男人用表情符號代替文字會不會太娘

A specter is haunting our communications: the specter of emoji. Right now, it’s likely that someone you know is texting a thumbs-up image to confirm a meeting, or maybe sending off a friendly ghost emoji to say “boo” to a friend.
人們在日常的溝通中飄蕩着名爲“emoji表情”的幽靈。很可能就在此刻某個你認識的人就正在發送豎起拇指的表情確認一個會議，或向朋友發送一個友好的鬼怪表情來表達不屑之意。

Yet the little guys (and gals, and farm animals, and foodstuffs) aren’t without controversy. Word-centric fuddy-duddies see the decline of literacy reflected in their heart-shaped eyes, while guardians of decorum lament the spread of greasy kid stuff dripping from the characters’ snail trails.
然而這些小男孩（還有女孩、農場動物和食物）圖標並非毫無爭議。那些崇尚文字的老古董們用自己的心靈之窗目睹了文字的衰退，那些禮儀的衛道士們則感慨從這些表情的蝸牛路跡上淋漓滴下的黏膩幼稚的東西在擴散。

Given their resemblance to the stickers that adorn the notebooks of schoolgirls, not to mention their widespread adoption as the lingua franca of tweens and teens everywhere, some people wonder whether grown men should be using them at all.
考慮到它們與還在念書的女生們用來裝飾筆記本的心形圖案十分相似，更不用提它們被全世界的青少年拿來廣泛使用，導致一些人開始對成年男性究竟能否使用它們產生了懷疑。

John McWhorter, a linguist who teaches at Columbia University, said that some men shy away from emoji because, as he put it, “Women use them more.” That may not continue to be the case, he added.
在哥倫比亞大學教學的語言學家約翰·麥克沃特(John McWhorter)表示一些男性對使用emoji表情心懷顧忌的原因在於，用他的話說就是“女人才愛用咧”。他又補充說道，現在已經不是這種狀況了。

“Women tend to be more overtly expressive in language,” he said. “But something women start in language has a way of making it to men. Men would benefit from using emoji more.”
“女性在語言表達方面往往有着壓倒性的優勢，”他說。“但女人把語言方面的發明可以推廣到男人中去。男人也將從使用emoji中受益。”

Emoji, he said, allow for an expressive, human way of translating the spoken word into text, with the goofy symbols providing a texter or tweeter with the means to convey tone. “There should be male ways to use emoji,” he added.
他表示，emoji表情符是一種能有效將口語轉化爲文字的人性化方式，發短信或推特的人用這些蠢萌的表情符號來表達語氣。“emoji也該有男子漢式的用法。”他補充道。

While Mr. McWhorter, 49, does not use emoji himself, citing his age, he is an admirer . “I’m not known as the most progressive person in the world, but in some ways I like them,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”
而49歲的麥克沃特表示，雖然囿於年齡，他並非emoji表情的用戶，但卻是emoji的青睞者之一。“我倒不是全球最與時俱進的人，但我就是喜歡它們的某些地方，”他說，“我是鐵桿粉絲。”

Other experts (that is, emoji users themselves) are less definitive. “It’s a fine line,” said Melissa Karlin, 35, a Chicago-based accounts manager for Kenshoo, a software company. “Emoji-ing is a dance.”
其他專家（也就是，那些會使用emoji表情的人）倒沒這麼堅定。“很不錯的產品，”35歲的梅麗莎·卡琳(Melissa Karlin)說，她擔任Kenshoo公司在芝加哥的客戶經理。“用emoji表情就像一支舞蹈。”

She noted that some men use emoji in ways she finds inscrutable, particularly in the context of romance, when they are given to texting the symbol of the winky face with the tongue sticking out. “I don’t know what it means,” Ms. Karlin said.
她表示一些男士使用emoji表情的方式讓她無法理解，尤其是在浪漫的氛圍下，他們熱衷於發那個眨眼吐舌的符號。“我不知道這是要說什麼，”卡琳說。

She offered a piece of advice for potential suitors: “Use your words. I’m a big fan of using your words.”
她向所有可能的追求者提了個建議：“用文字，我其實超喜歡你們直接用文字表達。”

In a discussion that appeared last year on Yahoo Answers, one anonymous poster said of emoji: “They’re fun but I just find them emasculating!” In a spirited thread on the same topic over on Reddit, another emoji user counseled, “Like anything else, moderation is key.”
去年在雅虎知道(Yahoo Answers)上出現的一場討論裏，一位匿名用戶這麼評價emoji表情：“它們很好玩，但我覺得它們太娘炮了！”這一話題在Reddit論壇上也有一篇引發熱議的帖子，其中一位emoji使用者建議，“和其他事情一樣，關鍵是要適度。”

