1.Introduction

Today’s communication landscape has evolved into a multimodal semiotic ecosystem encompassing various sign systems, where meaning is constructed not only through textual discourse but also through visual and symbolic modes such as videos, memes, stickers, and emojis, along with innovative verbal-visual combinations. Consequently, multimodal digital communication has become an essential object of analysis in disciplines such as linguistics, especially pragmatics (Yus 2023Yus, Francisco 2023 Pragmatics of Internet Humour. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. , 2025Yus, Francisco 2025 Emoji Pragmatics: Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ), sociolinguistics (Seargeant 2019Seargeant, Philip 2019 The Emoji Revolution: How Technology is Shaping the Future of Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ), systemic-functional linguistics (Logi and Zappavigna 2023Logi, Lorenzo, and Michele Zappavigna 2023 “A Social Semiotic Perspective on Emoji: How Emoji and Language Interact to Make Meaning in Digital Messages.” New Media & Society 25 (12): 3222–3246. ), semiotics, communication and media studies (Sampietro 2023Sampietro, Agnese 2023 “El Auge de los ‘Stickers’ en WhatsApp y la Evolución de la Comunicación Digital [The Rise of WhatsApp Stickers and the Evolution of Digital Communication].” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 94: 271–285. ; Ge-Stadnyk et al. 2025Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ). This trend towards research on multimodality showcases the increasing integration of various semiotic resources (i.e. modes) such as emojis, memes, stickers, and GIFs into everyday interactions (Herring and Dainas 2017Herring, Susan, and Ashley Dainas 2017 “ ‘Nice Picture Comment!’: Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads.” In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. ). Chen and Siu (2017)Chen, Xin, and Kin Wai Michael Siu 2017 “Exploring User Behaviour of Emoticon Use among Chinese Youth.” Behaviour & Information Technology 36 (6): 637–649. highlight that young adults use these graphicons11.Graphicons are “visual props” resorted to by social media users in order to complement plain text with additional information. These include emojis, stickers, GIFs, images and memes, among others. to enhance the accuracy, sociability, and efficiency of their messaging conversations.

In this regard, messaging has clearly emerged as a vital means for interacting with individuals or groups online. Each messaging app exhibits specific interface affordances and entails limitations that shape the quality of the interactions carried out therein, thereby influencing how interactions are constructed, how users encode their messages, and the quality of their interpretations (Yus 2022Yus, Francisco 2022 Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Abingdon: Routledge.).

According to Chambers (2017)Chambers, Deborah 2017 “Networked Intimacy: Algorithmic Friendship and Scalable Sociality.” European Journal of Communication 32 (1): 26–36. , these apps offer an ideal environment for creating a sense of social awareness and perceiving the readiness of friends and acquaintances for interaction, hence forming social bonds through the exchange of information, often of a trivial kind. With the aid of emojis, stickers, GIFs, text alterations and a playful use of punctuation (Androutsopoulos 2000Androutsopoulos, Jannis 2000 “Non-Standard Spellings in Media Texts: The Case of German Fanzines.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (4): 514–533. ), users face no major problems to convey their intended interpretation beyond the cues-filtered quality of plain typed text, as is the case when they want the messaging conversations to shift into a “play frame” (Bateson 1972Bateson, Gregory 1972 “A Theory of Play and Fantasy.” In Steps to an Ecology of Mind, ed. by Gregory. A. Bateson, 177–193. New York: Chandler.), a major reason why users resort to stickers in the first place, together with the more general need to express emotions and attitudes more accurately through graphicon use (Herring and Dainas 2017Herring, Susan, and Ashley Dainas 2017 “ ‘Nice Picture Comment!’: Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads.” In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. ).

