Why Emoji Are SuddenlyAcceptable at Work

By Bourree Lam

 

1 It wasn’t too long ago that the exclamation mark was a point ofetiquette contention in the world of email and the workplace. Style and trendpieces wondered: Are they wildly inappropriate? Are they offensive? What if youjust use one?

 

2 Language is, of course, ever-evolving. So now that the exclamationmark has become mostly accepted, what’s next for English?

 

3 Emoji.

 

4 Not only have emoji arrived, they’ve arrived at legitimatenon-adolescent-filled places such as messages from parents and emails amongco-workers. In one survey, 76 percent of Americans said that they have usedemoji in digital communication at work. Just as it is in the rest of the world,the most popular emoji in life and work is the happy face.

 

5 Emoticons and emoji have gone from being inappropriate for theworkplace to being accepted, largely because the demographic of the workplaceis changing. Millennials are now the biggest generation in the Americanworkforce, and along with them comes new technology and mannerisms.

 

6 But why are people using emoticons or emoji in the workplace? Theanswer is that they’re useful. In emails, emoticons and emoji act as discourseparticles — a word that has no semantic meaning but adds intention to astatement. People tend to use emoticons when there’s some kind of whatlinguists call a face threat — something kind of awkward or potentially offensive,or somebody could take something the wrong way. So people will use emoticons oremoji in these instances to just add that little bit of extra inflection.

 

7 It’s for this reason that the happy-face emoji dominates. Thebiggest problem about all electronic communication is that it’s toneless. Inthe absence of tone, people read negative tone into it.

 

8 A Scandinavian study on email in the workplace found exactly that:Emoticons in the workplace were not used to convey emotion, but rather tosignal how the information in the email should be interpreted. They found threeprimary uses: to express positive vibes, to mark jokes, and lastly to eitherstrengthen or soften statements that could be misread as reprimanding.

 

9 Along with the usefulness of emoticons and emoji in clarifyingtone in emails, another partial explanation for the rise of emoji at work isthat digital work communication now incorporates casual communication as well.

 

10 Beyond email, the growing popularity of office collaboration andcommunication tools like Slack are increasingly taking casual work interactionsonline. In the past, these interactions — whether it’s to tell a joke or asksomeone how their weekend was — were reserved for in-person or on the phone.Nowadays, there’s a Slack channel for that — whether it’s Game of Thrones fansor baby photos. This moving of casual office communication online — andtherefor into text — has contributed to people’s comfort level of usingemoticons and emoji with their co-workers.

 

11 Stewart Butterfield, the CEO and co-founder of Slack, says thatone of the aims of the tool was let people feel comfortable with these casualinteractions online. “One of our aims for Slack is to help people ‘bring theirwhole selves to work’,” says Butterfield. “That might sound a little lofty, butwe believe there is a widespread feeling that people are meant to check a lotof stuff at the door when they arrive at work. Some of that makes sense, butthere’s a risk of having people feel diminished or unable to contribute fully —that’s the part we hope Slack can have a shot at correcting.”

 

12 However, don’t get too casual at work. Be conscious of who theaudience is, and gauge their comfort level before putting in that emoji. Forexample, don’t use them with a superior or a client unless they use it firstand establish it as an accepted norm. One email can make or break arelationship these days, so it’s better to be careful. Linguists call thisregister. Register is the idea that there are different kinds of language thatwe use in different situations.

 

13 In that sense, even as people’s comfort level with emoticons andemoji in the workplace rises, communications with co-workers online shouldn’tdeviate too far from good colleague behavior offline.

 

14 No one likes sarcasm. It’s a very bad form of work communication.Using emoji or emoticons in a sarcastic way is just as bad as it has alwaysbeen. We should bear in mind that sarcasm existed long before emoji, and it’salways been a bad tactic. We didn’t need emoji to be obnoxious.

