Republic of the Philippines

Laguna State Polytechnic University

“SOCIAL MEDIA EMOJI’S: THE LEVEL OF STUDENT COMPREHENSION

A Research Paper

Presented to the Faculty of

College of Teacher Education

Laguna State Polytechnic University

Main Campus

Sta.Cruz, Laguna

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements

CARNICE, JAMES LOYDD

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 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
Province of Laguna

Chapter 1

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

This chapter contains the introduction, background of the study,

theoretical framework, conceptual framework, statement of the problem,

hypothesis, significance of the study, scope and limitations of the study and

definition of terms.

INTRODUCTION

The rise of internet gave birth to a method of communication we never

used to have, introduced us to a more complex way of conveying messages

not only with this plain texts but with the use of emoticons also known as

emoji’s.

The emoji’s have become the simplest way of expressing our emotions

through non-verbal messages. And sometimes people tend to judge others

attitude base on how they use emoji to express their feelings. This has become

a modern trend in communication and a struggle on to give an interpretation on

such messages containing emoji’s.

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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The purpose of this research is to know how social media affects an

individual interpretation skills on decoding messages with social media emoji.

The objective of this study is to know the level of interpretation skills of the

students when they give an interpretation on give a message containing social

media emoji’s on various social media emoji’s on various social media app like

What’s App, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Many century have gone by, and our way of communication in the early

year is way too easy to comprehend for it is written as plain texts. So as times

passes by, globalization in communication also took place which introduced us

to a whole new way of expressing oneself. Then there came this tiny graphic

facial expressions and images depicting emotions of human and now was

called emoji. Emoji’s are commonly added into the message itself to express

our emotions into much more effective way. Everyone uses emoji to represent

the different variety of emotion of the person conveying message as well as the

receiver in giving feedback to the message sent. This little image have become

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extremely popular, and it increasingly being used to portray both emotions as

well as activities, it is also one of the trend the 21st century learners has been

enjoying.

According to All ACM Journal (2019), that emoji have become popular

from communication. As of 2017, Facebook and Facebook Messenger had

process over 60 million and 6 billion messages with indicated emoji per day.

Not only in Facebook and Facebook Messenger the emoji had become popular.

As off 2015, even in Instagram you can comment, transmit message, and post

using emoji. They also reported that in Instagram, many people had replace

slang terms in the way of their communication into an emoji in photo. They

indicated that in different social media site, they study how emoji used in

different languages, cultures, user communities, and as features how to learn

machine learning models to solve problems that span across in many

application including; sentiment analysis, emotion analysis, and sarcasm

detection. According to them the ability to automatically process derive

meaning, and interpret text wit emoji that can be essential to the society who

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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embraces the emoji as a standard from of online communication. In ALL ACM

Journal (2019), they indicated that they encourage the contributions to

understand the emoji on applications that add on the scientific understanding.

According to Infogr8.com (2017), social media stickers have been

explosion in popularity in recent time. The terms “social stickers” are define as

glorified emoji. Stickers is a way of expressing a feeling, a thought, or just for

fun. Stickers has come to a time where tech is making the move to becoming

more human. Also include that with new form of communication we tend to not

always have a chance to communicate in face-to-face that’s why emoji,

especially stickers have been invented with a “human touch”. Through feeling,

stickers had been invented so that the receiver didn’t feel hash regarding on

the message that they receive. According to Infogr8.com stickers has become

a sort of universal language of messaging platforms. We could speak in two

different language, but still understand the sentiment behind the annoyed emoji

face.

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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According to Jing Ma (2013), interpreting as a modern profession has

established its status in the international communities. Interpreters help people

overcome languages barriers, dispel their suspicion and serve as a bridge in

intercultural communication. But, to finish all these tasks, an interpreter should

possess special talents and skills and therefore interpreting skills have become

one of the hot issues that received wide attention. Also, based on the analysis

of interpreting process and all aspects of the teaching of it, the experts, at home

and abroad, are generally convinced that it is the prime task and ultimate

objective of teaching interpretation to train abilities and skills. Yet research on

interpretation in our country is still at the primary stage, and no systematic

theories have been established to show interpreters and those want-to-be

interpreters what kind of skills they must possess and how to possess

necessary skills effectively. In this case, the current thesis will probe into the

issue of interpreting skills from the perspective of interpreting process.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Emoji have been around long enough to become part of our everyday

communication culture. A thumbs up means "okay," heart eyes show approval,

and the 2015 Oxford Dictionaries word of the year was "Face with Tears of

Joy." But depending on who you're messaging, your emojified text might be

drastically misinterpreted (Henwood 2016).

This revealed that miscommunication happens both in cross-platform

communication — where changes in emoji styling can alter their appearances

and cause confusion — and in same-platform communication.