An example is humour, as already mentioned. Through the use of stickers, participants in a conversation can effectively signal it, also adding an element of fun, conveying emotion, or making a point (Tagg 2015Tagg, Caroline 2015 Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action. London: Routledge. ), as happens when a sticker serves as a “nudge” to prompt a response. Our research specifically focuses on custom stickers, which are grassroots cultural creations spreading from individuals to wider audiences. The prevalence of custom stickers exemplifies the current trend towards personalisation, one of the key social affordances of computer-mediated communication (Wellman et al. 2003Wellman, Barry, Anabel Quan-Haase, Jeffrey Boase, Wenhong Chen, Keith Hampton, Isabel Díaz, and Kakuko Miyata 2003 “The Social Affordances of the Internet for Networked Individualism.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 8 (3). ). This personalised form of expression is tailored to individual preferences and needs, promoting a more individualised way of interacting in the online space, also aided by the fact that stickers are exclusive to specific apps and cannot be shared or transferred across apps (Tang and Hew 2018Tang, Ying, and Khe Foon Hew 2018 “Emoticon, Emoji, and Sticker Use in Computer-Mediated Communications: Understanding Its Communicative Function, Impact, User Behavior, and Motive.” In New Media for Educational Change: Selected Papers from HKAECT 2018 International Conference, 191–201. Cham: Springer. ).

Research in this respect has predominantly focused on memes and emojis (Sampietro 2023Sampietro, Agnese 2023 “El Auge de los ‘Stickers’ en WhatsApp y la Evolución de la Comunicación Digital [The Rise of WhatsApp Stickers and the Evolution of Digital Communication].” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 94: 271–285. ; Yus 2025Yus, Francisco 2025 Emoji Pragmatics: Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ), with comparatively less attention given to sticker use, especially in Western societies. Previous studies have primarily discussed traditional stickers, such as those on platforms such as Facebook or Line, which typically feature minimal or predefined expressions (Herring and Dainas 2017Herring, Susan, and Ashley Dainas 2017 “ ‘Nice Picture Comment!’: Graphicons in Facebook Comment Threads.” In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. ). Moreover, there has been limited empirical research into the reasons for using stickers on WhatsApp. Konrad et al. (2020)Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. noted the widespread popularity of stickers in Asian countries and their increasing trend in Western countries too, highlighting the need for further research in this area. Indeed, stickers are pervasive in Asian countries, on apps such as WeChat, often used as a compensation for the effort involved in using Chinese characters in messaging conversations. To address this gap, our study aims to explore the pragmatic functions and uses of multimodal custom stickers in Spanish WhatsApp conversations.

Accordingly, in this paper we start with a discussion and synthesis of what the literature has commented on stickers from the perspective of pragmatics and computer-mediated communication studies, followed by the main objectives along with a review of the corpus selected and the methodology employed. Through a detailed analysis, we develop and implement a first (to our knowledge) proposal of pragmatic sticker functions grouped into three sets, which is exemplified through a detailed examination of an extensive corpus of examples. Next, in the discussion section, we delve into the major findings resulting from the corpus analysis. Finally, a conclusion provides an overview of the main results and the implications for the study of stickers.

2.Theoretical background

Stickers have recently acquired a prominent role in today’s graphicon use on messaging apps. Tang et al. (2021)Tang, Ying, Khe Foon Hew, Susan Herring, and Qian Chen 2021 “Miscommunication through Stickers in Online Group Discussions: A Multiple-Case Study.” Discourse & Communication 15 (5): 582–606. suggest that stickers are used as frequently, if not more so, than emojis on messaging apps, which is especially prominent among the younger generations. Jezouit (2017)Jezouit, Ben 2017 “Are Stickers the New Emoji?” Envato Blog. https://​envato​.com​/blog​/stickers​-new​-emoji/ (accessed June 18, 2024). even refers to them as the “magic bullets” of social media, facilitating instant and seamless communication (see Lim 2015Lim, Sun-Sun 2015 “On Stickers and Communicative Fluidity in Social Media.” Social Media + Society 1 (1). ).