And yet many men find themselves grasping for emoji where words either fail them or come up short (prawn, perhaps).
而許多男性發現自己想不起詞（比如說，忘了蝦怎麼寫）或語塞的時候，就會求助emoji表情。

The tennis star Roger Federer sprinkles his tweets with them, and Mike Scott, a 6-foot-8 forward with the Atlanta Hawks, has several emoji tattoos, including the pair of dancing girls with bunny ears. The rapper Drake blew up the Internet last fall when a photograph of a praying-hands emoji tattoo, inked onto his right forearm, surfaced on Instagram.
網球巨星羅傑·費德勒(Roger Federer)在推特上偶爾使用emoji表情，6英尺8英寸（約合2.03米）高的亞特蘭大老鷹隊(Atlanta Hawks)前鋒邁克·斯科特(Mike Scott)在身上紋了幾個emoji表情，其中一個是跳舞的兔耳女郎。去年秋天，說唱歌手德雷克(Drake)在instagram上發佈了紋有雙手合十祈禱的emoji表情的右前臂照片，在網上掀起軒然大波。

Jordan Peele, of the sketch comedy duo Key & Peele, proved his fluency when he retold the story of “The Shining” through 96 carefully selected emoji packed into a single tweet, an effort that has won him more than 13,000 retweets.
雙人喜劇秀“基和皮爾(Key & Peele)”中的喬丹·皮爾(Jordan Peele)對使用emoji表情簡直得心應手，他發了一條推特，用96個精選emoji表情敘述了《閃靈》(The Shining)的故事，轉發量達1萬3千多次。

Certain men embrace emoji while holding them at a remove. Gil Schwartz, a CBS executive who writes under the name Stanley Bing, called himself a “rare user of ironic emojis.” He said he is partial to the pig and the horse. “I use them because I think they’re stupid,” he said. “At some point, texting is kind of stupid.”
有些人雖然接受emoji表情，但卻用得很剋制。筆名斯坦利·賓(Stanley Bing)的哥倫比亞廣播公司主管吉爾·舒瓦茲(Gil Schwartz)，稱自己是一個“很少使用諷刺性emoji表情的人”。他說自己更偏愛豬和馬。“我用它們是因爲覺得它們看起來很蠢，”他說。“有的時候，發短信本身也有點蠢。”

He has no fear that using them may somehow put a dent in his masculinity. “For a moment you’re Taylor Swift,” said Mr. Schwartz, who is 63. “If you’re confident in your manhood, you can certainly lapse into Taylor Swift-hood momentarily.”
他一點也不擔心使用emoji表情會折損自己的男子漢氣概。“有的時候你就是泰勒·斯威夫特(Taylor Swift)，”現年63歲的舒瓦茲說。“如果你自信夠男人，那變成泰勒·斯威夫特一會兒當然沒什麼問題。”

Amina Akhtar, the editorial director of TheFashionSpot, a website, isn’t buying it. “If I’m seeing a guy, and he emojis, I feel uncomfortable,” said Ms. Akhtar, 37. “We’re too old to be doing this. To have a man in his 40s and 50s using emojis is uncomfortable to me.”
TheFashionSpot網站的主編阿米娜·阿赫塔爾(Amina Akhtar)顯然不接受這套說辭。“看到一個男人用emoji表情符，我一定會覺得不舒服，”37歲的阿赫塔爾說。“這些對我們來說太幼稚了。一個男人在四五十歲的時候還用emoji表情符，實在讓我覺得不自在。”

Katey Nilan, a 29-year-old writer and tech consultant in San Francisco, said: “If Drake can emoji, anyone can emoji. He’s pretty hard.” She added that, while she is pro emoji , there are limits . Like Ms. Karlin, she finds the winky face tongue-wagging emoji troublesome, especially when it is sent by men trying to flirt. “It seems like that’s the go-to if a guy can’t come up with something else to say,” Ms. Nilan said.
29歲的卡蒂·尼蘭(Katey Nilan)現居舊金山，是作家兼技術顧問，她表示：“如果德雷克都能用emoji表情符的話，那誰都可以用。他挺有男子漢氣概的。”她補充說，儘管自己支持emoji表情符，但仍覺得它有不足之處。她和卡琳一樣，覺得眨眼吐舌的emoji表情有點煩，尤其當一些男人在調情的時候使用它們。“感覺男人想不出說什麼的時候 ，準會打出這樣的表情，”尼蘭說。

