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Article published In: Beyond Words: Pragmatic approaches to visual discourses in digital interactions
Edited by Agnese Sampietro and Carmen Pérez-Sabater
[Internet Pragmatics 8:2] 2025
► pp. 214–240

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Kisses and peaches

A pragmatic perspective on how emojis are used by online child sexual groomers

 | Universitat Politècnica de València
Published online: 11 July 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ip.00126.gar
Abstract
Emojis are mentioned in online child sexual grooming (OCSG) studies. However, research on such emojis in OCSG contexts is still in its infancy. In this investigation, we report the findings of the first linguistic analysis of emojis in OCSG discourse. The data comprise 70 chat logs (103,386 words, 3604 emojis) between offenders and real minors. The analysis, using a corpus-assisted discourse studies approach (Partington, Alan. 2010. “Modern diachronic corpus-assisted discourse studies (MDCADS) on UK newspapers: An overview of the project.” Corpora 5(2): 83–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), indicates that groomers predominantly use rapport enhancement and maintenance orientated emojis (Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2005. “(Im)Politeness, face and perceptions of rapport: Unpackaging their bases and interrelationships.” Journal of Politeness Research 1(1): 95–120. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This suggests that groomers employ emojis to shape their interactions feigning a false love relationship/friendship with their victims, which reveals their clear manipulation tactics. Finally, an analysis of collocates for two of the most frequent emojis (‘red heart’ and ‘smirking face’) is presented. The results show that they collocate with endearment terms, sexually vague and explicit terms, which highlights that emojis are a strategy employed in groomers’ discourse for a certain purpose.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Emojis and online child sexual grooming discourse
    • 2.1Online child sexual grooming: A linguistic approach
    • 2.2Emojis
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Procedure
  • 4.Results and their interpretation
    • 4.1Emoji frequency in groomers’ messages
    • 4.2❤ (‘read heart’) and 😏 (‘smirking face’): What the strongest collocates say about groomers’ use of emojis
    • 4.3Functions of emojis in OCSG discourse
      • 4.3.1Reinforcing the feeling of being in a relationship or friendship or that they are starting one
      • 4.3.2Gauging the victims’ receptiveness to sexual conversations
        • 4.3.2.1Introducing the sexual topic playfully
        • 4.3.2.2Using implicit sexual emojis
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (62)
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Pérez-Sabater, Carmen
2025. “Emojis are grown-up stuff”. Internet Pragmatics 8:2 ► pp. 152 ff. DOI logo

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