朗读 | The Secret of Emoji

微信 emoji 表情大揭秘 The Secret of WeChat Emoji 听说昨天有一篇揭秘emoji表情中的“微笑脸”为什么那么诡异那么不受待见的文章刷爆了小伙伴们的朋友圈！然而因为文章是纯英文的，所以很多小伙伴读着不开心！于是小译赶紧连夜加班赶了这篇双语对照版，大家快来围观吧~ What does Becca mean? a. It really doesn't matter, I can wait. b. That's not cool, I'm leaving. Becca 的话是什么意思呢？ a、没关系，我等你。 b、没劲，我要走了，不等你了。 Hey emoji user, guess you also encounterd with this situation once or twice. How come a simple message could be interpreted into two meanings that are way too different? Guess this is the culprit! 嘿，如果你用过emoji表情包，我猜你也遇到过一两次这样的情况。那么为什么一条很简单的信息能被解读为两种完全不同的意思呢？它就是罪魁祸首！ There's a bunch of WeChat users complain about this smiling face emoji, say it doesn't look quite friendly. Generally, young people are more tend to dislike this emoji, using it when expressing negative sentiments like satire, helplessness, speechlessness, while the middle-aged users and the elders feel good about it, see it as a normal smile emoji. 一大批的微信用户抱怨这个笑脸表情，吐槽它看上去并不友善。一般来说，年轻人更讨厌这个表情，年轻人用它来表达像讽刺、无助、无语这样的负面情绪。然而，中年人以及老年用户却很喜欢这个表情，觉得这就是一个正常的笑脸。 Apparently it causes miscommunication between users from different age groups. 显然，这就让不同年龄段的用户对彼此产生误会。 为什么呢？ Why this smiling face seems so FAKE and makes people feel uncomfortable? Most people agree that the crux of the matter is the eyes. 为什么这个表情看起来很假，让人感觉不舒服呢？许多人认为是这个表情的眼睛在作祟。 People always narrow their eyes when having a REAL smile, like these smiling or laughing emojis in WeChat: 当人们发自肺腑的微笑时，眼镜会眯起来，就像微信里面以下几个微笑或大笑表情： And let's see some other emoji renderings, they all make people feel joyful, with their eyes narrowed. 让我们来看一下其它几个emoji给人的感觉，它们眼睛都是眯得弯弯的，让人感觉喜气洋洋！ Now have a look at this: 现在我们看一下这个表情： Wow...!!! Kind of frightening, isn't it? 我的天哪！！！是不是有点吓人？ This little yellow face has his eyes widely open, while dropping down his pupils, normally we call it a “blank stare”. This kind of look is usually read as negative emotions. 这个小黄脸上的眼睛睁的大大的，没有瞳孔，显得非常的呆滞。人们认为这种表情通常传达的是负面情绪。 See following emojis: 看一下接下来的emojis： And maybe this... 甚至这个…… Not feeling quite cozy right? 感觉并不是非常舒服？ Then how about these, do they feel better? 那这些怎么样，它们能让你感觉好点么？ And this! 还有这个！ So much better with his sunglasses covering those vacant eyes. 所以，用墨镜遮住空洞的眼神会变的好很多！ What's more, an investigation found surprisingly that people interpret emoji renderings quite differently even though these emojis all have same grinning face and smiling eyes. GroupLens from University of Minnesota released a report in April this year. To conduct survey, they chose 5 platform renderings (Apples, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, LG) of 22 of the most popular anthropomorphic (i.e., human-looking) emojis. 更重要的是，研究表明，就算所有的emojis表情都有一样的笑脸和笑眯眯的眼睛，人们对这些表情的解读依旧大相径庭，令人大跌眼镜！来自明尼苏达州大学的GroupLens小组今年4月发表了一份报告。为了调研，这个小组选择了5个平台（苹果、谷歌、微软、三星、LG）中最常用的的22个人脸emojis。 They asked the participants to describe the emoji renderings in words, also to assess the emotional meaning or sentiment on a scale from -5 (strongly negative) to 5 (strongly positive). The result turned out to be like this: 他们让参与测试的人描述一下这几个表情，并且给它们传达出来的情感打分。分值从－5分（最负面）到5（最积极）。结果如下： Apple emoji got even a negative score！ 苹果公司的emoji甚至得了一个负分！ Here's an interpretation that people generally have for this Apple emoji: 对于这个苹果公司的emoji，人们通常是这样认为的： The interpretations towards the same emoji are varied from people to people, it could be determined by cultural background, age group and many other factors. 每个人对相同的emoji的看法有所不同，这有可能是文化背景差异、年龄不同等因素导致的。 Here are some more emojis from WeChat, and their "Official" Meanings and "Real" meanings: 我们还给大家列出了微信的其它emojis，以及它们的“官方”含义和“真正”含义： In the end, let's go back to this emoji. 最后，让我们回到这个emoji上。 We are not saying that using this smiling face emoji is inappropriate, and there's no so-called “official” meaning or “real” meaning. The meaning of this emoji, also the others with controversy among people, is only based on personal interpretation which could be quite diverse. 我们不是说用这个表情不恰当，其实根本没有所谓的“官方”含义和“真正”含义。人们对这个emoji以及其它备受争议的emojis的看法都是仁者见仁，智者见智。 Though many of the young people in China use this emoji as a negative rendering, there is still quite a bunch of people use it when try to convey their kindness, so don't be upset when people send you this. But next time you have a conversation with people on WeChat, try to comprehend the emojis he or she send in the context of full text message, it may help to avoid a good deal of the potential for miscommunication. 虽然许多中国年轻人用这个emoji表达负面情绪，但是依旧还是有很多人用它来传达友善，所以当有人给你发这个表情的时候，不要不开心！但是下一次当你在微信上聊天时，把emojis融到整个聊天信息中去理解，这样就会避免许多误会。