What does she do after she receives that one?
她收到這個表情後一般怎麼辦？

“Ghost,” she said.
“鬼啊，”她答道。

Meaning, she replies with the ghost emoji?
意思是，回一個鬼魂的emoji表情符？

“No, no, no,” she said. “Ghosting is when you stop texting.”
“不不不，”她說。“意思是不聊了，你去見鬼。”

Stephen Lynch, a 33-year-old public relations professional in San Francisco, holds that emoji are neither good nor bad in themselves. “People can be as creepy using emoji as anything else,” he said. “Some people have troubled communication no matter what.”
現居舊金山的33歲公關專家史蒂芬·林奇(Stephen Lynch)認爲emoji表情符本身沒什麼好也沒什麼不好。“像其他任何東西一樣，人們有本事把emoji表情符用得很變態，”他說。“有些人就是有溝通障礙，跟用什麼沒關係。”

To him, furthermore, the question of whether grown men should use emoji is loaded. “The whole ‘should’ reeks of an old-fashioned and hetero-normative view of the world,” he said. “Second thing is, why wouldn’t they reciprocate?”
對他來說，成人男性是否應該使用emoji表情符的問題本身就具有導向性。“‘應該’這個詞指向的是異性戀主導、老套的世界觀，”他說。“另外一點是，他們爲什麼就不能用相同方式回覆別人呢？”

In other words, if someone sends you an emoji, why not reply in kind? “Why wouldn’t you engage in the same way someone is engaging you?” Mr. Lynch said.
換句話說，如果有人給你發了個emoji表情符，爲什麼不回他一個？“爲什麼不能融入別人爲你營造的言語環境？”林奇說。

Bruce Feirstein, a screenwriter and journalist living in Los Angeles, seems to agree: “When my 14-year-old son sends me the face palm emoji, I laugh. I immediately respond. But that’s a conversation with my 14-year-old son.”
住在洛杉磯的編劇、記者布魯斯·費爾斯坦(Bruce Feirstein)對此表示同意：“我14歲的兒子給我發了用手捂臉的emoji表情符後，我笑了，然後很快就回復了他。但這是和我14歲兒子的對話。”

His business correspondence, on the other hand, has a tone that doesn’t allow for a smiley face, or even the mustache man. “It’s all about context,” he said. “I’ve never gotten a serious piece of communication or a message from an adult with an emoji.”
反觀另一面，他商業上的一切通信往來都透着一種連笑臉都加不進去的腔調，甚至連個小鬍子男人的表情也加不進去。“都是由內容決定的，”他說。“我從沒收到過成年人發來帶有emoji表情符的正式通信或消息。”

Mr. Feirstein, 61, is something of an authority on the subject of what men should or should not do, having written the 1982 best seller “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche,” a satirical “Guidebook to All That Is Truly Masculine,” as the subtitle put it.
61歲的費爾斯坦堪稱男人該做什麼不該做什麼這方面的權威，他著有《真男人不吃蛋餅》(Real Men Don’t eat Quiche)一書，1982年成了暢銷書。如副標題所說，它是諷刺風格的“真正男子漢的行爲指南(Guidebook to All That Is Truly Masculine)”。

“When I wrote the book, things were simpler than they are now,” he said. “I don’t know if, in the year 2015, defining what a ‘real man’ would do or not do is relevant, because the culture has changed. I don’t know if you can make these grand pronouncements anymore.”
“我寫書的時候，事情比現在簡單不少，”他說。“我不知道在2015年，討論‘真男人’的定義還有沒有意義，因爲文化改變了。我不知道現在還能不能做這麼宏大的聲明瞭。”

Besides, grand pronouncements are likely to have no effect on how language is changing in the digital sphere. “I say it’s like a new form of communication,” said Adrian Rodriguez, a 26-year-old office manager in San Francisco. “It’s just the way things are evolving. It’s just there. You don’t want to overthink it.”
此外，這類宏大的聲明似乎也無法撼動電子領域的語言變化。“我覺得這像是一種新的傳播方式，”舊金山26歲的辦公室經理艾德里安·羅德里格斯(Adrian Rodriguez)說。“只是事物演進的方式罷了。它就存在於這個世界上。真的不用想太多。”