Although they are easily identifiable for being larger than emojis and for not being embedded into a text-based message (i.e. they necessarily need to be sent as an independent message), stickers have been defined in different ways, mostly emphasising that they are offered as thematic sets (de Seta 2018de Seta, Gabriele 2018 “Biaoqing: The Circulation of Emoticons, Emoji, Stickers, and Custom Images on Chinese Digital Media Platforms.” First Monday 23 (9). ), and exhibit illustrations or animations of characters with or without in-sticker text (Konrad et al. 2020Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. ). In this sense, drawing on existing literature (Konrad et al. 2020Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. ; Ge-Stadnyk et al. 2025Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ; Linares-Bernabéu and Alvarado-Ortega 2025Linares Bernabéu, Esther, and M. Belén Alvarado Ortega 2025 “Unveiling Humour in Digital Discourse: The Pragmatic Functions of Humorous Stickers in Spanish WhatsApp Chat Groups.” Lodz Papers in Pragmatics. ), we define stickers as “images that have been cropped for use, larger than emoticons and emojis, capable of carrying text or being animated, and sent individually or in themed sets on instant messaging apps and social networks.”

Stickers have been regarded as the most pervasive visual discourse in today’s messaging practices, particularly among young users, as previously stated. Konrad et al. (2020)Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. identified three phases in the life cycle of a graphicon: (a) an early phase, marked by initial innovation, variable use, and growing popularisation; (b) a high phase, characterised by overlapping functions with other discourses, the displacement of older discourses, and a tendency towards conventionalisation; and (c) a decline/conventionalisation phase, where popularity decreases due to frequent use.

According to these authors, stickers have reached the stage where their meaning overlaps with other discourses. However, given that Konrad et al.’s study was published in 2020 and considering the substantial increase in sticker usage nowadays, it is possible that stickers are moving towards the phase of displacing competing discourses such as GIFs and emojis. Nonetheless, recent research offers a more nuanced perspective. In their longitudinal study on sticker use in Bilibili, Zhang et al. (2025)Zhang, Yiqiong, Susan Herring, Yanmin Wu, and Rongle Tan 2025 “Graphicon Evolution on Bilibili: A Historically Informed Socio-Technical Approach”. Information Research 30: 798–814. express uncertainty about whether there is a genuine decline in emoji usage. Rather than being supplanted by stickers, emojis may instead be coexisting with them, each fulfilling distinct communicative needs. This suggests that, rather than a strict replacement, the relationship between stickers and emojis may be more dynamic and context-dependent. While stickers offer greater expressivity — through animations, diverse referents, and character depictions (Cha et al. 2018Cha, Yoonjeong, Jongwon Kim, Sangkeun Park, Mun Yong Yi, and Uichin Lee 2018 “Complex and Ambiguous: Understanding Sticker Misinterpretations in Instant Messaging.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2 ( CSCW ): 1–22. ) — as well as the ability to incorporate cultural, social, or group-specific elements (Konrad et al. 2020Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. ) and convey complex emotions (Gao et al., 2020Gao, Sheng, Xin Chen, Cheng Liu, Liang Liu, Dawei Zhao, and Ruiming Yan 2020 “Learning to Respond with Stickers: A Framework of Unifying Multi-Modality in Multi-Turn Dialog.” In Proceedings of the Web Conference 2020 , 1138–1148. ACM. ), emojis may still retain a role in digital discourse, coexisting rather than being entirely replaced (Yus 2025Yus, Francisco 2025 Emoji Pragmatics: Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ).