According to the BBC, Emoji may allow us to reincorporate important

types of nonverbal communication, like gestures, into our written dialogue.

Adding a symbol to text allows us to enhance our messaging.

Emoji are not always used as embellishments, however – sometimes,

strings of the characters can themselves convey meaning in a longer sequence

on their own. But to constitute their own language, they would need a key

component: grammar (Cohn 2015). In this way, emoji let us to convey

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information in a linear unit-string, which limits how complex expressions can be

made. These constraints may mean that they will never be able to achieve even

the most basic complexity that we can create with normal and natural drawings.

Emoji’s are positive but they can also cause miscommunication and this

causes problems on not understanding the motion delivered. Problems could

be caused by the misinterpretation of the meaning of emoji’s (Miller 2019). This

revealed that emoji’s can cause failure of conversing. It was found that many

people interpret the same emoji in different ways. There were some people who

thought emoji’s were very positive but a few found them irritating and useless.

Emoji has a big impact to everyone.

Most of the theory says that sarcasm serves as a function for

communication. And there are discussions if this kind of language could be

used to serve or enhance or mute the nature of message being delivered. And

emoji is one such textual device which is a sarcastic form of communication

(Filik, Tucan, and Turner 2019). The study revealed that messages were not

accepted differently when an emoticon was present or absent. Emoticons can

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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obviously complement a message but it can never contradict or enhance its

meaning. We can know about the sarcastic factor of emoticons in this study

and we can evaluate their value and effects in the field of communication. They

can support or beautify messages but they cannot replace verbal text to a large

extent.

Emoticons now have become a part of our culture. Smart phone or social

media without emoji’s is unimaginable. They affect the intensity of instant

messages and time saving they are at situations. Emoticons were actually

introduced to add some humor to conversations. But now they have an

important place in a user’s mind (Ip 2019). This study revealed that emoji’s did

not increase the positivity, but they were more extreme much more than

punctuation marks. Gone are those times where we use exclamation marks

and punctuation marks now it’s the era emoticons, which are used after every

sentence as an accelerator to the messages sent. The analysis also proved

that emoticons had a higher impact and among the emoticons it’s the positive

emoji’s which have a higher impact it boosts up the messages. Despite of very

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normal simple instant messages emoticons can make a big difference in how

emotionally they take messages with emoticons. It might create some problems

in communication as the usage and reading becomes less and graphics

become more still they are considered very significant for messaging among

the users.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Social Media Emoji’s

Figure 1: Research Paradigm of the Study

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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This study focused on the Social Media Emoji’s: The Level of Student

Comprehension Skills.

Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of Social Media Emoji’s in terms of:

1.1. Stickers;

1.2. Emoticons and;

1.3. GIF?

2. What is the level of comprehension skills on the respondent in terms of:

2.1. Interpretation Skills?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the Social Media Emoji’s and

the effect on interpretation skills?

RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

There is no significant relationship on the level of Social Media Emoji’s on

the interpretation skills of the students.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

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This study aims to find out the effects of social media emoji’s to the

interpretation skills of the students of BSED Social Science of Laguna State

Polytechnic University. This useful and relevant information acquired from the

study may encourage the following sectors/beneficiaries to continue more

research regarding social media emoji’s.

Students, the findings of the study can serve as a guide to the student who

using social media emoji’s and to give knowledge to other students.

Teacher, it provides additional knowledge on what strategies to educate the

students and also to know the effects of social media emoji’s to their student’s

interpretation skills.

Parents, it will serve as a basis to help the parents who has a child that is using

social media emoji’s. Also, it will help them to understand the effects of social

media emoji’s.

Community, the result of this research study could help the people around as.

To give concern to the person using social media emoji’s. Also give knowledge

to each one.

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SCOPES AND LIMITATIONS

This study focuses on the effects of social media emoji’s on

interpretation skills of the students of BSED I-C Social Science. The survey will

be conducted to 30 students of the total Population of BSED I-C Social Science

on Laguna State Polytechnic University Sta.Cruz Campus, school year 2019-

2020 who will represent the population. This study will not cover other problems

that are not considered as one of the effects of social media emoji’s. The other

students which do not fail as part of BSED I-C Social Science students are not

within the scope of this research. This study would be done through the

utilization of questionnaire to the students as a survey and reference. By their

strategy of the researchers will able to know the effects of social media emoji’s

to the interpretation skills of the students.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

The terms are and operationally defined better understanding of the

readers.

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Social Media Emoji’s. Emoji’s have become a time digital language. Their

use on social networks is becoming ever more popular; and this is not only due

to their ability to transmit emotion, behaviours, and physical emotions but also

for other more specific functions that we’re going to go over.

