Netnopragmatics

SUSUNAN KEPENGURUSAN
JURNAL SORA
(Pernik Studi Bahasa Asing)
Pimpinan Redaksi:
Tomi T. Prakoso
Anggota Redaksi:
Yayat Hidayat
Yuliani Kusuma Putri
Yudi Satriadi
Ahmad Yani
Adiarti Budi Kartini
Penyelaras Akhir:
Ari Rahmat Utama Ardipradja
Mitra Bebestari untuk Vol I / 2016 :
Eva Tuckyta Sari Sujatna (Universitas Padjadjaran)
Nia Kurniasih (Institut Teknologi Bandung)
Dedi Sutedi (Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia)
Ekaning Krisnawati (Universitas Padjadjaran)
Sekretariat Jurnal SORA:
Ruang Jurnal, Kampus STBA Yapari-ABA Bandung
Jl. Cihampelas No. 194 Bandung 40131
Telpon (022) 2035426 – Fax (022) 2036765
Email: jurnalsora@stba.ac.id
Jurnal ini diterbitkan setiap enam bulan sekali dan berisi pembahasan berbagai hasil pemikiran dan
penelitian tentang Studi Bahasa Asing terkait Pembelajaran, Sastra, maupun Linguistik.
Redaksi menerima naskah tulisan yang belum pernah diterbitkan sebelumnya. Ditulis dalam format
Microsoft Word (DOCX) dan dikirimkan ke alamat email sekretariat. Uraian rinci tentang petunjuk
penulisan dapat kami kirimkan dengan mengajukan permohonan ke alamat email tersebut.
ISSN 2541 – 5433
Vol. 1 No. 1, Oktober 2016

PENGANTAR REDAKSI
Kami bersyukur bahwa Jurnal SORA edisi perdana ini akhirnya dapat terbit. Jurnal SORA
merupakan pengembangan dari jurnal sebelumnya yang telah terbit belasan edisi di lingkungan STBA
Yapari-ABA, yaitu Jurnal Bahasa dan Pariwisata. Kami niatkan jurnal SORA ini sebagai terbitan ilmiah
yang memiliki fokus pada eksplorasi studi bahasa asing, dikelola dengan semaksimal mungkin merujuk
pada Peraturan Direktur Jenderal Pendidikan Tinggi Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan RI
Nomor 1 tahun 2014 tentang Pedoman Akreditasi Terbitan Berkala Ilmiah, dan menjangkau publik
pembaca yang lebih luas. Pada edisi ini kami tampilkan tulisan-tulisan seputar Linguistik dalam konteks
beberapa bahasa asing.
Tulisanpertamaberkaitandenganpenerjemahan.DianPraamamelaluitulisan“ProsedurTerjemahan
dalam Terjemahan Komik Perancis Spirou et Fantasia à New York karya Tome et Janry” mengungkapkan
bahwa dalam proses penerjemahkan komik muncul hal-hal seperti peminjaman, ekuivalen, terjemahan
impersonnel sebagai ekspresi idiomatik, interjeksi dan terjemahannya, pengurangan unsur dalam
terjemahan, dan peralihran tanda baca dalam terjemahan.
Yang kedua, dengan merujuk kepada proses penggunaan bahasa, Asteria Permata melalui tulisan
“Analisis Penggunaan Strategi Penolakan Tidak Langsung dalam Bahasa Jepang oleh Mahasiswa Sastra
dan Bahasa Jepang STBA Yapari-ABA Bandung” membahas penolakan tidak langsung dalam Bahasa
Jepang oleh mahasiswa. Sebagian besar responden masih menggunakan gaya Bahasa Indonesia yang
dialihbahasakan langsung ke Bahasa Jepang sehingga pola kalimat Bahasa Jepangnya terlihat rancu. Hal
tersebut dilihat dari segi struktur bahasa pada tindak tutur penolakan tidak langsung yang digunakan.
Selanjutnya, dengan merujuk pada tindak tutur, Zakie Asidiky melalui tulisan “The Speech
Acts in The Caluses Written on Four Cover Stories in Newsweekly Website: A Pragmatic Approach”
menguraikan tindak komunikasi yang digunakan dalam cerita sampul pada situs Newsweekly. Tindak
komunikasi yang terungkap adalah memberitahu (to tell) dan tindak tutur yang digunakan adalah
assertive atau representative.
Tulisan ke empat, berkaitan dengan linguistik bahasa Jepang, Anggun Widiyani melalui tulisan
“Makna Kanyouku yang Berkaitan dengan Bagian Tubuh Hana (hidung), Kuchi (mulut), Mimi (telinga),
Me (mata), dan Shita (lidah) memaparkan hubungan makna leksikal dan idiomatik dalam kanyouku
yang menggunakan kata hana (hidung), kuchi (mulut), mimi (telinga), me (mata), dan shita (lidah)
dengan memperhatikan unsur budaya dan kebiasaan orang Jepang.
Tulisan terakhir pada edisi ini, berkaitan dengan kajian Pragmatik, disajikan oleh Yuliani
Kusumaputri. Melalui tulisannya, “Netnopragmatics: An Approach to Analyzing The Use of Language
in Online Communities”, ia menguraikan pendekatan Netnopragmatik untuk menganalisis penggunaan
Bahasa dalam komunitas daring.
Akhirnya, redaksi mengharapkan informasi yang disajikan pada edisi ini dapat memberikan
manfaat bagi para pembaca.
Salam hangat dari kami!
Redaksi

