THE HIDDEN MEANING OF EMOJIS IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE: A PRAGMATIC AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS
Keywords:
emoji; advertising discourse; pragmatics; semantics; implicature; illocutionary force; digital communication.Abstract
The article analyses emojis in advertising discourse as carriers of implicit, context-dependent and culturally coded meanings. Drawing on semiotic, semantic and pragmatic theory, the study proposes a five-part functional description of emojis in Uzbek-language digital advertising: referential, illocutionary-modulating, intensifying, deictic-structural and culturally coded. It is shown that emojis rarely duplicate the verbal message; rather, they soften or strengthen directives, generate implicatures of urgency and reliability, and activate cultural frames. The polysemy of emojis, platform-dependent rendering and accessibility problems are discussed as factors of communicative risk. The results may be applied in advertising linguistics, digital pragmatics and copywriting practice.