DIGITAL PARALINGUISTICS AS AN EXTENSION OF CLASSICAL PARALINGUISTICS: FROM PROSODY AND GESTURES TO EMOJIS, GRAPHICONS, AND VISUAL PROSODY
Abstract
This theoretical review argues that digital paralinguistics is not a rupture with classical paralinguistic systems but rather their systematic re-encoding. The study synthesises the classical traditions of paralanguage, kinesics, proxemics, and cultural display rules with contemporary research on computer-mediated communication. It demonstrates how affective, illocutionary, regulatory, and social-indexical functions formerly performed by voice, body, and physical space have migrated to the graphic-textual plane of the screen. The article identifies five functional mappings from oral and face-to-face channels to written and digital paralinguistic channels: voice qualities are re-encoded as typographic prosody; vocal characterisers as emoticons and facial emoji; vocal segregates as discourse particles and metacommunicative emoji; kinesics as object and body emoji, GIFs, and stickers; and proxemics and chronemics as response latency, co-presence markers, and platform affordancess. Cross-cultural research on emoji interpretation operationalises cultural display rules for the digital age, in which individualism and collectivism predict emoji use much as they predict facial expression in face-to-face interaction. The review connects Anglo-American frameworks with the Russian-language paralinguistic tradition and recent Uzbek scholarship. It shows that the graphicon taxonomy and the concept of paralanguage developed in post-Soviet linguistics are theoretically compatible. The transition from oral to digital communication is characterised by three theses: functional continuity, structural discontinuity, and the asymmetric re-encoding of paralinguistic information. Methodological implications for corpus-based studies of emoji and graphicons in Uzbek-language digital discourse are discussed.
Full text article
References
Abdullayev, A. (2025). A pragmatic analysis of the speech acts of the police on violation of traffic rules. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 61*(2), 7–18. https://doi.org/10.36078/1746082593
Almaguer, J., Felix, R., & Harmeling, C. M. (2025). Emoji marketing: Toward a theory of brand paralinguistics. *International Journal of Research in Marketing, 42*(1), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2024.06.002
Bai, J. (2023). Comparative review of using emojis in Russian and Chinese new media. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 50*(3), 69–86. https://doi.org/10.36078/1687760741
Bai, Q., Dan, Q., Mu, Z., & Yang, M. (2019). A systematic review of emoji: Current research and future perspectives. *Frontiers in Psychology, 10*, Article 2221. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02221
Baron, N. S. (2021). *Know what? Punctuation now and the case for semicolons.* Oxford University Press.
Birdwhistell, R. L. (1952). *Introduction to kinesics.* Department of State, Foreign Service Institute.
Birdwhistell, R. L. (1970). *Kinesics and context: Essays on body motion communication.* University of Pennsylvania Press.
Crystal, D. (2006). *Language and the internet* (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Daft, R. L., & Lengel, R. H. (1986). Organizational information requirements, media richness and structural design. *Management Science, 32*(5), 554–571. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554
Danesi, M. (2017). *The semiotics of emoji: The rise of visual language in the age of the internet.* Bloomsbury Academic.
Dresner, E., & Herring, S. C. (2010). Functions of the nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and illocutionary force. *Communication Theory, 20*(3), 249–268. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2010.01362.x
Dzhusupov, N. (2025). Frame structures and reframing in text interpretation. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 61*(2), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.36078/1747201804
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. *Semiotica, 1*, 49–98. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1969.1.1.49
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1971). Constants across cultures in the face and emotion. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17*(2), 124–129. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0030377
Emojipedia. (2025). *Emoji statistics.* https://emojipedia.org/faq
Escouflaire, M. (2020). Exploring emoji functions beyond emotional expression. In *Proceedings of the Emoji Conference 2020*. Sorbonne Université.
Hall, E. T. (1959). *The silent language.* Doubleday.
Hall, E. T. (1966). *The hidden dimension.* Doubleday.
Hall, E. T. (1976). *Beyond culture.* Doubleday.
Herring, S. C., & Dainas, A. R. (2017). Nice picture comment! Graphicons in Facebook comment threads. In *Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences* (pp. 2185–2194). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.24251/HICSS.2017.264
Hertenstein, M. J., Keltner, D., App, B., Bulleit, B. A., & Jaskolka, A. R. (2006). Touch communicates distinct emotions. *Emotion, 6*(3), 528–533. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.528
Hiraga, R., Wakuya, H., & Wada, Y. (2020). Textual prosody can change impressions of reading in people with normal hearing and hearing loss. *Frontiers in Psychology, 11*, Article 548619. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.548619
Hofstede, G. (1980). *Culture's consequences: International differences in work-related values.* Sage.
Hopper, P. J., & Traugott, E. C. (2003). *Grammaticalization* (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Hu, S., Lee, E., Hong, J., & Bok, M. (2022). Understanding emojis: Cultural influences in interpretation and choice of emojis. *Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 16*(3), 245–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/17513057.2022.2036790
Ivanova-Yakushko, E. B., Anumyan, M., & Karabulatov, I. S. (2024). Emotikon kak primer razvitiya graficheskoi emotiologii v virtual'nom prostranstve [Emoticon as an example of the development of graphic emotiology in virtual space]. *Virtual'naya kommunikatsiya i sotsial'nye seti, 3*(3), 296–308. https://doi.org/10.21603/2782-4799-2024-3-3-296-308 (In Russ.)
Jakobson, R. (1960). Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), *Style in language* (pp. 350–377). MIT Press.