Prosedur Terjemahan dalam Terjemahan Komik Prancis Spirou et Fantasio à New York
Karya Tome & Janry
Dian Agustina Pratama ..................................................................................................... 1
Analisis Penggunaan Strategi Penolakan Tidak Langsung dalam Bahasa Jepang oleh
Mahasiswa Bahasa Jepang STBA Yapari-ABA Bandung
Asteria Permata ................................................................................................................. 9
The Speech Acts in The Clauses Written on Four Cover Stories in Newsweekly Website:
A Pragmatic Approach
Zakie Asidiky ...................................................................................................................... 19
Makna Kanyouku yang Berkaitan dengan Bagian Tubuh Hana (Hidung), Kuchi (Mulut),
Mimi (Telinga), Me (Mata), dan Shita (Lidah)
Anggun Widiyani ............................................................................................................... 25
Netnopragmatics: An Approach to Analyzing The Use of Language in Online Communities
Yuliani Kusuma Putri ........................................................................................................ 39
DAFTAR ISI
ISSN 2541 – 5433
Vol. 1 No. 1, Oktober 2016

39
NETNOPRAGMATICS: AN APPROACH TO ANALYZING THE USE OF
LANGUAGE IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Yuliani Kusuma Putri
Abstrak
Artikel ini diajukan untuk memperkaya metode penelitian pada kajian pragmatis. Dengan
memanfaatkan perkembangan teknologi dan kemajuan komunikasi, netnopragmatik diajukan
sebagai sebuah pendekatan dalam menganalisis penggunaan bahasa dalam komunitas
daring. Komunitas pada media sosial seperti Facebook dan Twitter, serta pesan instan
seperti Skype dan WhatsApp dapat dijadikan objek penelitian dalam kajian pragmatis.
Pendekatan ini tidak hanya menghemat waktu, data yang diperoleh melalui pendekatan
ini juga lebih alami dibandingkan dengan data yang diperoleh melalui simulasi dan DCT.
Peneliti netnopragmatik dapat menganalisis interaksi pada komunitas daring yang dilakukan
melalui komunikasi bermedia komputer. Cabang-cabang ilmu pragmatik seperti tindak tutur,
implikatur, dan kesantunan dapat dikaji melalui komunikasi bermedia komputer.
Kata Kunci: Internet, Komunikasi Bermedia Komputer, Netnogra , Pragmatik
Background
Our society has gone digital. Almost
every aspect in our live is digitalised, such as
digitallibraries,digitalclassrooms,anddigital
communication. Because of the technological
advancement, traditional communication, i.e.
Face to Face (FtF) communication can be
altered by modern communication, i.e. long
distant communication. We can conduct a
long distant communication using media such
as corded or wireless phones, short message
services, emails, instant messaging, and
social media. The three latter media cannot
work without an Internet connection. Such
communication from such media is called
computer-mediated communication (CMC).
CMC is now used as an alternative to FtF
communication due to the distance between
communicators. However, CMC can also
be used as a pre-communication from FtF,
such as arranging time and date to meet up.
This is in line with what Perry (2010, p. 2)
says that ‘CMC was being used to just say
hello or chat, to coordinate schedules and
routines, to plan future events or to discuss
important matters’. CMC has a different style
in language use from that of FtF, in a way
that communicators can conceptualise what
they are going to say before they actually
say it; however, this does not apply when
the communication is done via video or
voice chat since the communication occurs
simultaneously. Since CMC can be said to
have several functions similar to those of FtF
communication in certain aspects; then, in
order to get a successful communication, it
is important that communicators have good
communication skills. One of the skills is the
language skill.
CMC also triggers the development of
online communities. In those communities,
there are different styles of language use.
This paper is going to propose a new
approach to analysing the use of language in
online communities using both pragmatic and
netnography study rst proposed by Kozinets
(1997).
Computer-Mediated Communication
Computer-mediated communication
(CMC) has become an integral part of our

