Multimodalität in den Relationen zwischen Sprache und Emojis auf Facebook-Profilen polnischer Universitäten

The article addresses the problem of multimodal relations between language and emojis, based on the postings on Facebook profiles of universities in Poland. It begins with a summary of the current state of research on emoticons / emojis and then proceeds to discuss their functions. The subsequent analysis is grounded on the catalogue of nine functions of emojis, distinguished by Pappert (2017): relationship design, commentary / evaluation, modalisation, framing, structuring, presentation, ludic function, economisation, and decoration. The analysis focusses on 50 postings published on the Facebook profiles of five largest Polish universities during the period from 1st June to 7th June 2022, of which 39 contain at least one emoji. Its results indicate that the most frequent functions of emojis in such postings are structuring, commentary / evaluation and relationship design, whereas the analysed material does not provide any evidence for ludic function. Regardless of their specific functions, the mere presence of emojis in the majority of postings on university profiles may be also perceived from a broader perspective as a consequence of the compromise between the so far rather distant style of communication employed by universities and their social media presence.