Stickers. It is a must-have to boost your online presence. Use custom social

media stickers to remind your customers about your online presence, or use

them as promotional stickers to create brand awareness while attracting new

prospects and providing an easy link to your media channels.

GIF. A Graphical Interchange Format. It is a file extension for an often animated

raster graphic file and is the second most common image format used on the

World Wide Web after JPEG.

Emoticons. A representation of a facial expression such as :-) (Representing

a smile) formed by various combinations of keyboard characters and used to

convey the writers feelings or intended tone.

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Communication Skill. It is the act of conveying meanings from one entity or

group to another through the use of mutually understood signs, symbols, and

semiotic rule.

Interpretation Skill. It includes the ability to assess and comprehend the

original message and render it in the target language without omissions,

additions or distortions. It also includes the knowledge/ awareness of the

interpreter’s own role in the interpreting encounter.

Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents a review of related studies and literature which

help and support the enrichment of the study contents.

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Laguna State Polytechnic University
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Related Literature

Emoji represents actual icons that appears on the keyboard or that

are converted from emoticons have been used since the early times,

thinking it already begun lately ad was new to us. Although before these

latest technology arouses in the market, they have using emoticons to

embody their plain text messages and give it more meaning.

(Shatha Ali A Hakami, 2017), stated in his work “The importance of

understanding emoji” emoticons also known as emoji has been used since

1982, when a Carnegie Mellon professor used a smiley face on the

computer science general board. As compared to an emoji which is an

actual icon, emoticons are a series of text characters that are used to form

a gesture or facial expression (e.g. :-)) that shows a smile.

According to (Karen Lotter, 2018), emoji’s being used by the

communicator also has a factor affecting the receiver’s perception into

message sent. She also defined every colors meaning such; Blue

symbolizes loyalty and trust, and the color Green represents jealousy and

doubt and so much more.

Vyvyan Evans (2015), a professor of linguistics also takes emoji as

an opposed to written language, She stated that having the used of social

media emoji’s corrupts the culture of the verbal communication process.

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These emoji’s causes misunderstanding depending on the situation of the

communicants and the environment they are being involved in.

Laura Marks (2010), uses the term “lame infinity” to describe the

ways in which digital technology seems capable of vast potential but is

instead used to produce a dispiriting kind of sameness. That means

technology makes similarity in conveying messages but also takes

disadvantages in the interpretation of the both parties involved in the

communication process.

Katy Steinmetz (2018), conclude in her study about GIFs and Emoji

usage in communication that visuals aren’t just helpful in adding clarity in

text and mobile messages. They could feel that they are free to express

themselves using these digital tools for communication.

Tyler Schnoebele( 2014), a Stanford-trained linguist found out that

the use emoticons varies by geography, age, gender and social class

showing that it was like regional dialects and languages. He had given an

example on how individuals use emoticons differently. For instance,

between people who includes a hyphen to represent a nose on a smiley are

those who spells out the word completely and those who uses shorter

version without a hyphen who tends to use abbreviations rather than the

exact word.

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According to Carnegie Mellon (2017), University research to those

people who includes emoji, stickers and emoticons on their messages tends

to express themselves even these computer mediated communication tools

as it shows a virtual representation of their emotion towards the receiver on

the other end.

According to psychologistworld.com journals (2017), a study

conducted by the students at a secondary school and their use of emoticons

help them reinforce the message’s meaning.

Researchers found that emoticons, when used as conjunction with a

written message can “intensify” it’s meaning (Derks et al.2007). Which could

give us more strength in expressing ourselves virtually without exerting too

much effort.

Kelly, R & Watts, L (2015), have stated in their research on the

effects of using emoji, emoticons etc. in communicating would have greatly

affect as to how the message sent will be perceived by the receiver and

how could the receiver compose and give feedback to the sender itself.

Related Studies

Social Media change many ways in which individuals undertake

research and open up new forms of communication and dissemination.

Social Media affects the ones behaviour. It can be a negative or positive

effect to all the people who using social media. Everyone can construct a

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public and semi-public profile within a connected system. Since these are

being used by students and became a part of their daily lives, these have

allowed greater heights of opportunities for them to communicate and reach

out to a larger group of people. The ability to express diversity through emoji

is key in digital communication if people want to create confidential

uniqueness and a sense of identity within a personal or business related

relationship. Emoji helps represent the human gestures, voice tones and

physical expressions people do when communicating vocally.

Ellison and Boyd (2007), define social network site as web based

services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public and semi-public

profile within a connected system (2) articulate list of another users with

whom they share connection and (3) view and traverse their list of

connection and they made by others within the system. Social media

created new ways of communication in human today that opens up a more

convenient transaction of messages and life updates.