Jurnal Sora: Vol 1 No. 1, Oktober 2016
40
lives ever since the digitalization of our
society in almost every aspect. CMC is
now widely preferred because it is far less
time and money consuming. Scharlott and
Christ (1994) add that CMC can be useful
to help people meet and form relationships,
especially those who have met problems in
doing so because of sex role, shyness, or
appearance inhibitions (in Lane 1994).
What is computer mediated commu-
nication? Why does it differ from face to face
interaction? CMC is de ned as any kind of
interaction conducted through a computer
or network; CMC may involve forums,
postings, instant messages, emails, chat
rooms, and mobile text messaging (Kozinets,
2010, p. 189). CMC clearly differs from FtF
communication in a way that CMC is done
from a distance, and the communicators do
not need to see each other in the same room
and place. Another de nition of CMC by
Hine (2000, p. 157):
“A general term referring to a range
of different ways in which people
can communicate with one another
via a computer network. Includes
both synchronous and asynchronous
communication, one to one and many
to many interactions, and text based or
video and audio communication”.
CMC is now preferred more to FtF
communication by our society due to its
practical and effective functions; CMC is
cheaper, less time consuming, and can be
done almost everywhere. CMC also allows
users to have more freedom to express
themselves compared to FtF communication.
Some researchers also found that there
was greater equality in CMC (Siegel et al.,
1986; Rice and Love, 1987; McGuire et al.,
1987; Bordia, 1997).1
Lane (1994) shares his
opinion that CMC:
“…has the greatest strength in the
ability of the medium (computer) to
store, process, and transmit messages
to and from human beings. It allows for
relatively inexpensive access to friends/
students/family around the globe”.
There is a lot of research focusing on
CMC. Some of them are done by Nitin et al.
about ame classi cation, Lane (1994) about
the use of CMC in classroom, Bordia (1997)
about FtF versus CMC, Bicchieri and Lev-On
(2007) about CMC and cooperation in social
dilemmas,2
Kozinets (2002) about marketing
research in online communities, and Garcia et
al. (2009) about ethnographic approach to the
Internet and CMC. However, Walther (2011,
p. 470) argues that the study of interpersonal
communication is one of the challenges
researchers on CMC encounter when many
relationships are multimodal. His argument
is answered by Kozinets (2002) and Garcia
et al.’s (2009) research. They proposed the
use of a qualitative study, i.e. ethnography,
to analyse people’s communication in CMC.
Kozinets (1997) even coined a neologism
‘netnography’ to refer to an ethnographic
study of online communities in CMC.
Netnography
Netnography, short from network
ethnography, is a term rst coined by Kozinets
(1997). The term is a neologism from a
qualitative research method focusing on the
study of online cultures and communities.
Netnography, or ethnography on the network,
is “a new qualitative research methodology
that adapts ethnographic research techniques
to the study of cultures and communities
emerging through computer-mediated
communication” (Kozinets, 2002, p. 2). The
term netnography comes in many names, such
as ‘online ethnography’ (Krumwiede and
Meiers, 1991), ‘technography’ (Richardson,
1992), ‘hypermedia and ethnography’ (Dicks
and Mason, 1998), ‘virtual ethnography’
(Hine, 2000), ‘digital ethnography’ (Murthy,
2008), and ‘ethnography and virtual worlds’
(Boellstorff et al., 2012). Netnography can be
used as a tool for collecting data, the product
of an investigation, or a combination of both.3
Researchers who are interested in conducting
online investigation may use this method.

