Social Network Site's Status Posts: A Speech Act Analysis

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Humans as social beings who always want to interact with others certainly would not be a part of something that is called language, either spoken or written, directly or indirectly. Language can cause effects to the speaker or hearer or addressees. The effects could be a feedback such as feeling of pleasure, anger, disappointment, etc. Through that, this study was investigated to analyze the types of illocutionary speech acts used by people in a conversation on Facebook, to find out the meaning of speech act utterance based on speech act classification on the function used by the people on a Facebook conversation.

METHODS

In this study, researchers used a qualitative approach. The researchers used this approach because the data is a verbal language in the form of status posts on Facebook. The data in this study is utterances in conversations of post-millennial in social media Facebook containing illocutionary acts of 5 female and 5 male status posts for 3 consecutive days selected randomly.

RESULTS

Out of 30 Facebook status posts, an analysis of speech acts illustrated that 70% was assertive speech act, 23% was expressive, and 7% was commissive. These findings help us develop a greater understanding not only of the creation and display of messages within the context of SNS, but also begin to shed light on the differences of messages created in comparable media applications.

DISCUSSIONS

Findings revealed that the first function most users are exposed to is constructing their profile, not unlike creating a personal homepage, although with a number of specific existing information fields to begin developing an identity on the site. Millennial provides information about themselves, affording entertainment, giving opinions on the posts of others, and fulfilling the goals of self-expression are common utilities afforded by such expressions. Because of both the technological and social affordances of SNSs, the phenomena of speech acts are especially relevant. Facebook serve exclusively as virtual social network where an individual is able to present and maintain a personal image of themselves for others to observe and interpret.