This chapter summarises the model developed for exploring emoji-text convergence in this book. It reviews the system network for describing this convergence which was built up progressively throughout, covering textual synchronicity, ideational concurrence, and interpersonal resonance. The chapter also consolidates the book’s exploration of the role of emoji in negotiating and communing around social bonds through affiliation. The chapter works through a full analysis of an extract from a Twitter thread to show how the various kinds of analysis developed in the book might be deployed, drawing on the complete convergence network as well as the affiliation networks. The chapter concludes by underscoring the crucial role that linguists might play as emoji and other forms of digital paralanguage increase in cultural prominence

Humans and alcohol share a deep evolutionary history: our capacity to convert alcohol into useable sugars is a trait we share with the African great apes (gorillas and chimpanzees) and is unique to this taxonomic family among the primates. Although the archaeological record only allows us to date the production of alcohol back about 9,000 years (by which time it is already on an industrial scale), a cottage industry of alcohol production must date back a great deal further. With the exception of where its consumption has been prohibited on religious grounds, alcohol use occurs in every culture and society. Notwithstanding its hedonic properties, its real functional benefit is primarily social, playing an important role in rituals and group bonding. I review studies that demonstrate its functional consequences in terms of social bonding, mediated by alcohol’s ability to trigger the brain’s endorphin system. The endorphin system is the central basis for social bonding in primates. The health and other benefits that arise from social bonding are considerable.