Oxford Dictionary has been considered as the best in the benchmark for the English language. With our changing way of linguistic habits, including much use of emojis, emoticon characters in conversations on instant messaging and social media platforms. This may have provided a special place in the Oxford Dictionaries.
The cooperation run by the Oxford English Press at the University of Oxford, has given ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ emoji as the word of the year for 2015.
Every year in the Oxford University, Oxford Dictionary team reviews candidates for word of the year and then, “debates their merits, eventually choosing one that capture the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of 2015.”
Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries said that, “You can see how traditional alphabet scripts have been struggling to meet the rapid-fire, visually focused demands of 21st Century communication. It's not surprising that a pictographic script like emoji has stepped in to fill those gaps—it's flexible, immediate, and infuses tone beautifully. As a result, images are becoming an increasingly rich form of communication, one that transcends linguistic borders. When Andy Murray tweeted out his wedding itinerary entirely in emoji, for example, he shared a subtle mix of his feelings about the day directly with fans around the world. It was highly effective in expressing his emotions." Even Hillary Clinton solicited feedback in the form of emojis, and 😂 has had notable use from celebrities and brands alongside everyone else – and even appeared as the caption to the Vine which apparently kicked off the popularity of the term on fleek, which appears on our WOTY shortlist."
Earlier this year, the Oxford University Press has made its collaboration with the leading mobile technology, business SwiftKey to explore the most popular emojis across the world. Finally ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ came out a straight forward winner. As according to the research, it is found that ‘Face with Tears of Joy’ was the most heavily used emoji globally in 2015. The research also claimed that the character comprised 20% of all emoji used in the UK in 2015, and 17% of all emoji used in the US. This compared to 4% and 9% respectively in 2014. In the US the next most popular emoji was 'Face Throwing a Kiss,' comprising 9% of all usage.
"Emoji culture has become so popular that individual characters have developed their own trends and stories," notes Grathwohl. "They can serve as insightful windows through which to view our cultural preoccupations, so it seemed appropriate to reflect this emoji obsession by selecting one as this year's "word" of the year. We felt particularly comfortable selecting 'Face with Tears of Joy' because of the frequency and usage data that SwiftKey was able to provide. Oxford's word of the year has always been backed by real-time language analysis, and our selection for 2015 is no exception. SwiftKey's data provided the basis on which we were able to interpret and debate the significance of what a particular emoji says about global culture in 2015. Not only did we see a dramatic spike in usage of 'Face with Tears of Joy,' we felt the character captured a sense playfulness and intimacy that embodies emoji culture itself."
Sarah Rowley, head of communications, EMEA, at SwiftKey, says: "It seems a fitting end to 2015 that the Oxford Dictionaries, Word of the Year is an emoji rather than a traditional word. It has truly been the year of the emoji. For many their appeal lies in how they allow people to express themselves, regardless of the language they are speaking on. The sheer volume and range of data from SwiftKey's emoji report goes some way to demonstrate how each person uses emoji in a way that is entirely personal to them."