Sticker use, just like any other discourse on messaging apps, is favoured or limited by the interface affordances,22.As an example of app affordances impacting on sticker use, WhatsApp has recently enabled users to create custom stickers by using images from other sources and then editing them with simple tools made available on the interface (see de Seta 2018de Seta, Gabriele 2018 “Biaoqing: The Circulation of Emoticons, Emoji, Stickers, and Custom Images on Chinese Digital Media Platforms.” First Monday 23 (9). ; Tang et al. 2021Tang, Ying, Khe Foon Hew, Susan Herring, and Qian Chen 2021 “Miscommunication through Stickers in Online Group Discussions: A Multiple-Case Study.” Discourse & Communication 15 (5): 582–606. ; Ge-Stadnyk et al. 2025Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ). Once these stickers are shared in WhatsApp conversations, other users can collect and save them in their local sticker gallery and, of course, manipulate them for their own communicative purposes. also called interface-related constraints (Yus 2022Yus, Francisco 2022 Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Abingdon: Routledge.). The impossibility to embed stickers into typed text has already been mentioned, to which the possibility of wrong turn allocation by the system should be added, all of which entails pragmatic implications (for example, proneness to misunderstandings). Stickers are also app-specific and cannot be transferred across apps (Saharan et al. 2024Saharan, Akash, Anjuman Antil, and Satyam 2024 “Impression Management to Extended-Self: Effect of WhatsApp Stickers Usage Among Young Adults.” International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 40 (1): 1–14.). Similarly, sticker use is constrained by user-related constraints, among them personality (e.g. Chang and Lee 2016Chang, Ya-Chiao, and Jiunde Lee 2016 “The Impact of Social Context and Personality Toward the Usage of Stickers in LINE.” In Social Computing and Social Media (SCSM 20216), 114–122. Cham: Springer. , 120), cultural context and gender roles.

In any case, stickers are now widely used worldwide, among other reasons because their retrieval is now easier thanks to improvements in interface design, especially in Asian messaging apps (Zhou et al. 2017Zhou, Rui, Jasmine Hentschel, and Neha Kumar 2017 “Goodbye Text, Hello Emoji: Mobile Communication on WeChat in China.” In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 748–759. ACM. , 753; Gao et al. 2020Gao, Sheng, Xin Chen, Cheng Liu, Liang Liu, Dawei Zhao, and Ruiming Yan 2020 “Learning to Respond with Stickers: A Framework of Unifying Multi-Modality in Multi-Turn Dialog.” In Proceedings of the Web Conference 2020 , 1138–1148. ACM. ). Personalisation and creativity have also been encouraged by the incorporation into the interface of areas to design the users’ own stickers.

In this paper, we will primarily focus on stickers that integrate text and image as multimodal signs, and, to a lesser extent, on text-only stickers, examining their role within the broader semiotic landscape of digital communication. This focus is grounded in the fact that stickers combining text and image offer greater communicative versatility, as they can convey meaning through both visual and verbal modes (Cha et al. 2018Cha, Yoonjeong, Jongwon Kim, Sangkeun Park, Mun Yong Yi, and Uichin Lee 2018 “Complex and Ambiguous: Understanding Sticker Misinterpretations in Instant Messaging.” Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2 ( CSCW ): 1–22. ). The presence of these semiotic resources also seems to be related to users’ search for clarity and their attempt to avoid misunderstandings, as they draw on both discursive and visual modes to construct meaning (Oberwinkler 2023Oberwinkler, Michaela 2023 “Digital Stickers in Japanese LINE Communication.” Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft 38 (2): 238–262., 246). Needless to say, text and image may play different roles in different multimodal sticker configurations, in a similar way to memes (see Yus 2019Yus, Francisco 2019 “Multimodality in Memes. A Cyberpragmatic Approach.” In Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions, ed. by Patricia Bou-Franch, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 105–131. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ).33.Multimodal stickers are “relatively complex, multi-layered, and intertextual combinations of illustrations (including animations of characters) and text” (Ge-Stadnyk et al. 2025Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ). For example, Ge-Stadnyk et al. (2025)Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. propose the categories: (a) image subordinated to text and (b) vice versa; (c) image and text interdependent (a complete proposition is expressed by the co-occurrence of text and image, both discourses conveying part of the overall meaning); and (d) and image and text independent (the image and the text convey the same proposition in a redundant manner). Accordingly, Ge-Stadnyk et al. (2025)Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. argue that instances of sticker use are understood as multimodal microevents where visual elements combine with textual components to convey a communicative intent.

