# ASSIGNMENT 2

Formality and Informality of Language Used in Bulletin Board

Introduction

Previous time, we used letters in communicating with other people who live far away from us. Sometimes, we used a letter as a medium for us to ask forgiveness from people who we feel ashamed to face it. But, nowadays, we do not need to write a letter already. We can replace it with using The Computer Mediated Communication (CMC).

Regarding to the matters, this research is developed to examine the use of speech act in Computer Mediated Communication and the formality of language that the user used while they are communicating through CMC

Research Questions

       Language users usually differentiate the way they used the language whether it should be formally used or informally used. So, its come to the question that how the viewer or commentator of the bulletin board used their language whether that maintain the its formality or not. Besides that, the used of certain jargon by the commentator in the bulletin board conversation also being analyzing the corpus to how the way they use it.

Literature Review

Online communities have been a research concern in disciplines other than linguistics, for example, sociology and social psychology. In these fields interactional behaviour is the focus; not much attention has been paid to linguistic behaviour. Linguistic characteristics of online communities can shed light on aspects of such communities that studies in other disciplines may not have discussed. This study analyses interactions in online communities from linguistic perspectives whether the language that had been used is formal or informal and either the user use direct speech act or indirect speech act in their online communication basis.

Firstly, let us clarify how behaviours indicating a sense of community can be identified from a message. First, "identity" can be shown in the domain of structure, which includes "jargon, reference to group, and in-group/out-group language" (Herring, 2004). Behaviours involving jargon or group-specific language can realize identity in that they distinguish a particular group from other groups. Such language use is rarely observed outside of the community and may not be understood by non-members. Second, the "sociability" criterion can be directly linked to social behaviour. Its realization in online communities can take, for example, the form of frequent and reciprocal postings, and it can be researched through interactions showing reciprocity and exchange of knowledge. Finally, "support" can be analyzed through types of behaviour similar to "sociability," since supporting someone presupposes companionship. Those who provide, rather than receive, support may also feel a sense of satisfaction in providing what other members need, which contributes further to the establishment and maintenance of successful online community (Herring, 2004).

Since BBS provides people with an excellent opportunity for real, natural communication that may lie somewhere between the formality of traditional writing and the spontaneity of speech, the specific linguistic features of BBS have already aroused many linguists’ interest (Wang, 2003).

In discussions of English language study, participants in both communities share clear goals. Interactional behaviours show correspondingly similar activities, such as thanking, recounting personal experiences, and expressing admiration and encouragement. However, the language used in Channel 2 is lacking in politeness features and uses much jargon. In contrast, the language in Yahoo is polite even though, the language is informal, with very few community-specific linguistic features. For the film topic, encouragement was not overtly observed. However, participants engage in similar cooperative activities in the two BBS contexts, such as sharing information. They just do so using totally different linguistic styles (Nishimua, 2008).

Data Analysis

       The corpus that had being analyzed is from http://www.fleamarketmusic.com/bulletin/ and we select a few latest comments. What had been found is that, most of the comments are still maintaining its formality but slightly with little informality. It shown by most of the comments are lengthy and being separated into paragraphs. Besides that, the used of short forms in expressing their thoughts are really minor in numbers.

      But they do have sense of informality which certain comments being wrote with many full stop at the end of the sentence. Even, the commentator do included or wrote certain word in capital letter to show some stressing on that word. Sometimes, the used of emoticon also had been implemented at some comments. They do insert some smiley at the end of the comments to represents their feelings. The used of hedges in front of the sentences also being detected with some informal words like ‘umm’ and ‘moms and pops’ for ‘mama and papa’.\

Conclusion

       So, it can say that, in the conversation like in bulletin board where the viewer may be man and women who already matured and seniors. The words bulletin itself already shows it own formality. So the, viewers try not to being too informal and the conversations also is about a serious matters then the language probably follows the environment. So, after read trough the comments from the corpus, its found out that the ideas and comments from the viewers may relevance and beneficial to others. They are not just no points comments. 

References

Herring, S. C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online communities. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 338-376). Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.

Nishimura, Y. K. (2008). Japanese BBS websites as online communities: (Im)politeness perspectives. Language@Internet, 5, article 3

Wang, Y. F. (2003). Thinking as saying: shuo (‘say’) in Taiwan Mandarin conversation and BBS talk. Taiwan: English Department of Province University.