Yuliani Kusuma P. : Netnopragmatics: an Approach to ...
41
Researchers will be very much helped
by netnography because it is an approach to
investigate everyday life of groups of people,
offers powerful resources for the study of the
virtual world’s cultures (Boellstorff et al.,
2012, p. 1). To add up, Garcia et al. (2011, p.
53) believe the incorporation of the Internet
and CMC into ethnographers’ research is of
importance to ef ciently understand social
life in contemporary society. Researchers
can make themselves familiarised with the
netnographic approach to help them study
chats such as Skype, WhatsApp Messenger,
and Line; blogs such as Tumblr, Blogspot,
and Wordpress; even social networking sites
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Path.
Since netnography adapts the techniques
of ethnography research method, it can be
an excellent resource for the experienced
qualitative researchers and a bene cial
entry point for the newcomers to qualitative
research (Bowler, Jr., 2010, p. 1270). With the
advances of technology, and the revolution of
communication, many researchers feel the
need to investigate the phenomena of online
cultures and communities by adapting the
techniques. Kozinets (2010) says that:
“New research on the use of Internet and
other information and communication
technologies(ICT)isaddingsigni cantly
to the literature of cultural studies,
sociology, economics, law, information
science, business and management
elds, communication studies, human
geography, nursing and healthcare, and
anthropology” (p. 3).
Moreover, Boellstorff et al. (2012) add
that ethnography is also appropriate for those
inhabiting a combination of computer science
sub-disciplines, including human computer
interaction, computer supported collaborative
work, computer supported collaborative
learning, and ubiquitous computing (p. 3).
In addition, the development of cultures,
communication, and communities online
can also encourage linguistic researchers to
conduct their research online.
In conducting netnographic research,
participants in an online community are
categorized into four types based on their
participating frequency in the online
community (Kozinets, 2010, p. 33). The rst
type of participants are newbies or tourists,
i.e. members who lack strong social ties to
the group, and merely have a super cial or
passing interest in the consumption activity
itself. Next type are minglers, i.e. the
associates of the communities, socialisers
who keep strong personal ties with many
members of the community but who are
only casually interested or drawn to the
central consumption activity. The third type
are devotees, who have few attachments
to the online group yet strong consumption
interests. Last type, insiders, have strong ties
to both the online group and the consumption
activity,andtendtobeenduringandfrequently
referenced members (Kozinets, 2002, p. 6).
Kozinets (2010) illustrates the types of online
community participation as follows.
Figure 1 Types of online community
participation (Kozinets, 2010, p. 33)
Netnography is “participant obser-
vational research based in online eldwork”

42
(Kozinets, 2010, p. 60). It means that
netnography observes people on the Internet
using computer-mediated communications
as its data source to achieve ethnographic
understanding and representation of a
cultural or communal phenomenon. To
help netnographers observe participants
in an online community, there are some
procedures similar to those of ethnography
they may follow. Before conducting the
participant observation, it is necessary that
a netnographer start from the rst step of
netnographic research project. Figure 2 below
illustrates the steps a netnographer should
take in a netnographic research.
Figure 2 Flow of a netnographic research
project (Kozinets, 2010, p. 61)
Similar to ethnography, in netnography,
netnographers must rst plan the research.
They must nd the online culture and
community suitable for their research
questions. This procedure is called entrée.
Kozinets (2002, p. 4) further explains there
are two steps netnographers should take
in entrée. First, they must think of speci c
research questions and then identify particular
online forums appropriate to the research
questions. Second, they must thoroughly
learn about the forums, the groups, and the
individual participants they want to observe,
which leads to the second step: community
identi cation and selection. In selecting
online culture and community, the sites
netnographers choose to investigate often
depend on common sense understandings
of what the phenomenon being explored is,
essentially connected to ideas about where
the activity goes on, whether the activity be
the technical work of software engineering or
the experimental work of science (Low and
Woolgar, 1993; Knorr-Cetina, 1992 in Hine,
2000 p. 58).
There are at least two important elements
to the next step, community participant
observation and data collection. First, the
data that the netnographers copy from the
computer-mediatedcommunicationsofonline
community members directly. Second, the
data the netnographers transcribe regarding
his/her observations of the community,
its member interactions and meanings
(Kozinets, 2002, p. 5). Netnographers cannot
only record textual data, but also record
video or audio format using video or audio
capturing software. Social media such as
Facebook and Skype provide video capability
built in the software, all netnographers have
to do is install software for capturing video
or audio in their computers. However,
netnographers must remain alert to the
possibility that participants may overact of
feel self-conscious in the camera’s presence
(Boellstorff et al., 2012, p. 116). In order
to prevent this from happening, Jakobsson
(2006) added a camera to his avatar when
he recorded to graphically symbolise the act.
What must netnographers also remember is
the anonymity of participants if the video will
be used in public lectures or disseminated in
other ways (Boellstorff et al., 2012, p. 117).
In collecting data and observing
participants, netnographers must remember
to ensure the ethical procedures similar
to those of ethnography. To take part in a
newsgroup without revealing one’s role as a
researcher would, as in all cases of concealed

