Teguh Setiawan, Suhardi, Beniati Lestyarini
Swearing is a verbal behavior characterized by the use of profanity and taboo words to express emotions and anger, which exists in various communicative contexts in every language and culture. Despite its notorious use as language expressions, swearing actually functions to indicate the user’s degree of involvement in certain event of communication. This study observed the use of language in digitally-mediated communication setting namely in the commenting discourse responding to certain online news items. The aim of the present study is to investigate netizen’s involvement in a commenting discourse, as reflected in the use of their language expressions using profanity in the comment sections of online news items. Using a combination of transitivity analysis (Eggins, 2004) and the use of swearing to indicate solidarity (Eggins & Slade, 1997), the study investigated functions and roles of swearing in online news commenting discourse. The study identified that the most frequently used swear-words are taboo words, which are targeted to certain people in the news reports. This further entails implications on the formation of commenter groupings based on certain standings over an issue in news items. Copyright © 2023, authors
Department of Indonesian Language and Literature Education, Faculty of Languages, Arts, and Cultures, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Jalan Colombo No. 1, Depok, Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
