Emoji's and Stuff

 Firstly - there are people that literally study emoji's?? Wow. That...doesn't immediately strike me as a terrifically vital or necessary field of study.
Maybe it's just my perception but I think there may be more important areas of study to invest time and money, like I don't know, how to efficiently and cheaply desalinate sea water for the impending water shortage that's looming over future generations? Just a thought.
Who knows, perhaps emoji study is actually very important. We'll chalk that up to worldview I suppose.

When I look at the use of non-text item in my mobile communications it really varies depending on the person. Some use tons of emojis, some use very few or none. I see a direct parallel between that and how people gesture and demonstrate in real life.

"Paralinguistic features are those features that function outside a language system, such as non-verbal cues like gestures or facial expressions, or the modification of a verbal representation of a word or message like shouting or inflection (pg, 114)."

This is how I see the use of emoji''s and paralinguistic features - it is just a crafted image that replaces or fills in for actual physical expression that people use in every day communication with other people. Think about it, we communicate and relay and express all the time using no words at all, but just our faces. I know my friends and I can have an entire conversation in facial expression only. And I'm not sure this requires explanation - we ALL do this, it is a human trait.