43
ethnography, pose a considerable ethical
problem (Hine, 2000, p. 23). Kozinets (2010,
p. 138–146) reminds netnographers what
to consider, they are: 1) Internet Research
Ethics (IRE); 2) public versus private fallacy;
3) consent in cyberspace; 4) harm online; 5)
anonymity; and 6) legal considerations.
IRE is concerned with “philosophical
matters, commercial interests, academic
traditions of research practice and method,
and institutional arrangements, as well as
the oversight of legislative and regulatory
bodies” (Kozinets, 2010, p. 139). Many
researchersalsodebateaboutthepublicversus
private post. Rafaeli (1995) summarised
the consensus of a certain group of scholars
debating the private versus public issue by
stating that informed consent was implicit in
the act of posting a message to a public area.6
In addition, Kozinets (2010) further
adds procedures for ethical netnography,
which is in line with the considerations.
The procedures include identifying and
explaining; asking permission; using
commercial sites for netnography; gaining
informed consent; citing, anonymising, or
crediting research participants; and four
degrees of concealment. In identifying and
explaining, together with asking permission
procedures, netnographers should reveal
their presence, af liations and intentions
completely to online community members
during any research (Kozinets, 2002, p. 9).
Netnographers should also ask permission
from members to conduct observation
in the online community and should not
begin the observation until the permission
is granted. Netnographers can conduct a
netnography research in commercial sites.
Since commercial websites often contain
extremely exciting and useful material,
netnographers are often naturally attracted to
them (Kozinets, 2010, p. 149). Commercial
sites have also begun to use different sorts
of legal means to limit individuals from
access to online content, and there are many
potential and popular sites for the conduct
of netnography have limitations written into
their terms of service agreements (Kozinets,
2010).
Netnographers must also ensure
con dentiality and anonymity of informants.
In anonymising or crediting netnographic
research participants’ accounts, researcher’s
goal is to fairly balance the rights of Internet
users with the value of his/her research’s
contribution to society (Bruckman 2002,
2006; Hair and Clark 2007; Walther
2002). Kozinets (2010, p. 153) says that
netnographers need to balance the following
ethical considerations: 1) the need to protect
vulnerable human participants who may be
put at risk from the exposure of a research
study; 2) the accessible and ‘semi published’
qualities of much of what is shared on the
Internet; and 3) the rights of individual
community and culture members to receive
credit for their creative and intellectual work.
Furthermore, anonymity is needed to avoid
public’s anger concerning inappropriate
contents.
Finally, the nal step of a netnographic
research is to seek and incorporate feedback
from members of the online community
being researched. By using member checks,
netnographers present some or all of their
nal research report to the people they have
studied in order to solicit their comments
(Kozinets, 2002, p. 9).
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics
which studies meaning in interaction.
According to Yule (1996, p. 3), pragmatics
is concerned with the study of meaning as
communicated by a speaker (or writer) and
interpreted by a listener (or reader).
Yule (1996, p. 3) adds that pragmatics
deals more with the analysis of what people
mean by their utterances than what the words
of phrases in those utterances might mean by
themselves. Pragmatics studies what speaker

44
means. This type of study includes the
interpretation of what people mean in certain
context and how the context plays a role in
what is said. Thus, pragmatics also studies
meaning in contexts. In addition, pragmatics
tries to nd out how a great deal of what
is unsaid is recognised as part of what is
communicated. On the other hand, pragmatics
studies how more gets communicated than is
said. This perspective then raises the question
of what determines the choice between the
said and unsaid. The basic answer is related
to the concept of distance. Closeness, whether
it is physical, social, or conceptual, implies
shared experience. On the assumption of
how close or distant the listener is, speakers
determine how much needs to be said. In
brief, pragmatics studies the expression of
relative distance.
Taken together, pragmatics deals
with contexts and utterances in uencing
speakers’ meaning. What speakers utter
may differ in certain context that follows the
utterance. Some of pragmatic sub elds that
can be investigated using netnography are
implicatures, speech acts, and politeness.
Implicatures
Implicatures are intended meanings of
utterances which are not explicitly stated
in the act of utterance, nor do they follow
logically from what is said (Cruse, 2006, p.
85). In an implicature, what a speaker utters
does not literally mean the way it is uttered,
it simply has an inferred meaning. This
meaning is typically produced with a different
logical form from what is uttered. To be able
to understand implicatures, it is necessary to
understand basic cooperative principle.
Grice (1975) rst introduced basic
cooperative principle as a result from his
observation that conversational exchanges
consist of cooperative efforts which
incorporate the speaker’s intention and the
hearer’s recognition of that intention. The
cooperative principle means “making your
contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose
or direction of the talk exchange in which
you are engaged” (Levinson, 1983, p. 101).
Grice proposed four conversational maxims
governing the rules of conversation: 1)
quantity: do not make your contribution more
informative than is required; 2) quality: do
not say what you believe to be false or that
for which you lack evidence; 3) relation: be
relevant; and, 4) manner: be brief and orderly.7
There are two basic kinds of implicature:
1) conventional implicatures are those which
have a stable association with particular
linguistic expressions such as yet in Jane
hasn’t collected her assignment yet, which
implicates that Jane is still expected to
collect her assignment; and 2) conversational
implicatures are those which must be inferred,
and for which contextual information is
crucial such as the expression Mum already
cooked in reply to the statement I’m going
to make lunch, which implicates that it is not
necessary to cook since mother already did.
Speech act refers to an act made when
an utterance is proposed; for example, giving
orders and making promises (Austin, 1962).
Searle (1969) shares, “Speech acts are the
basic unit of linguistic communication”
(p. 16). The minimal unit of linguistic
communication is not linguistic expression,
but rather the performance of certain kinds
of acts. When people utter a sentence, it is
not just to say things but rather actively to do
things. There are sorts of things that can be
done with words, such as make requests, ask
questions, give orders, and make promises.
According to Félix-Brasdefer (2008,
p. 37), languages have various linguistic
resources for communicating speech acts.
Speech acts can be realised explicitly using
performative verbs or speech act verbs (e.g., I
apologise, I refuse, I promise, etc.). However,
it should be considered that not all speech acts
may be realised using speech act verbs, as one
cannot use the verb ‘to insult’ to explicitly

