“Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis

Converging towards or diverging from an interlocutor's speaking style (i.e., linguistic accommodation) has been investigated in many previous studies and is a highly relevant phenomenon in forensic authorship analysis. Accommodation has also been linked to personality traits, but there is still...

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Main Author: Karoline Marko
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-03-01
Series:Frontiers in Communication
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.840646/full
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author Karoline Marko
author_facet Karoline Marko
author_sort Karoline Marko
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description Converging towards or diverging from an interlocutor's speaking style (i.e., linguistic accommodation) has been investigated in many previous studies and is a highly relevant phenomenon in forensic authorship analysis. Accommodation has also been linked to personality traits, but there is still a lack of investigations of accommodation in computer-mediated communication. The present study thus aims at examining in how far emoji use is subject to accommodation in casual online interactions, and how reliable both emoji and emoticons are as markers of authorship. Further, this study is interested in finding out about connections between both emoji and emoticon use and the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to experiences, and extraversion. The results of the analysis show that the frequency of emoji use is indeed strongly influenced by conversation partners, and that both emoji and emoticon use correlate particularly with extraversion and agreeableness. Despite the influence of conversation partners on emoji use, it can further be shown that emoji and emoticons remain valuable markers of authorship to different degrees.
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spelling doaj.art-a429f59e1448434f854cbc199225cecd2022-12-22T00:41:31ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Communication2297-900X2022-03-01710.3389/fcomm.2022.840646840646“Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship AnalysisKaroline MarkoConverging towards or diverging from an interlocutor's speaking style (i.e., linguistic accommodation) has been investigated in many previous studies and is a highly relevant phenomenon in forensic authorship analysis. Accommodation has also been linked to personality traits, but there is still a lack of investigations of accommodation in computer-mediated communication. The present study thus aims at examining in how far emoji use is subject to accommodation in casual online interactions, and how reliable both emoji and emoticons are as markers of authorship. Further, this study is interested in finding out about connections between both emoji and emoticon use and the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, emotional stability, conscientiousness, openness to experiences, and extraversion. The results of the analysis show that the frequency of emoji use is indeed strongly influenced by conversation partners, and that both emoji and emoticon use correlate particularly with extraversion and agreeableness. Despite the influence of conversation partners on emoji use, it can further be shown that emoji and emoticons remain valuable markers of authorship to different degrees.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.840646/fulllinguistic style accommodationauthorshipforensic linguisticsinstant messagingexperiment
spellingShingle Karoline Marko
“Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
Frontiers in Communication
linguistic style accommodation
authorship
forensic linguistics
instant messaging
experiment
title “Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
title_full “Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
title_fullStr “Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
title_full_unstemmed “Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
title_short “Depends on Who I'm Writing To”—The Influence of Addressees and Personality Traits on the Use of Emoji and Emoticons, and Related Implications for Forensic Authorship Analysis
title_sort depends on who i m writing to the influence of addressees and personality traits on the use of emoji and emoticons and related implications for forensic authorship analysis
topic linguistic style accommodation
authorship
forensic linguistics
instant messaging
experiment
url https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.840646/full
work_keys_str_mv AT karolinemarko dependsonwhoimwritingtotheinfluenceofaddresseesandpersonalitytraitsontheuseofemojiandemoticonsandrelatedimplicationsforforensicauthorshipanalysis