Jibril, T. A., & Abdullah, M. H. (2024). Emojis as graphic equivalents of prosodic features in natural speech: Evidence from computer-mediated discourse of WhatsApp and Facebook. *Cogent Arts & Humanities, 11*(1), Article 2391646. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2024.2391646
Karabulatova, I. S., Anumyan, M., Korovina, T., & Krivenko, A. (2023). Emotikema SURPRISE v novostnom diskurse Rossii, Armenii, Kazakhstana i Kitaya [The emoticeme SURPRISE in news discourse of Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and China]. *RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, 14*(3), 818–840. https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2023-14-3-818-840 (In Russ.)
Kendon, A. (1972). Some relationships between body motion and speech: An analysis of an example. In A. W. Siegman & B. Pope (Eds.), *Studies in dyadic communication* (pp. 177–210). Pergamon Press.
Khursanov, B. (2024). The ratio of verbal and non-verbal means in English and Uzbek dramas. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 54*(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.36078/1709623334
Knapp, M. L. (1972). *Nonverbal communication in human interaction.* Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Kol'tsova, Y. N., & Kartashkova, F. I. (2022). Mul'timodal'nyi kharakter tsifrovoi kommunikatsii: Funktsionirovanie emodzi v mezhlichnostnom obshchenii [The multimodal character of digital communication: The functioning of emoji in interpersonal communication]. *Vestnik RUDN. Teoriya yazyka. Semiotika. Semantika, 13*(3), 699–720. (In Russ.)
Kolshanskii, G. V. (2014). *Paralingvistika [Paralinguistics]* (4th ed.). URSS/KomKniga. (In Russ.)
Konrad, A., Herring, S. C., & Choi, D. (2020). Sticker and emoji use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for graphicon change. *Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25*(3), 217–235. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmaa003
Kosmarskaya, I. V. (2021). Formirovanie stroevykh elementov pis'mennoi internet-rechi (na materiale smailika i emodzi) [The formation of structural elements of written internet speech (based on smiley and emoji materials)]. *Vestnik MGLU. Gumanitarnye nauki, 3*(845), 110–121.
Kreidlin, G. E. (2002). *Neverbal'naya semiotika: Yazyk tela i estestvennyi yazyk [Nonverbal semiotics: Body language and natural language].* Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie. (In Russ.)
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2001). *Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication.* Arnold.
Kress, G., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). *Reading images: The grammar of visual design* (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Matsumoto, D. (1990). Cultural similarities and differences in display rules. *Motivation and Emotion, 14*(3), 195–214. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00995569
Matsumoto, D., Yoo, S. H., Fontaine, J., Anguas-Wong, A. M., Ariola, M., Ataca, B., & Grossi, E. (2008). Mapping expressive differences around the world: The relationship between emotional display rules and individualism versus collectivism. *Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39*(1), 55–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022107311854
Matsumoto, D., Yoo, S. H., Hirayama, S., & Petrova, G. (2005). Development and validation of a measure of display rule knowledge: The Display Rule Assessment Inventory. *Emotion, 5*(1), 23–40. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.5.1.23
McCulloch, G. (2019). *Because internet: Understanding the new rules of language.* Riverhead Books.
Mehrabian, A. (1971). *Silent messages.* Wadsworth.
Mehrabian, A. (1972). *Nonverbal communication.* Aldine-Atherton.
Mehrabian, A., & Ferris, S. R. (1967). Inference of attitudes from nonverbal communication in two channels. *Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31*(3), 248–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024648
Mehrabian, A., & Wiener, M. (1967). Decoding of inconsistent communications. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6*(1), 109–114. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024532
Miller, H., Thebault-Spieker, J., Chang, S., Johnson, I., Terveen, L., & Hecht, B. (2016). "Blissfully happy" or "ready to fight": Varying interpretations of emoji. In *Proceedings of the Tenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media* (pp. 259–268). AAAI Press.
Odilova, N. (2024). The cultural and social relevance of polycode texts. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 59*(6), 92–106. https://doi.org/10.36078/1735294769
Petrosyants, A. (2025). The word formation process in digital media discourse. *Foreign Languages in Uzbekistan, 62*(3), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.36078/1710323114
Ruesch, J., & Kees, W. (1956). *Nonverbal communication: Notes on the visual perception of human relations.* University of California Press.
Safarov, Sh. (2006). *Kognitiv tilshunoslik [Cognitive linguistics].* Sangzor. (In Uzb.)
Safarov, Sh. (2008). *Pragmalingvistika [Pragmalinguistics].* O'zbekiston Milliy Entsiklopediyasi. (In Uzb.)
Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). *The social psychology of telecommunications.* Wiley.
Togans, L. J., Holtgraves, T., Kwon, G., & Morales Zelaya, T. E. (2021). Digitally saving face: An experimental investigation of cross-cultural differences in the use of emoticons and emoji. *Journal of Pragmatics, 186*, 277–288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2021.09.016
Trager, G. L. (1958). Paralanguage: A first approximation. *Studies in Linguistics, 13*, 1–12.
Trager, G. L. (1961). The typology of paralanguage. *Anthropological Linguistics, 3*(1), 17–21.
Verheijen, L., & Mauro, R. (2025). Emoji functions in adolescent digital writing: A comparative study. *Journal of Pragmatics, 213*, 45–62.
Walther, J. B. (1992). Interpersonal effects in computer-mediated interaction: A relational perspective. *Communication Research, 19*(1), 52–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365092019001003
Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. *Communication Research, 23*(1), 3–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365096023001001
Authors
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution International License
(CC BY 4.0).
Copyright © by author(s).