Online communication has created new ways to express emotions, including emoji and reaction GIFs. Emoji are often discussed as signs for meaning-making, adding emotional tone to communication. Reaction GIFs express emotions and attitudes in a playful manner. This study shows that through the lens of cognitive pragmatics, these phenomena are not distinct. Both are cases of non-verbal communication pointing to the communicator’s emotional state. Drawing on relevance-theoretic notions of the showing-meaning continuum and perceptual resemblance, along with relevance-theoretic analyses of metaphor and irony, I argue that emoji and reaction GIFs provide clues to ostension and communicate emotions by virtue of perceptual resemblance between what they represent and the communicator’s emotional state. I will also argue that both emoji and GIFs can involve echoic use of language, enabling the communicator to convey their attitude.

中文翻译：

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数字环境中的感知相似性和情感交流

在线交流创造了表达情感的新方式，包括表情符号和反应 GIF。表情符号经常被认为是表达意义的符号，为沟通增添情感基调。反应 GIF 以有趣的方式表达情感和态度。这项研究表明，从认知语用学的角度来看，这些现象并不明显。两者都是非语言交流的案例，表明了交流者的情绪状态。借鉴显示意义连续体和感知相似性的相关性理论概念，以及隐喻和反讽的相关性理论分析，我认为表情符号和反应 GIF 凭借它们所代表的内容之间的感知相似性提供了明示和交流情感的线索。以及沟通者的情绪状态。