A company in London has advertised for an emoji translator in what is thought to be the first such job worldwide.

 

伦敦一家公司已经在招募表情符号翻译者，这应该是世界上第一个这种类型的工作。

 

The role will involve explaining cross-cultural misunderstandings in the use of the mini pictures, and compiling a monthly trends report.

 

Last year, a UK linguist² said emoji was the country's fastest-growing language.

 

Jurga Zilinskiene, head of Today Translations, needed someone to translate diaries into emojis for one of her clients, but could not find a specialist.

 

She says software translations can only go so far and a human translator was needed, so the agency posted an online job advert¹.

 

With more than 30 applications so far, she is hoping to appoint somebody on a freelance basis by the start of 2017, with the potential for it to become a full-time³ post. Translation jobs will be paid by the word/emoji, while research into the changing trends in emoji usage will be paid at an hourly rate.

 

So can emojis be considered a language? No, absolutely not, says Rob Drummond, a senior lecturer in linguistics⁴ at Manchester Metropolitan⁵ University.

 

He says his test for a language is that you have to be able to translate a full sentence from one to another, with shared meanings - not necessarily fixed⁶, but shared - and emoji meanings vary from person to person.

 

"It's an addition to language rather than a language itself," Dr Drummond says.

 

Emojis are more nuanced than words and, like gestures or body language, can add meaning to the text they go alongside.

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