Let’s start with things that we investigate and wonder whether they have meaning. For instance, if you look at this word
Смысл
and if you cannot read Cyrillic, never mind Russian, you would conclude that it has no meaning to you (the word is the translation of “meaning”). But at the same time, you might well surmise that these signs have meaning for someone other than yourself, because you know how to read.
Then there are emojis:
😊
😅
😂
🤪
The meanings here seem pretty obvious. In fact, these little symbols are universally understood: they start with a smile, breaking into laughter, laughing to tears, and then mugging a lunatic smile.
Not to mention this fairly-new one: 💩
People understand these because of our experience with other people, specifically, their bodies, speech, gestures. This makes us human beings, social animals with self-consciousness. Emojis that symbolize people evoke those experiences. The little brown one reminds us of those times when a well-placed expletive seemed to fit the situation.
The explosion of this means of communication continues to add new pictographs, not always universally understood by any means. Popular culture…