The starting point of our analysis is pragmatic, that is, supported by the certainty that the information literally coded in the users’ messages (i.e. typed by them) differs from both what the user means to communicate with those messages and what the audience subsequently infers from them (the so-called underdeterminacy thesis). This is typically the case of plain text-based interactions, in which users usually become aware that these typed discourses are not expressive enough to communicate what they had in mind upon typing them (see Yus 2014Yus, Francisco 2014 “El discurso de las identidades en línea: El caso de Facebook [The discourse of online identities: The case of Facebook].” Discurso & Sociedad 8 (3): 398–426.). Graphicons such as emojis and stickers aid users in guiding the audience toward the right interpretation and parallel affective attitude ascription (feelings, emotions…) that users hold while typing their messages (Yus 2011Yus, Francisco 2011 Cyberpragmatics. Internet-Mediated Communication in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 2014Yus, Francisco 2014 “El discurso de las identidades en línea: El caso de Facebook [The discourse of online identities: The case of Facebook].” Discurso & Sociedad 8 (3): 398–426., 2025Yus, Francisco 2025 Emoji Pragmatics: Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ).

Our proposal includes three sets of functions. In the first set, it is acknowledged that users resort to stickers to make sure that their intentions are accomplished in the right way: that the self they present to others is correctly portrayed, that their willingness to be included as part of a group is inferred correctly, that the parallel illocutionary force underlying the sticker-based act of communication is correctly identified and that the humorous intention is eventually successful. Similarly, in the second set users enrich their act of communication beyond the insufficient expressivity of plain text, which is deficient in conveying feelings or emotions, as well as the parallel portrayal of nonverbal behaviours that are essential and so easily conveyed in face-to-face scenarios. Finally, the third set of functions reflects the users’ desire to get a more fine-grained interpretation of their messages, using stickers either to soften the message itself, to complement of clarify a message or to attack and/or reinforce the addressee users’ face.

3.Objectives and research questions

Our main objective in this paper is to propose a fully pragmatic typology of sticker functions in Spanish users’ everyday messaging interactions on a Whats­App group, many of which are endowed with some humorous quality, and laying an emphasis on those functions that showcase the user’s intention upon producing the sticker, those which are more centred upon the sticker-mediated act of communication, and those that focus more on some expectation of the effect that the sticker may have on the inferences by addressee users or broader audiences within that messaging group.

By isolating these pragmatic functions, we aim to elucidate the relationship between multimodal creativity — frequently employed to endow conversations with playfulness and humour — and its role within digital participatory culture. To guide this investigation, we have formulated two main research questions that underpin our analysis:

The first question aims to identify and categorise the diverse communicative roles fulfilled by stickers, with particular attention to the users’ intentions. With the second question, we will explore how stickers, often imbued with humour and creativity, enhance communication dynamics through their multimodal nature. These objectives and research questions will enable us to determine the ways in which multimodal creativity and humour shape digital communication and messaging interactions more specifically.

4.Corpus and methodology

The methodology employed in this study integrates computer-mediated discourse analysis, as outlined by Herring and Androutsopoulos (2015)Herring, Susan C., and Jannis Androutsopoulos 2015 “Computer-Mediated Discourse 2.0.” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin, 2nd ed., 127–151. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell. and Tagg (2015)Tagg, Caroline 2015 Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action. London: Routledge. , with an examination of the pragmatics of Internet-mediated communication, drawing from Yus (2011Yus, Francisco 2011 Cyberpragmatics. Internet-Mediated Communication in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. , 2022Yus, Francisco 2022 Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Abingdon: Routledge.) and Herring et al. (2013)Herring, Susan C., Dieter Stein, and Tuija Virtanen eds. 2013 Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication. Vol. 94. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. .

