La Pragmática de los Emojis en la Comunicación Digital

Abstract

The research is part of the project: “NETNOGRAPHY AND DIGITAL COMMUNICATION IN TIMES OF PANDEMIC AND/OR POST-PANDEMIC COVID 2019", belonging to the Domain Social, Democratic and Educational Strengthening, of the Faculty of Jurisprudence and Social Sciences, with the Research Lines Communication, Society, Culture and Technology and Social Exclusion and Integration. Due to the emergence of the Internet and social networks such as WhatsApp, users communicate virtually through video calls, emojis, among other tools. For this reason, it is important that the communication established between individuals is understood from the pragmatic point of view to understand the use and meaning that each one provides to these spellings. The research aims to describe the use and meaning of emojis in digital communication in the WhatsApp application of students from the first to sixth semester of the Communication career at the Technical University of Ambato. The methodology used in the project was only of a qualitative, bibliographic-documentary, field and netnographic nature with the technique of observer participant in the WhatsApp chat, also, a data collection matrix, a netnographic and interview guide were applied. With these instruments, factors such as: the frequency and the meaning of the participants' emojis were analyzed. The results indicate that users give emojis different uses and meanings to the original. Even when they have different perceptions, they correctly apply language in a certain context within their conversations