Modus Barbara: logical-phenomenological experiment of the explanation of the emoji language

Abstract

In the paper the sign of the emoji language is investigated through the logical-linguistic lense. The authors conclude that the explanation of the content plane and expression plane of an optical sign (and therefore a non-linear one), due to the bilaterality of its structure, is inexhaustible, since the optics of emoji include psychophysiological factors that appeal to the linguistic and extralinguistic elements of the formation of the signs. Consequently, the substrate for the investigation of the emoji sign is nominated as polyilaterality. The latter allows the synthesis of the structural (logical) level and the conceptual (phenomenological) level of the explanation of the sign, because the content plane and the expression plane of the optical sign is both in its form and in the semantic load. The study focuses on an empirical experiment initiated by the authors: a survey created on the basis of a Google Forms "Emoji Association", containing 147 perceptions and interpretations of emoji signs. The experiment is tested through G. Frege's semantic triangle, which schematically demonstrates a bilateral approach to the word content plane, depending on both the abstract denotation (proper word) and the specific meaning (word meaning). With an emphasis on polyilaterality and its verification, hypothetical-deductive syllogisms are created (in particular, according to the sign investigated in the paper, a syllogism is created in the modus of the first Barbara figure, AAA), which includes interpretive-lexemes, which, according to the digital analysis of the responses using the Voyant Tools web application, are more common in frequency. Therefore, the authors approbate the verification of the meaning of the emoji sign using such science as logic, which visualizes the denotation and individual interpretations of the sign in the true-false dichotomy. According to the results of the experimental logical-linguistic approach to the investigation of the emoji sign, it is concluded that the logical tools used in the article disclose the fractalization of the forms of the agrammatism of the emoji sign with their verbal versions of the formants with subsequent verification of both.