^^^That’s the word of the year.

With the rapid development of technology, it comes as no surprise that the Oxford Dictionaries’ “Word of the Year” is none other than the tears of joy emoji.

While the Oxford Dictionaries — and its “Word of the Year” title — serve as a social commentary on how words are used practically, it is by no means an official source of language. Its parent, the Oxford English Dictionary is the official source of where words are codified in the English language.  

That said, Joshua Raclaw, a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Women’s Health Research, doesn’t find it surprising the Oxford Dictionaries is moving with the pace of changing technologies.

“With the Internet, it is possible to get new ideas quicker,” Raclaw said. “Now, we get exposed to these ideas more often. [The emoji] is definitely a symbol of language changing and how language is used in online context or in computer-mediated languages.”

In the same vein, Robert Howard, director of digital studies at UW, believes the Oxford Dictionaries is trying to make a statement about the nature of language in the digital age.

“It’s great to see [Oxford Dictionaries] accepting the reality of the new possibilities from communication that digital networks are creating,” Howard said.

As a Ph.D. certified linguist with research focused on sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication, Raclaw understands the criticism the tears of joy emoji has seen. Typically used by younger speakers, the emoji has yet to become a mainstream linguistic feature.

Though their use is not equally adapted across all age groups, a study performed by SwiftKey unveiled the prevalence of emojis. The tears of joy emoji was found to be the most used emoji across the globe in 2015, making up 20 percent of emojis used in the U.K. and 17 percent of those in the U.S.

“In other character-based languages like Japanese, you have concepts or words that are represented by each character,” Raclaw said. “Emojis [convey] an emotion or a state of being — it’s not as clear cut as a word. I think the ambiguity of the meaning of emojis is what [upsets some of the critics].”

Moreover, the emoji has been adapted by politicians and businesses alike in an attempt to connect with younger audiences, an adaptation Howard believes is due to the fact that language is a dynamic and changing social phenomenon.

Earlier in 2015, Democratic political candidate Hillary Clinton asked young voters to describe how student debt made them feel in three emojis or less.

Feeling hungry? Dominos, a pizza chain, implemented a text ordering service via emoji. With the push of a button, customers are able to order pizza for delivery.

With the growing presence of emojis, Raclaw predicts they will supplement language more and more. Even though the meaning of emojis can be confusing to some, he believes the ambiguity is equally playful and is essentially what makes them popular.

Opponents of the “Word of the Year” believe the tears of joy emoji is a sign the English language is on the way out. But communications experts like Raclaw and Howard disagree with this worry.

“Today, we use language constantly as we did in the past,” Howard said. “What has changed for many, though, is that written language is now used for more informal and everyday language expression. Language is no less trivial than it was, we just do it in alphabetic and now in pictographic forms more than before.”