Crispin Thurlow, Christa Dürscheid, & Federica Diémoz (eds.), Visualizing digital discourse: Interactional, institutional and ideological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2020. Pp. 270. Hb. €100.

Abstract

The authors discuss the impact of using emojis (e.g. Crispin Thurlow & Vanessa Jaroski view emojis as threats to words, thus ‘language endangerment’), positioning emojis in terms of communicative mode (e.g. Georg Albert s question on emojis functioning like words or images or somewhere between), and the actual utilization of emojis in a larger context (e.g. Panckhurst & Frontini s study on uses of emojis in SMS messages). The types of data vary widely and interestingly, including ‘homing blogs’ (Leppanen) that revisualize motherhood and index ‘particularly social, cultural and gendered identities’ (112), game commenters on YouTube (‘Let s Plays’) where the audience is absent (Axel Schmidt & Konstanze Marx), virtual tours through video chats (Dorottya Cserző), and photo sharing among romantic partners and close friends (Rebecca Venema & Katharina Lobinger). [...]communications through digital media both in interpersonal and institutional settings have rapidly increased, and this state of affairs may last for the foreseeable future.