#1 "The Emoji Have Won the Battle of Words"

           Are emojis taking up the role of an actual language? Studies and researchs show that the use of emojis is rising quickly and has become an esssential factor in social media. The first unofficial signs of emojis, such as smiley faces and emoticons, go back to the 1880's, but the official start of emojis began in the mid-1990's in Japan. By 2008, an emoji alphabet was cretead and in 2011, Apple had incorporated the emoji alphabet to their iOS5 system. With this most of the soical media websites have integrated it into their system and created a unified platform for the emoji for all social media. However, the effect that the emojis have today is great in quantity. According to a website emoji tracker, people have been using emojis frequently, almost as if it were a language. The impact it has on recent means of technology and media is continuously increasing, therefore resulting in the creation of emojis only conversation websites, song lyrics in emojis, and even re-written books in emojis. The linguist Ben Zimmer states that the language of emojis hasn't fully developed yet, but when it does, it is bound to create a dialect. Though the language of emojis sounds intriguing, it has its negative aspects too. Not only is it limited, but it also does not convey the message trying to be said very clearly. A misuse in emoji is a common factor in misunderstandings today. Despite the fact that emojis have a negative side to it, people are adopting it very well and it was been, since then, a common way to interact and communicate with each other.

           The author of this article, Jessica Bennet, wrote it in a more casual way, avoiding the typical structure and formality a news article tends to have. The overall tone she has in the passage can be inferred that it is a little bit negative by the way she mildy criticizes how the emojis have taken over the standard keyboard. To approach the reader in a better angle, she starts out the article with a personal experience and relates it to the topic. She starts out by explaining the growth and use of emojis today and supports it with various evidences such as statistics, research, and predictions. By the end of the article, the author presents the negative aspects of emojis and questions the growth and affect it has in our lives. An interesting element she uses in her article is the use of "emojis" (expressions of emojis in words). She uses it to display how the emojis are being used today and how it can look, sound, and feel awkward, and to emphasize the importance of our standard English language.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/fashion/emoji-have-won-the-battle-of-words.html?ref=fashion