emoji, in order to insure smoother (less misinterpretation of) intercultural communication. Moreover, this study also illustrates how different cultures contribute to the unique diversity of Malaysia’s linguistic environment.

Acknowledgments

The research for this paper was supported by Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Incentive Bridging Grant (304.PHUMANITI.6316386).

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