45
insult someone (e.g., ‘I insult you!’); but
rather, speakers may employ other linguistic
resources to express the illocutionary force
of a speech act. Hence, speech acts can be
performed through either utterances or other
linguistic instruments.
There are ve three levels of speech acts
according to Austin (1962): 1) locutionary
act, which has to do with the utterance that is
presented by a sentence with a grammatical
structure and meaning; 2) illocutionary act,
deals with the intention of the utterance,
such as stating, questioning, commanding,
or promising; and 3) perlocutionary act, the
bringing about of effects on the audience
by means of uttering the sentence, such
effects being special to the circumstances
of utterance. Of these three levels, based
on Yule (1996, p. 49), the most discussed is
illocutionary force. The term ‘speech act’ is
generally interpreted quite narrowly to mean
only the illocutionary force of an utterance.
The illocutionary force of an utterance is
what it ‘counts as’.
Searle (1969, p. 240) proposes
taxonomy that there are ve basic kinds of
action that one can perform in speaking: 1)
representatives is to commit the speaker to
the truth of the expressed proposition, such
as asserting, concluding, and suggesting; 2)
directives is speech acts which attempt the
addressee to carry out an action, for example;
requesting, questioning, and commanding; 3)
commisives is speech act which commit the
speaker to some future action like promising,
threatening, offering, and pledging; 4)
expressives is to express a psychological state
or attitude like thanking, welcoming, and
congratulating; 5) declarations which bring
about the state of affairs they name, such as
marrying, blessing, and ring.8
In terms of indirectness, there are two
types of speech acts; direct and indirect
speech acts. Yule (1996) states that a direct
speech act is an utterance that is performed
by the speakers which means exactly and
literally. It means that in uttering something,
the speakers say what they mean and mean
what they say. Thus, both the speakers and
the hearers can understand what the utterance
implies. For example, the utterance “Please
take out the garbage” is a direct request for
the hearer to take out the garbage.
An utterance can be recognised as an
indirect speech act if the literal meaning
of the locution differs from its intended
meaning. Searle (1975) introduced the idea of
an ‘indirect speech act’. He describes indirect
speech acts as follows:
“In indirect speech acts the speaker
communicates to the hearer more than
he actually says by way of relying
on their mutually shared background
information, both linguistic and
nonlinguistic, together with the general
powers of rationality and inference on
the part of the hearer”.
Speakers may consider using either
direct or indirect speech acts based on the
hearers’ status and/or distance. In order to
respect the hearers, speakers may express
their speech acts along with their politeness.
Politeness
As far as linguistic behaviour is
concerned, politeness deals with efforts to
reduce the negative effects of one’s utterance
on the feelings of others and to gain positive
effects. Cruse (2006, p. 131) adds that
politeness can also be both speaker oriented
and hearer oriented. In addition, Grundy
(2000) further explains that politeness
phenomena also extend the concept of
indexicality because they demonstrate that
every utterance is uniquely designed for its
audience (p. 145). There are two types of
politeness: positive and negative politeness.
A positive politeness strategy brings
the requester to get the mutual goal, and
even friendship. The linguistic behaviour
of positive politeness is simply the normal
behaviour between intimates. Negative
politeness,ontheotherhand,is“compensative
action addressed to the addressee’s negative