 

为什么绘文字突然在职场被接受

布雷·林

 

1 不久前，人们对于在电子邮件和办公场所中使用感叹号是否有违礼仪还颇有争议。时尚潮流类文章用探究的口吻写道：“它们很不合适吗？很粗鲁吗？如果你就用了会怎样？”

2 当然，语言在不断地演变。现在既然感叹号已经被大多数人接受，接下来英语又会接受什么呢？

3 绘文字。

4 绘文字不仅仅出现了，还出现在正规的、并没有很多青少年的场合，例如来自父母的短信和同事间的电邮。在一次调查中，76%的美国人说他们曾在办公的线上交流中使用过绘文字。同世界其他地方一样，美国人生活和工作中最常用的绘文字是笑脸。

5 在工作场所，原本被认为不合适的表情符和绘文字正逐渐被接受，这主要是因为工作场所中的人员构成在改变。千禧一代现在是美国劳动力的主力军，随同他们一起到来的是全新的技术和言谈举止。

6 为什么人们要在工作时使用表情符或绘文字呢？答案是它们有用。在电子邮件中，表情符和绘文字起着语助词的作用——它没有具体语义，但能表明一句话的意图。当出现语言学家们所谓的有损面子的情况时——有点尴尬或者可能冒犯人的情况，或者有人会误解时，人们倾向于使用表情符。人们在这些情况下使用表情符或者绘文字，就是为了附加那一点点额外的语调。

7 正因如此，笑脸表情符十分流行。所有的电子交流最大的问题是缺乏声调。少了声调，人们可能会从负面理解信息。

8 一项在斯堪的纳维亚做的有关工作邮件的研究恰恰发现了这一点：在工作场所，表情符不是用来表达情绪的，而是用来表明邮件中的信息应该如何理解。他们发现了表情符的三种主要用途：表达积极的氛围，标识笑话，还有就是加强或弱化可能被误解为指责的话语。

9 绘文字之所以在职场流行，除了表情符和绘文字在澄清邮件语气方面的作用之外，还有一部分原因是如今数字化的工作交流中也融入了随意交流的成分。

10 除了电子邮件之外，像Slack这样的办公室合作交流工具正日益时兴，也越来越多地将非正式的工作交流带到网上。过去，这些交流——无论是讲个笑话或者询问某人周末过得如何——只在会面时或者在电话中进行。如今，有了Slack渠道来实现这个目的——无论是《权力的游戏》迷还是宝宝的照片。非正式的办公室交流进入网络——随后又进入文本中——这使人们在同事之间使用表情符和绘文字时更加自在。

11 Slack的首席执行长官和共同创始人斯图尔特·巴特菲尔德说，这个工具的目的之一是让人们习惯于这些非正式的网上交流。“我们的目标之一是让Slack帮助人们‘将完整的自我带到工作岗位’，”巴特菲尔德说。“这听上去也许有点高大上，但是我们相信很多人觉得他们到单位时要好好收敛言行。这有一定的道理，但是也有让人觉得被矮化或者使人无法充分发挥才智的危险——我们希望Slack能够尝试纠正这些弊病。”

12 不过，上班时不要过于随便。要弄清楚受众是谁，在插入绘文字之前先估计他们的认可程度。比如，不要对上级或者客户使用绘文字，除非他们首先使用并将其作为一种可接受的常态。如今，一封邮件能建立或者破坏关系，所以还是谨慎为好。语言学家们称其为语域。语域的意思是，我们在不同的场合会使用不同类型的语言。

13 在这个意义上，即使人们对于在工作时使用表情符和绘文字的接纳程度逐日提升，与同事们在网上的交流不应偏离线下良好的共事行为太远。

14 没人喜欢讽刺挖苦。那是一种非常糟糕的工作交流形式。嘲讽式地使用绘文字或者表情符向来不可取。我们应该记住，在绘文字出现之前讽刺就已经存在，而且一直是一种下策。我们过去没有绘文字也同样可以让自己变得可憎。