Our dataset comprises 1,450 stickers obtained from the authors’ WhatsApp galleries. The stickers were manually saved and pasted into a spreadsheet. Before exploring the pragmatic functions of custom stickers, we categorised our corpus into three distinct groups according to their discursive features: 852 (58.76%) are image-based (static or GIF-like), text-only stickers amount to just 102 instances (7.03%); and finally, 496 stickers (34.21%) exhibit multimodal combinations of textual and visual elements. The primary focus of our study was on the latter two categories, resulting in a subset of 598 user-generated stickers (41.24%) typed in Spanish WhatsApp conversations, 496 of them being multimodal and 102 text-only.

After delimiting this subcorpus, each sticker was examined and its conversational context analysed in order to determine the most relevant pragmatic functions involved. To ensure the reliability of the coding process, the two authors categorised the stickers in parallel and in line with the proposed typology of pragmatic functions and they subsequently compared their respective function ascriptions. Before that, both authors participated in a training session to ensure a shared understanding of the coding scheme. Throughout the coding phase, regular discussions were held to address any discrepancies or ambiguities in the categorisation of stickers. Consensus was reached in all cases, ensuring a consistent and reliable classification of sticker functions.

Inevitably, several stickers fulfilled more than one function, increasing the final number of stickers per function in the corpus. For example, many of the stickers resorted to in order to attach some feeling and emotion that plain text does not properly convey (one of the functions analysed below) also provide addressees with the typical nonverbal behaviour that would be produced when this emotion is communicated in a face-to-face scenario (another function).

The corpus was compiled between 17 March 2023 and 23 April 2024, reflecting the period during which we systematically saved stickers in our WhatsApp galleries as a preliminary stage of this study. Following this initial collection, the stickers were shared and classified for analysis. The data collection process, spanning one year, was supported by twenty-five informants who contributed to the corpus by sharing their own stickers with the researchers. Of these informants, eighteen were women and seven were men, aged between twenty-five and forty-five years, all belonging to a medium-high sociocultural background. This demographic information offers valuable context for understanding potential sociocultural factors influencing sticker usage. Notably, while the stickers were used in Spanish-language WhatsApp conversations, the corpus includes stickers in Spanish, Valencian, and English. In this context, the examples analysed in this study were drawn from ten distinct WhatsApp group conversations, as well as from private exchanges between two individuals. All conversations were originally conducted in Spanish and were subsequently translated into English for the purposes of this research.

In terms of methodological ethical considerations, we have followed the Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0 (Frankze et al. 2020Franzke, Aline Shakti, Anja Bechmann, Michael Zimmer, Charles Ess, and Association of Internet Researchers 2020 Internet Research: Ethical Guidelines 3.0. https://​aoir​.org​/reports​/ethics3​.pdf) and all the pertinent ethical concerns were meticulously addressed in this study. Specifically, custom stickers containing personal images of private individuals were not included in the subsequent analysis. This precautionary step is essential as such information is deemed sensitive and could compromise the privacy of the users involved. However, the vast majority of the collected sticker corpus refers to videos from TikTok or YouTube, television programs and advertisements. Despite the international nature of some of these references, such as those including statements from politicians like Biden and Putin, or series like The Simpsons, it is important to note that most of them are also rooted in the Spanish culture.

5.A proposal of pragmatic sticker functions

In this paper, we propose three fully pragmatic sets of sticker functions that showcase the communicative essence of sticker use, emphasising users’ intentions, the quality of their coded stickers and the effects that these users aim to obtain from their interpretation. Saharan et al. (2024)Saharan, Akash, Anjuman Antil, and Satyam 2024 “Impression Management to Extended-Self: Effect of WhatsApp Stickers Usage Among Young Adults.” International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction 40 (1): 1–14. summarise existing proposals of functions as being mainly used for “conveying emotions; expressing action, attitude, and behaviour; initiating or ending conversations; adding cuteness in conversations; expressing humour; conveying appreciation, acknowledgment, or gratitude; making a conversation amiable, enjoyable, and efficient; enhancing considerable prominence and accuracy to a message; and conveying a precise point.”

