Arabic-Emoji Code-Switching Among Young Arabic Users: A New Paralinguistic Trend in Digital Communication
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24252/jad.v26i2a2Keywords:
Arabic Digital Discourse, Emoji, Code-Switching, Paralinguistics, Youth CommunicationAbstract
This research investigates Arabic-emoji code-switching as an emerging paralinguistic trend in digital communication among young Arabic users. Rather than treating emoji as decorative symbols, the research conceptualizes emoji as semiotic switches that interact with Arabic script, dialectal Arabic, Arabizi, English insertions, and platform-specific youth styles. Using a qualitative digital discourse analysis of 1,000 publicly visible Arabic social-media microtexts from X, Instagram, TikTok comments, WhatsApp-style screenshots, and Telegram channels, the research identifies five dominant functions: affective intensification, pragmatic softening, stance marking, identity indexing, and conversational repair. The findings show that young users often place emoji at syntactic boundaries, after evaluative adjectives, beside religious-cultural expressions, and as substitutes for facial expression, gesture, prosody, and laughter. Arabic-emoji switching therefore extends conventional code-switching from language alternation to multimodal alternation. The article contributes to Arabic digital sociolinguistics by proposing a typology of Arabic-emoji paralinguistic switching and arguing that emoji has become a culturally adaptive resource for managing politeness, irony, intimacy, and emotional economy in online Arabic interaction.
ملخص
تبحث هذه المقالة في ظاهرة التناوب الرمزي بين العربية والرموز التعبيرية بوصفها اتجاهاً شبه لغوي جديداً في التواصل الرقمي لدى المستخدمين العرب الشباب. ولا تنظر الدراسة إلى الرموز التعبيرية بوصفها زخارف بصرية فحسب، بل بوصفها علامات سيميائية تتفاعل مع الخط العربي، واللهجات العربية، والعربيزي، والإدخالات الإنجليزية، وأساليب الشباب في المنصات الرقمية. وباعتماد تحليل الخطاب الرقمي الكيفي لعينة من ألف نص عربي قصير منشور علناً في منصات مثل إكس وإنستغرام وتيك توك وتيليغرام، تكشف الدراسة عن خمس وظائف أساسية: تكثيف الانفعال، والتلطيف التداولي، وإظهار الموقف، وبناء الهوية، وإصلاح مسار المحادثة. وتدل النتائج على أن الشباب يضعون الرموز التعبيرية غالباً عند حدود الجمل، وبعد الصفات التقييمية، وبجوار العبارات الدينية والثقافية، بوصفها بديلاً عن ملامح الوجه والإيماءات والنبرات والضحك. وهكذا يوسّع التناوب العربي-الإيموجي مفهوم التناوب اللغوي من تبديل اللغات إلى تبديل الأنماط السيميائية المتعددة.
Abstrak
Penelitian ini mengkaji alih kode Arab-emoji sebagai tren paralinguistik baru dalam komunikasi digital pengguna muda bahasa Arab. Emoji tidak dipahami sebagai hiasan visual semata, tetapi sebagai penanda semiotik yang berinteraksi dengan aksara Arab, dialek Arab, Arabizi, sisipan bahasa Inggris, dan gaya bahasa anak muda di media sosial. Dengan pendekatan analisis wacana digital kualitatif terhadap 1.000 mikro-teks Arab yang tampak secara publik dari X, Instagram, komentar TikTok, tangkapan layar bergaya WhatsApp, dan kanal Telegram, penelitian ini menemukan lima fungsi utama: penguatan afeksi, pelembutan pragmatik, penandaan sikap, pengindeksan identitas, dan perbaikan percakapan. Temuan menunjukkan bahwa pengguna muda sering menempatkan emoji pada batas sintaksis, setelah adjektiva evaluatif, berdampingan dengan ekspresi keagamaan-kultural, serta sebagai pengganti ekspresi wajah, gestur, prosodi, dan tawa. Alih kode Arab-emoji dengan demikian memperluas konsep alih kode dari pergantian bahasa menuju pergantian multimodal. Artikel ini berkontribusi pada sosiolinguistik digital Arab dengan menawarkan tipologi alih kode paralinguistik Arab-emoji.
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