Shortlisted for the BAAL Book Prize 2017 Emoji have gone from being virtually unknown to being a central topic in internet communication. What is behind the rise and rise of these winky faces, clinking glasses and smiling poos? Given the sheer variety of verbal communication on the internet and English's still-controversial role as lingua mundi for the web, these icons have emerged as a compensatory universal language. The Semiotics of Emoji looks at what is officially the world's fastest-growing form of communication. Emoji, the colourful symbols and glyphs that represent everything from frowning disapproval to red-faced shame, are fast becoming embedded into digital communication. Controlled by a centralized body and regulated across the web, emoji seems to be a language: but is it? The rapid adoption of emoji in such a short span of time makes it a rich study in exploring the functions of language. Professor Marcel Danesi, an internationally-known expert in semiotics, branding and communication, answers the pertinent questions. Are emoji making us dumber? Can they ultimately replace language? Will people grow up emoji literate as well as digitally native? Can there be such a thing as a Universal Visual Language? Read this book for the answers.

The X figure is ubiquitous in contemporary culture, but attempts to explain our fixation with X are rare. This book argues that the origins and meanings of X go far beyond alphabets and archetypes to remembered feelings of body movements - movements best typified in the performance of “spread-eagle” as a posture or gesture. These body memories are then projected onto other patterns and dynamics to help us make sense of the world. The argument is accomplished using a blend of insights from linguistic anthropology, cognitive linguistics, rhetoric culture and process semiotics to bring together revealing clues from languages, cultures and thinkers around the world. Chief among the uses and experiences of X are its tendencies to involve us in surprising reversals and blends. In ancient times the X-pattern was discussed as “chiasmus”, a figure which, according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, informs the most basic elements of our bodily experience, calling into question polarized dichotomies such as subject versus object. Pushed to extremes, presumed opposites like these tend to reverse suddenly. Likewise, blended experiences of our bodily extremities - arms and legs, toes and fingers, hands and feet - provide a plausible source of grounding for unique human abilities like analogy and double-scope conceptual integration. The book illustrates these dynamics by drawing attention to uses of X in history, prehistory and daily life, from sports and advertising to world mythology and languages around the world. The Semiotics of X is the first step towards developing a larger argument on the important but neglected role that chiasmus plays in cognition. It aims to inspire continued exploration on the figure, with the full expectation that chiasmus will become for the 21st century what metaphor became for the 20th century: a revolution in thinking about the way we think.

This book critiques current assumptions about 'communication', particularly digitally mediated communication, by re-examining conceptual foundations in rhetoric, linguistics, semiotics, information theory, and cybernetics. The result is a dimensional account of interaction that is at once both intuitive and revolutionary.

This book covers the following main topics: A) information and knowledge management; B) organizational models and information systems; C) software and systems modeling; D) software systems, architectures, applications and tools; E) multimedia systems and applications; F) computer networks, mobility and pervasive systems; G) intelligent and decision support systems; H) big data analytics and applications; I) human–computer interaction; J) ethics, computers and security; K) health informatics; L) information technologies in education; M) information technologies in radio communications; N) technologies for biomedical applications. This book is composed by a selection of articles from The 2022 World Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (WorldCIST'22), held between April 12 and 14, in Budva, Montenegro. WorldCIST is a global forum for researchers and practitioners to present and discuss recent results and innovations, current trends, professional experiences, and challenges of modern information systems and technologies research, together with their technological development and applications.

This is the first collection of interdisciplinary scholarship to expand on gridded modalities, with a strong affinity to the arts. It seeks to inspire new avenues of research by exploring a horizon of gridded relationships among humans, between humans and the environment, and between human and non-human actors. By bringing together philosophical themes and applied practices, the volume traces a genealogy of the "grid" as an exercise in grasping its inherent complexity and incomplete quality. A collective effort by a group of researchers, practitioners, and designers, it promotes an understanding of gridded modalities as complex networks that interact with other networks, generating new meanings and reflecting changes in thought.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game’s legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture. In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game’s past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D. Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D’s adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers’ understanding of the game.