Specifically, Lee et al. (2016)Lee, Joon Young, Nahi Hong, Soomin Kim, Jonghwan Oh, and Joonghwan Lee 2016 “Smiley Face: Why We Use Emoticon Stickers in Mobile Messaging.” In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on HCI with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct, 760–766. differentiate a strategic use from a functional use. The former includes self-presentation, maintaining social status quo, impression management, social presence and forming sympathy. The latter, by contrast, emphasises the user’s goal in communication, with patterns such as substituting for text, social greeting and supplement for text. Konrad et al. (2020)Konrad, Artie, Susan C. Herring, and David Choi 2020 “Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 25 (3): 217–235. also came up with different functions provided by informants, including the expression of emotion, to emphasise/soften a message, to add humour or be playful and to express personality. Furthermore, Tang et al. (2021)Tang, Ying, Khe Foon Hew, Susan Herring, and Qian Chen 2021 “Miscommunication through Stickers in Online Group Discussions: A Multiple-Case Study.” Discourse & Communication 15 (5): 582–606. focused on the users’ perspective when explaining the reasons for sticker use. They distinguished two major communicative roles: stickers for tone marking of a (normally previous) message (mainly through emotion expression and force modification) and stickers used on their own (with a wide range of roles including confirmation, evaluation, appreciation, and so on). Finally, Oberwinkler (2023Oberwinkler, Michaela 2023 “Digital Stickers in Japanese LINE Communication.” Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft 38 (2): 238–262., 256) also identified functions, including the performance of a speech act, to contradict a preceding or an ensuing text message, to convey emotions, to act as intensifiers or softeners in conjunction with a text message or even to serve as pure decorations indicating a positive attitude. These and other lists of sticker functions overlap, to a greater or lesser extent, with our proposal, but not fully addressing sticker-based communication in the way just summarised above: as a context-dependent pragmatic phenomenon.

Table 1 lists the three sets of functions proposed in this paper. Although all of the functions refer, one way or another, to whole sticker-centred acts of communication invariably including users’ intentions coded in a choice of stickers and aimed at some communicative effect on the audience, we believe that some functions can more efficiently be ascribed to the user’s intentions (set A), while other functions are more related to how the sticker is coded (set B), and others clearly refer to the user’s control of how the sticker-centred act is meant to be inferred by the (single or multiple) audience (set C). More than half of the stickers (655, 56.90%) are associated with the first set, which is not surprising given the importance of identity-shaping in online interactions (e.g. self-presentation, stickers meant to suit online groups and communities) and of signalling the speech act performed in everyday messaging interactions. For set B (284, 24.67%), we have specified discursive roles of stickers such as replacing text, add emotion to text or conveying the nonverbal behaviour that is typically missing in text-based communication. Finally, for set C (212, 18.41%), we have identified functions that illustrate the user’s attempt to act on how the sticker-centred act is meant to be understood, such as softening, complementing or clarifying a message and managing the audience’s face.

6.Discussion

In this paper, we have offered a fully pragmatic classification of sticker functions in the messaging app WhatsApp. The paper has started with a review of interface affordances that favour or limit the use of this kind of graphicon, with users mainly resorting to them as a means to add expressiveness to their default text-based interactions. Stickers have been emphasised as one of the most expressive means to add pragmatic meaning to these everyday messaging interactions, as noted by Ge-Stadnyk et al. (2025)Ge-Stadnyk, Jessica, Susan C. Herring, and Li Sa 2025 “Multimodality in Digital Discourse: Exploring Image-Text Interrelations in WeChat Sticker Use.” In Experiencing Digital Discourses: Multimodality, Engagement, Activism, ed. by Camila Vasquez, and Jan Chovanec. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. and Alvarado-Ortega and Linares-Bernabéu (2025)Alvarado Ortega, M. Belén, and Esther Linares Bernabéu 2025 “Análisis pragmático de los stickers humorísticos en los grupos de WhatsApp [A pragmatic analysis of humorous stickers in WhatsApp groups].” Pragmalingüística 32: 11–44. .

