疫情改变了人们的生活、沟通方式和表情符号。跟踪调查发现，近期双手合十、戴口罩、细菌、肥皂的表情符号使用量大幅增加。

At a time when in-person conversations are harder to come by, many people are choosing to express their thoughts about the pandemic with emojis. But perhaps no emoji has come to embody the hopes and fears of this unthinkable moment as much as the folded hands emoji.

在难以面对面交谈的时期，许多人选择用表情符号来表达他们对大流行病的想法。但也许没有一个表情符号能像手合十的表情符号一样反映这种难以想象的希望和恐惧。

The folded hands emoji has popped up in more tweets than ever before to help express our feelings about seemingly every aspect of a health crisis that can sometimes defy words. It's used to give thanks to frontline workers, send prayers to loved ones and express gratitude for finding toilet paper on supermarket shelves.

双手合十的表情符号从未如此频繁地出现在推特上，以表达我们对健康危机各个方面难以形容的感受。这个表情符号被用来感谢一线工作人员，向亲人祈祷，感谢他们在超市货架上找到卫生纸。

The emoji, sometimes called prayer hands, was used 25% more often in April than in August, the last time that particular character was analyzed by Emojipedia, which tracks trends and frequency of emoji use on Twitter. That spike made it the eighth most popular emoji for the month -- and cemented its position as a visual emblem for how we feel during the pandemic.

这种表情符号有时被称为祈祷手，在今年4月使用频率比Emojipedia去年8月，该网站分析这个表情符号时，增加了25%。该网站跟踪推特上使用表情符号的趋势和频率。祈祷者使用量的激增，使其在4月份最受欢迎的表情符号中排名第八，加强了其作为表达疫情期间人们感受的视觉符号的地位。

cement[s??ment]: v. 巩固，确定

As coronavirus cases ticked up and lockdowns spread around the world, the way we communicate evolved quickly. Water-cooler conversations were replaced by Slack chats. Happy hours and birthday parties now unfold on Zoom. Phone calls made a comeback. And people are increasingly relying on emoji to express their thoughts and gestures to an audience they can no longer see in person.

随着新冠肺炎病例的增加和世界各地陆续进入封锁状态，人们交流的方式迅速地发生演变。饮水机旁的聊天被职场聊天软件Slack取而代之的对话。快乐时光和生日派对现在转移到视频会议软件Zoom开展。电话交流也复兴了。此外，越来越多的人用表情符号向不能见面的人表达自己的想法和态度。

Nearly one in five tweets now include an emoji, up from about one in six tweets during same time last year, according to Emojipedia. Icons such as the face with a medical mask, the microbe and a bar of soap have also spiked in messages specifically associated with the coronavirus.

Emojipedia该网站称，近五分之一的推文包含一个表情符号，比去年同期的六分之一增加。在与新冠肺炎明确相关的信息中，戴医用口罩的面部、细菌和肥皂的表情符号也大大增加。

图片来源：Unsplash

Yet, some things haven't changed. Emojipedia found the most popular emoji remains the tears of joy face, which was named as word of the year in 2015 by the Oxford Dictionary.

然而，有些事情并没有改变。Emojipedia该网站发现，最受欢迎的表情符号仍然是笑中带泪的脸，被牛津词典评为2015年的年度词汇。

In the absence of more new coronavirus emoji, some have gotten creative with how they've been sharing existing emoji during the pandemic. In Spain, for example, the pairing of the microbe emoji with the crown emoji -- "crown" translates to "la corona" in the Spanish language -- has gained traction.

在没有增加新冠肺炎疫情表情符号的情况下，有些人开始在疫情期间创造性地使用现有的表情符号。比如在西班牙，人们把细菌表情符号和王冠表情符号结合表示新冠肺炎（crown翻译成西班牙语la corona），这种用法越来越流行。

Others are turning to options like the folded hands emoji, which first appeared on smartphones in the US in 2012. Long before the pandemic, it had been used to represent many things, from a high five and a Namaste icon to a token of gratitude or prayer.

其他人开始使用双手合十的表情符号，这是2012年第一次出现在美国的智能手机上。早在这种流行病之前，双手合十的表情符号就被用来代表许多含义，如举手击掌、印度合十礼、感恩或祈祷。

Angela Guzman, one of the early emoji designers for iOS, said the best approach to emoji design is to create visual symbols with versatility to evolve with people and the times they live in.

安杰拉是苹果操作系统最早的表情符号设计师之一·古兹曼说，设计表情符号的最佳想法是创造一个通用的视觉符号，可以随着人和时代的发展而发展。

"A word that we used five years ago may mean something else today -- the same is true of emojis," said Guzman. "For this reason, when designing an emoji, current trends can play a role in its creation. But it's important not to add too many embellishments that will not last with the test of time."

古兹曼说：五年前我们用的一个词今天可能是另一个意思——表达符号。因此，在设计表达符号时，当前的趋势会影响创造力，但重要的是不要添加太多无法忍受时间考验的装饰成分。

英文来源：CNN

翻译&编辑：丹妮

来源：中国日报网