46
face: his want to have his freedom of action
unhindered and his attention unimpeded”
(Brown and Levinson 1987, p. 129). Yule
(1996) elaborates that when speakers use
positive politeness forms, they tend to
emphasise closeness between them and
hearers. It can be seen as a solidarity strategy
that may contain personal information such
as nicknames, and shared dialect or slang
expressions (p. 65-66). On the other hand,
when speakers use negative politeness forms,
they tend to emphasise the hearers’ right to
freedom and it can be seen as a deference
strategy that may involve ‘formal politeness’.
The following table illustrates the choice of
strategies in positive and negative politeness.
Table 1 Brown and Levinson’s politeness
strategies (in Grundy, 2000, p. 161)
Positive Politeness
Negative Polite-
ness
Notice/attend to
hearer’s wants
Exaggerate interest/
approval
Intensify interest
Use in group identity
markers
Seek agreement
Be conventionally
indirect
Question, hedge
Be pessimistic
Minimise imposi-
tion
Give deference
Apologise
Avoid disagreement
Presuppose/assert
common ground
Joke
Assert knowledge of
hearer’s wants
Offer, promise
Be optimistic
Include speaker and
hearer in the activity
Give (or ask for)
reasons
Assume/assert reci-
procity
Give gifts to hearer
(goods, sympathy,
etc.)
Impersonalise
State the imposi-
tion as a general
rule
Nominalise
Go on record as
incurring a debt
Theory in Practice
Given the theoretical points explained
in the previous sections, this section will
elaborate studies in pragmatics that can be
done to online cultures and communities by
adapting netnography method. In reference to
the explanations about implicatures, speech
acts, and politeness, the most appropriate data
analysis procedure is pragmatic-interactionist
approach (Kozinets, 2010, p. 132). Pragmatic-
interactionist approach is an analysis which
unit is not the person, but the gesture, the
behaviour or the act, including the speech act
or utterance (Mead, 1938 in Kozinets, 2010).
Netnopragmatics is proposed in this
article since it is in line with the pragmatic-
interactionist approach. Similar to pragmatic-
interactionist approach, netnopragmatics is
proposed with several considerations, such
as: (1) online world functions as a social
environment; (2) online data as social acts;
(3) nding out the meaning of the acts in
accordance with the context that precedes
or follows. The term netnopragmatics refers
to a pragmatic study on language use by
online community members. By conducting
a netnopragmatic study, the data analysis
involves “contextualising the meaning of the
exchange and interaction in ever-widening
circles of social signi cance” (Kozinets,
2010, p. 133). In netnopragmatics, various
kinds of visual data can be analysed: moving
graphical images or emoticons, colours, type
font, pictures and photographs, and layout of
pages and messages.
Online communities may exist on blogs,
Facebook, Twitter, even instant messaging
groups such as WhatsApp, BlackBerry
Messenger, and Line Messenger. In this
article, one Facebook group is taken as
an example for the implementation of
netnopragmatic study.
In conducting a netnographic research
on implicatures, netnopragmatists can study
communications between members of the
same Facebook group. Netnopragmatists can

47
sneak into, or better yet, become a member
of the group to observe each member’s
interactions on the group board or even on
his/her timeline. They may study about, say,
maxim violations together with a thorough
context that elaborates why such violations
occur.
In addition, the study of speech acts in
online communities can also be done using
netnopragmatics. This is in line with Kozinets
(2010) that any kinds of postings such as
photographs, videos, pictures, and tags can be
taken as an utterance, and are akin to a ‘speech
act’. Speech acts such as compliments,
invitations, apologies, refusals, and offers
can be analysed by observing members of
an existing online culture and community.
By using social media for observation,
netnopragmatists are also able to decide the
‘ties’ of relation between members, i.e. the
degree of solidarity, relative power, and/or
absolute ranking of impositions (Brown and
Levinson 1987), which may affect the choice
of strategy in uttering the acts. This ‘ties’
are also helpful for politeness study. The
following is an example of analysis on both
implicatures and speech acts occurring in a
Facebook group.
Context:
The interaction occurred in a
Facebook group of linguists: students,
practitioners, and researchers from
all over the world. This clearly shows
that members of the group come from
different cultural backgrounds. There
are 16,930 members with 6 admins. The
number of members joining the group
and the variety of backgrounds indicate
that not all members have interpersonal
relationships among other members,
therefore they cannot decide the
relative power or ranking of imposition
whatsoever. There are approximately
150 active members who post and
reply to posts in the group. Based on
Kozinets’s types of online community
participation, there is only one devotee
member, FRH, who often replies to posts
and posts linguistic information. Other
149 members are simply minglers. Even
though the 6 admins are insiders, they
are not as much active as FRH.
Data:

48
Analysis:
The interaction occurred on 7 October at
23:09 and involved three members. AHL was
the person who initiated the conversation.
His initiation can be taken as a speech act
of command, despite the sentence structure
which is in a form of declarative. He wanted
the members to help him nd out terms
related to language death (Hi guys, explain
some terms related to language death). The
speech act AHL gave is a command because
from his utterance, he did not put a subject
and simply gave the verb ‘explain’ after his
greetings ‘hi guys’.
The rstmembertoreplyAHL’sinitiation
was CA on 8 October at 09:31. The reply CA
gave to AHL, from implicature point of view,
showed that CA just violated the maxim
of relation, which requires speakers to be
relevant. However, from speech act point of
view, CA’s reply is actually a request that
AHLsay the ‘magic word’(Where’s the magic
word?). It is assumed that CA came from a
culture in which when one makes a request,
one should also express the politeness.
AHL then replied to CA’s response by
maintaining the maxim of quantity, which
requires to be as informative as is required.
However,thereisamisunderstandingbetween
CA and AHL. CA uttered the question as a
request that AHL say the ‘magic word’. AHL
took the question literally as a question and
answered it (It’s “language death”).
FRH then joined the conversation and
asserted that CA’s utterance is actually a
request for AHL to say ‘please’ (That’s
typically a request for the word “please”).
FRH’s speech act of asserting indicates that
he came from the same culture as CA. Even
though FRH’s response violated the maxim of
relation, it con rmed the misunderstanding
between CA and AHL. It can be clearly
seen that conversational implicatures do not
always go in line with speech acts.
Not only in implicatures and speech acts,
in studying politeness, ‘ties’ can also be used
to explain what type of politeness a member
uses to communicate with another member
or other members and why such politeness
is preferred. Netnopragmatists may observe
the choice of politeness strategy and decide
the degree of familiarity or closeness
between members. The study of politeness
can also be examined through the choice of
words, phrases, or sentences each member
of an online community prefers to use. The
following is an example of analysis on both
implicatures and speech acts occurring in the
same Facebook group.
Context:
The interaction occurred in a
Facebook group of linguists: students,
practitioners, and researchers from
all over the world. This clearly shows
that members of the group come from
different cultural backgrounds. There
are 16,930 members with 6 admins. The
number of members joining the group
and the variety of backgrounds indicate
that not all members have interpersonal
relationships among other members,
therefore they cannot decide the
relative power or ranking of imposition
whatsoever. There are approximately
150 active members who post and
reply to posts in the group. Based on
Kozinets’s types of online community
participation, there is only one devotee
member, FRH, who often replies to posts
and posts linguistic information. Other
149 members are simply minglers. Even
though the 6 admins are insiders, they
are not as much active as FRH.

49
Data:
Analysis:
The conversation was initiated by FRH
who wrote a post in the group’s timeline on
3 October at 01:22. His post was responded
by four members. One of the members,
AAA, responded FRH by an exclamation
(Fantastic!), followed by a statement which
consists of a negative politeness (Mr. FRH,
but I think you rather say: ‘grammatical
mistake’instead of ‘grammar mistake’). AAA
addressed FRH with ‘Mr.’ as her politeness.
The negative politeness she gave indicates
that the ‘tie’ between FRH and her is loose.
Nevertheless, FRH then replied AAA stating
that she should address him simply with his
rst name. FRH prefers the positive politeness
instead of the negative one.
In netnopragmatic study, it is important
to note that in order to gain more naturalistic
data and avoid being considered a lurker,
a netnopragmatist had better become a
member of the online community. However,
a netnopragmatist must also concern about
the research ethics in netnography despite
the membership he/she has in that online
community. Research ethics for the data
taken in this article have been considered in a
way that the names and faces of the members
are concealed.
Conclusions and Suggestions
Netnography is the suitable method
a pragmatist can use to analyse the use
of language in virtual worlds by online
communities. There are several techniques
in collecting research data a netnopragmatist
can choose appropriate with their research
questions and aims. By following the
procedures and guidelines of netnographic
study, netnopragmatists will be very much
helped in conducting their research online
with less time consuming.
This paper is merely an idea and it
is important to stress that the suggestions
presented have only been tested or applied
in some studies conducted by the writer. It
is strongly suggested that fellow pragmatists

50
conduct this kind of research and put the idea
into practice.
End Notes
1. In CMC groups, participation tends to be
more balanced or equitable.
2. Face to face positively affects
cooperation. Similar to FtF, CMC also
has a positive effect to the cooperation
in social dilemmas, but cooperation is
more dif cult to establish and maintain.
3. Girginova, K. 2012. Introducing
Digital Ethnographies. Retrieved from
http://gnovisjournal.org/2012/10/09/
introducing-digital-ethnographies/
4. In Kozinets (2010: 44)
5. In Boellstorff et al. (2012: 105)
6. In Kozinets (2002: 8)
7. For more about cooperative principle,
read Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and
conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan
(Eds), Syntax and semantics 3: Speech
acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic
Press.
8. Improving Austin’s categories of speech
acts (1962), which are verdictives,
exercitives, commisives, expositives,
and behavities.
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Keterangan Penulis
Penulis adalah dosen Jurusan Bahasa Inggris
di STBA Yapari-ABA Bandung untuk
mata kuliah Metodologi Penelitian, Public
Speaking, Lab. Work for Aural Oral Practice,
dan Listening for Inferences. Penulis dapat
dihubungi melalui email: yuliani.putri@stba.
ac.id

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