According to Understanding Emoji Ambiguity in Context: The Role of

Text in Emoji-Related Miscommunication as cited by Miller, and Terveen,

(2017), suggest that recent studies have found that people interpret emoji

characters inconsistently, creating significant potential for

miscommunication. However, this research examined emoji in isolation,

without consideration of any surrounding text. Prior work has hypothesized

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that examining emoji in their natural textual contexts would substantially

reduce potential for miscommunication. To investigate this hypothesis, we

carried out a controlled study with 2,482 participants who interpreted emoji

both in isolation and in multiple textual contexts. After comparing the

variability of emoji interpretation in each condition, we found that our results

do not support the hypothesis in prior work: when emoji are interpreted in

textual contexts, the potential for miscommunication appears to be roughly

the same. We also identify directions for future research to better

understand the interplay between emoji and textual context.

Tigwell and Flatla (2016), proposed that emoji provide a way to

express nonverbal conversational cues in computer-mediated

communication. However, people need to share the same understanding of

what each emoji symbolizes, otherwise communication can breakdown. We

surveyed 436 people about their use of emoji and ran an interactive study

using a two dimensional emotion space to investigate (1) the variation in

people’s interpretation of emoji and (2) their interpretation of corresponding

Android and iOS emoji. Our results show variations between people’s

ratings within and across platforms. We outline our solution to reduce

misunderstandings that arise from different interpretations of emoji.

Marengo, Giannotta and Settani (2017), mentioned on their research

that the increasing popularity of text based computer mediated

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communication, such as instant messaging and mobile texting, have

resulted in the emergence of a new pictographic form of language, i.e.

emoji, offering an intuitive and informal way to convey emotions and

attitudes, replacing word or phrases in text messages.

The effects of emoji in sentiment analysis proposed by Shiha and

Ayvaz (2017), suggest that this study investigates the usage of emoji

characters on social networks and the effects of emoji in text mining and

sentiment analysis. As it provides live access to text based public opinions,

we chose twitter as our information source in our analysis. We collected text

data for some global positive and negative events to analyse the impact of

emoji characters in sentiment analysis. In our analysis, we noticed that the

utilization of emoji characters in sentiment analysis results in higher scores.

Furthermore, we observed that the usage of emoji characters in sentiment

analysis appeared to have higher impact on overall sentiments of the

positive opinions in comparison to the negative opinions.

Chapter 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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This chapter presents methodology used, source of data gathering

procedure and statistical treatment.

Research Design

This data used the descriptive method of research to determine the

level of Social Media Emoji’s to students’ comprehension skills on Selected

Students’ of 1-C BSED Social Science S.Y.:2018-2019.

According to Negaswara Rao Posinasetti (2014), descriptive study is

the one which information is collected without changing the environment the

method involved range from the survey which describes the status, the

correlation study which investigates the relationship between variables, to

develop studies which seek to determine changes over time.

Respondents of the Study

The primary sources of data utilized in this study were the students

of BSED I-C Social Science of Laguna State Polytechnic University

Sta.Cruz Campus. It is composed of thirty students (30) from the BSED I-C

Social Science.

The respondents were chosen by the characteristics of importance

for the research which are the students’ who have always used Social

Media Emoji’s.

Sampling Technique

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Purposive sampling will be use to select the thirty subjects who will

became the actual respondents that are purposely selected to participate in

the study based on convenience to the research.

A purposive sample is a non-probability sample that is selected

based on characteristics of population and the objective of the study (Ashley

Crossman, 2017).

Research Procedure

The researchers will formally approach the thirty (30) selected

students of BSED I-C Social Science, a mannered approach and asked

them to be used as actual respondents of the study. The questionnaire was

submitted to the advisers for judgmental validation in order to prove further

its contents. When everything is settled, the study presented and studied.

The data gathered from the responses of the selected respondents’ were

tallied and analyzed.

Research Instrument

In order to collect data, rating scale questionnaire was used for the

research. The 30 questionnaires consisted of 20 questions; 5 questions

every variables and 5 questions about the students’ level of comprehension.

The questionnaire has a rating scale that had a total of five items

standard to be evaluated as follows;

Rating Description
5 Strongly Agree

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4 Agree
3 Neutral
2 Disagree
1 Strongly Disagree

Statistical Treatment

The data obtained were treated statistically with the use of mean and

standard deviation to determine the mean level of students’ interpretation

skills.

Weighted mean formula is used to determine the level of Social

Media Emoji’s on students’ interpretation skills in terms of Emoticons,

Stickers, and GIF or Graphics Interchange Format.

Standard deviation formula is a measure of the dispersion of a set of

data from the mean.

T-test is used to determine the level between the Social Media

Emoji’s to student’s interpretation skills.

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