Our research has relied on a large corpus of stickers but focusing on those which are text-only and text-image. The analysis has yielded ten functions divided into three sets. Although we acknowledge that all sticker-based acts of communication invariably entail (a) the user’s communicative intention, (b) coded in a message that may include a textual, visual or multimodal sticker, and (c) with the expectation that it be inferred in a certain way by a single or multiple audience, we have preferred to delimit those functions that, one way or another, tend to emphasise one of these areas (a-c) of sticker-based communication. Thus, four functions make up the set (a): to engage in self-presentation, to emphasise group identity and membership, to clarify the associated speech act and to endow the message with a humorous quality. All of them signal the user’s objective to clarify the underlying intention. As for the second set (b), we have identified the users’ desire to increase the expressiveness of the act of communication by incorporating feelings and emotions, the user’s nonverbal behaviour or by directly using the sticker instead of plain text in a substitutive function. Finally, in set (c), we have identified the user’s aim to act upon the audience’s interpretation, either by complementing or clarifying the message, taking into account their face and the related attempt to soften the initial impact of the messaging act of communication (Oberwinkler 2023Oberwinkler, Michaela 2023 “Digital Stickers in Japanese LINE Communication.” Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft 38 (2): 238–262.).

Needless to say, these functions are not only intertwined but also clearly context-dependent, some prototypical meanings ending up altered or re-interpreted depending on the conversational context into which these stickers are inserted. Inevitably, some clearly delimited sticker functions may vary in its intended and eventual interpretation if the previously typed text makes the audience take a slightly or radically different inferential direction. For example, an expressive sticker-centred act in which the user conveys how they feel about some state of affairs might be re-interpreted ironically if the previous text clearly indicates that the sticker should be inferred in a different way from the expressive default.

This contextual quality of sticker use includes the frequent intertextuality that these discourses exhibit, often with the aim to clarify in-group versus out-group sense of belonging, and which in this paper has been expressed by the pair of related verbs bonding (feelings of group or community membership) versus bounding (feelings of discursive barriers that make up the specificity of the group versus other messaging groups), as proposed by Yus (2022)Yus, Francisco 2022 Smartphone Communication. Interactions in the App Ecosystem. Abingdon: Routledge.. Furthermore, at an individual user’s level, solving the puzzle of sticker interpretation also proves essential for the user’s self-identity or self-concept, as commented upon in one of the functions in the first set proposed in this paper.

7.Concluding remarks

This study has set out to explore the multifaceted functions and uses of multimodal custom stickers in Spanish WhatsApp conversations. Our primary objective has been to develop a pragmatic classification that captures these functions, focusing on the sender’s intention, the sticker used to communicate this intention, and the audience’s interpretation of the sticker’s meaning.

Through a meticulous analysis of the corpus of stickers collected for this paper, we identified three main sets of sticker functions. A closer examination reveals that over half of the stickers are linked to the sender’s intention, highlighting the importance of identity construction and speech act signalling in everyday messaging interactions. The stickers in the second category serve crucial discursive roles, such as text substitution and nonverbal communication. The third category reflects the user’s strategic efforts to guide the audience’s interpretation and response.

This research provides a novel and comprehensive classification of pragmatic sticker functions on WhatsApp messaging. However, our study has limitations. Although our analysis has unveiled numerous instances of wordplay and humour markers in multimodal stickers, employing techniques such as homonymy, polysemy, code-switching, and changes in register, we have not categorised the most frequently used humour mechanisms in these multimodal combinations. This will be addressed in future research.

In conclusion, our findings reveal that stickers perform various pragmatic functions that users employ to ensure that interpretations align more closely with their intended meanings when producing these sticker-centred acts of communication. This study thus contributes to our understanding of digital communication, showcasing the intricate ways in which stickers facilitate nuanced and effective interactions in contemporary messaging environments.