疫情改變著人們的生活，改變著人們的交流方式，也改變著人們使用的表情符號。追蹤調查發現，雙手合十、戴口罩、細菌和肥皂的表情符號近來使用量大大增加。

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.

在難以進行面對面談話的時期，許多人選擇用表情符號來表達自己對大流行病的想法。但也許沒有哪個表情符號能像雙手合十的表情符號一樣體現這個難以想象時刻的希望和恐懼。

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.

雙手合十的表情符號從未如此頻繁地出現在推特中，用于表達我們對一場難以言說的健康危機方方面面的感受。這個表情符號被用來感謝一線的工作人員，給所愛的人送去祈禱，為在超市貨架上找到衛生紙而表達感激。

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.

這個表情符號有時候也被稱為“祈禱手”，在今年四月份的使用頻率比Emojipedia網站去年八月份分析這個表情符號時上升了25%。該網站追蹤表情符號在推特上被使用的潮流和頻率。“祈禱手”使用量的激增使其在四月份最受歡迎的表情符號中排行第八，并加固了其作為表達人們在疫情期間感受的視覺符號地位。

cement[s??ment]: v. 鞏固，確定

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.

隨著新冠肺炎病例的增加和世界各地陸續進入封鎖狀態，人們交流的方式迅速地發生演變。飲水機旁的聊天被職場聊天軟件Slack上的交談取代。歡樂時光和生日派對現在轉移到視頻會議軟件Zoom上開展。打電話的交流方式也復興了。此外，人們越來越多地借助表情符號向無法見面的人表達自己的想法和姿態。

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網站稱，如今有近五分之一的推文包含一個表情符號，相比去年同期的六分之一有所增加。在和新冠肺炎明確相關的信息中，戴醫用口罩的臉、細菌和肥皂的表情符號也大大增加。

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，有些東西沒有變。Emojipedia網站發現，最受歡迎的表情符號依然是笑中帶淚的臉，該符號曾被牛津辭典評為2015年的年度詞匯。

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.

在沒有增加新冠疫情表情符號的情況下，有些人開始在疫情期間創造性地使用現有的表情符號。舉例來說，在西班牙，人們將細菌表情符號和王冠表情符號組合在一起來表示新冠病毒（crown翻譯成西班牙語是la corona），這一用法越來越受歡迎。

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.

其他一些人則開始使用雙手合十的表情符號，該符號于2012年在美國的智能手機上首次出現。早在這次大流行病前，雙手合十的表情符號就被用來代表許多意思，比如，舉手擊掌、印度合十禮，以及感恩或祈禱。

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.

蘋果操作系統表情符號最早的設計者之一安杰拉·古茲曼說，設計表情符號的最佳思路是創造出可以隨著人們和時代一起進化的通用性視覺符號。

"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."

古茲曼說：“我們五年前用的一個詞今天也許是另一個意思——表情符號也是如此。因此在設計表情符號時，當前的潮流可以影響創作，但重要的是不要加進太多不能經受時間考驗的修飾成分。”

英文來源：CNN

翻譯&編輯：丹妮