The Effect of Emojis on L2 Irony Processing for Chinese EFL Learners

ABSTRACT

Second language (L2) learners often struggle to draw on embodied emotional experiences in the target language, which impedes their rapid and accurate interpretation of nonliteral ironic meaning. Grounded in embodied cognition theory, the present study examined how emojis and the valence congruity between emojis and contextual information modulate Chinese EFL learners’ comprehension of positive and negative irony in computer‐mediated communication. The results of this study revealed that emojis improved accuracy in negative—but not positive—irony comprehension, whereas valence congruity enhanced accuracy in positive—but not negative—irony. Moreover, both the presence of emojis and valence congruity accelerated irony processing. These findings indicate that emojis and their emotional valences facilitate L2 irony processing by bolstering learners’ sensitivity to speakers’ affective states, and offer important implications for L2 discourse processing research from an embodied cognition perspective.