They have cheered us up and brought colour to our lives, lengthened text-message conversations and been named as the word of the year. But it appears that emojis have more to give us.
According to one expert in linguistics, emojis have the potential to bridge the divide between the sexes and even to heal relationships. Vyv Evans argues that they can play a vital role in giving expression to emotions in digital communication.
Professor Evans is a former professor of linguistics at Bangor University and editor of a journal on language and cognitive science. His book The Emoji Code charts the way that smiley faces and similar ideograms are changing the way people communicate.
He said that men in particular would often take a statement