: Re: Should an emoji come before or after a full-stop? When I make a hilarious joke on social media it's easy to put an emoji/emoticon/smiley on the end. But sometimes I want to set the context

@Sent2472441

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As someone who used emoticons and kaomoji before emoji became widely used, I tend to put emojis where I would put an emoticon or kaomoji. For me, that tends to be either after punctuation or in place of punctuation, and I've seen many people who did/do the same :D But I've also seen many people who put an emoticon or text face before punctuation. ^^;

I think that emoji that are illustrative should be put next to their corresponding words (if the emoji aren't outright replacing the words), and if those words are at the end of a sentence and there's another sentence afterward, then I think the emoji should go before the punctuation so that the emoji is not separated from the word it's illustrating.

For emoji that are more like gestures (like their own individual messages--thumbs up, the thinking face, etc), if I don't use them to replace punctuation entirely, then I put mine after punctuation for two reasons:

I see them as akin to punchlines or self-reactions to whatever I just said
If punctuation is present, then I delay the finishing tone (the falling tone when you finish an arbitrary statement in English) in my head until I see the punctuation, and I don't want other people to read my sentences with unfinished tones

I also don't see post-punctuation emoji as attached to the next sentence, but I can definitely see why others might see it that way.

For further reading, something off the top of my head is Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, which is a fascinating read in general and has a chapter titled "Emoji and Other Internet Gestures". Lauren Gawne helped greatly with this chapter. McCulloch is a linguist and Gawne is a linguist who does research on gestures, which are also called emblems. I haven't looked at Gawne's research separately, though; I've only read McCulloch's book.

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