Can I stop predictive typing from suggesting emojis?
I've found a workaround in this apple discussions thread from 2016:

go to:

Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Edit > Delete Emoji.

this will remove emojis from your keyboard, and as somebody commented, will also change the predictions.

and a quote from another person, more recent comment from feb '17:


  I have discovered a solution however, install GBoard - Googles
  keyboard. You can turn of emoji suggestions in settings and it's
  significantly quicker. Also the glide function works well.