Providing an in-depth discussion of emoji use in a global context, this volume presents the use of emoji as a hugely important facet of computer-mediated communication, leading author Jieun Kiaer to coin the term 'emoji speak'. Exploring why and how emojis are born, and the different ways in which people use them, this book highlights the diversity of emoji speak. Presenting the results of empirical investigations with participants of British, Belgian, Chinese, French, Japanese, Jordanian, Korean, Singaporean, and Spanish backgrounds, it raises important questions around the complexity of emoji use. Though emojis have become ubiquitous, their interpretation can be more challenging. What is humorous in one region, for example, might be considered inappropriate or insulting in another. Whilst emoji use can speed up our communication, we might also question whether they convey our emotions sufficiently. Moreover, far from belonging to the youth, people of all ages now use emoji speak, prompting Kiaer to consider the future of our communication in an increasingly digital world.

This book discusses about the language, culture, and communication and interaction among people having diverse and unique cultural backgrounds across the world. By this book, the readers gain awareness of English language, other languages of different countries, and cultural differences or similarities as well. Then, it also develops confidence in communicating and interacting with the native speakers of English and the people of English speaking countries and other people from different cultures as well. ——— In today’s world, cross-cultural communication is still imperative regardless of the technological communication advancement. No technology can replace cross-cultural communication in its basic and natural form involving face-to-face communication. This book vol. 2 offers a broader and comprehensive contents and excellent knowledge on this subject as well. It is a must read. — Prof. Deddy Mulyana, M.A., Ph.D. Faculty of Communication Sciences Padjadjaran University Building up the theory on the interconnection among languages, cultures, and societies, this book explores the potential benefits as well as potential problems from (not) understanding the connections. Broad definitions of culture and hence cross-cultural communication are presented although some micro-culture settings are only discussed briefly. Interestingly, it argues that sufficient understanding of different cultures will mostly guarantee language users to have successful cross-cultural communication. This book provides good coverage of forms of cross-cultural communication, enriched with examples from different settings of communication events in different cultures. Not only is it a good start for readers with no prior knowledge of cross-cultural concepts, but it is also relevant to be used by readers with advanced knowledge in the area. — E. Aminudin Aziz Professor of Linguistics, Indonesia University of Education and Head, Agency of Language Development and Cultivation, Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology, Rep. of Indonesia In times of globalization and rapid and massive development of internet, the world now becomes smaller and borderless. People from diverse countries and cultures meet, interact and communicate intensively and extensively due to many reasons, purposes, and agendas. This book offers abandon of knowledge, understandings, and insights regarding to cross-cultural communication and interaction. This book is more complex, comprehensive, in terms of contents, volume. elaboration and explanation, and illustration and detail as well. — Amrin Sargih, M.A., Ph.D. Professor of Linguistics, Faculty of Languages and Arts of State University of Medan Buku persembahan penerbit PrenadaMediaGroup #Kencana

Unlocking a vital understanding of how literary studies and media studies overlap and are bound together A synthetic history of new media reception in modern and contemporary Japan, The New Real positions mimesis at the heart of the media concept. Considering both mimicry and representation as the core functions of mediation and remediation, Jonathan E. Abel offers a new model for media studies while explaining the deep and ongoing imbrication of Japan in the history of new media. From stereoscopy in the late nineteenth century to emoji at the dawn of the twenty-first, Abel presents a pioneering history of new media reception in Japan across the analog and digital divide. He argues that there are two realities created by new media: one marketed to us through advertising that proclaims better, faster, and higher-resolution connections to the real; and the other experienced by users whose daily lives and behaviors are subtly transformed by the presence and penetration of the content carried through new media. Intervening in contemporary conversations about virtuality, copyright, copycat violence, and social media, each chapter unfolds with a focus on a single medium or technology, including 3D photographs, the phonograph, television, videogames, and emoji. By highlighting the tendency of the mediated to copy the world and the world to copy the mediated, The New Real provides a new path for analysis of media, culture, and their function in the world.