a statement assertive, expressive, commissive, and declaration, question directive, and command directive. The directness of relationship between them
is the main foundation of direct and indirect speech acts. Searle, as cited in Cutting 2002: 19 states that direct speech acts are used
by the speaker to communicate the literal meaning that the word conventionally express; there is a direct relationship between the three structural forms
declarative, interrogative, imperative and the three general communicative functions statement, question, command. For example:
a Declarative is used as statement: You wear a seat belt.
b Interrogative is used as question: Do you wear a seat belt?
c Imperative is used as command: Wear a seat belt
Furthermore, an indirect speech acts are used to communicate a same meaning as literal meaning, but he also means something more as well; the
structure and the function are not directly related. Thus, the speaker uses declarative as command, imperative as statement, interrogative as command, etc.
For example, when there is a storm and the window is open, so someone says to his friend
“can you close the window?” That interrogative sentence is not just a question whether the hearer can open the window or not, but it is also a command
for the hearer to close the windows. Thus, in that case, interrogative sentence is used for commanding.
13
CHAPTER III RESEARCH OBJECT AND METHOD
This chapter presents the methodology of the research. It explains research object and research method.
3.1 Research Object
The object of this research is internet slang phrases taken from various threads in thestudentroom.com forum from September 2011 until February 2012.
The Student Room is a United Kingdom-based internet forum for school and university students. The site is primarily designed as a place for UK-based
students to find information about studying, courses and careers. It also hosts discussion on a wide variety of general topics, such as football, music, movie, etc.
The forum is chosen as the source of the data since this forum is used by university student, and they are the prominent user of slang as it is stated by Yule
2006: 211 that slang is words or phrases that are used instead of more everyday terms among younger speakers and other groups with special interests. Therefore,
this forum is the best source to make a research about internet slang.
3.2 Research Method
The method used in this research is analytic descriptive. Ratna 2007: 53, points out that analytic descriptive method is conducted by analyzing and
describing the facts of the research data. Thus, the speech acts of internet slang
phrases are analysed, then it is followed by describing the types of speech acts and speaker communicative intentions when using internet slang phrases.
3.2.1 Data Collection
In collecting the data to be analysed, there are some steps conducted as follows:
1. Reading the whole comments of a thread in thestudentroom.com forum from
September 2011 until February 2012. 2.
Choosing the internet slang phrases which are classified into direct and indirect speech acts. The internet slang phrases which are only classified into
direct speech acts are not taken as data since this research wants to compare the direct and indirect speech acts of internet slang phrases.
3. Making a table which consists of the speaker, the audiences, and the
discussion containing internet slang phrases to give communicative events.
3.2.2 Data Analysis
There are two steps in analysing the internet slang phrases as follow: 1.
Identifying the types of speech acts of internet slang phrases based on Searle theory.
2. Analysing speaker communicative intentions when using internet slang
phrases.
15
CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This chapter presents the analysis of data and the discussion of findings regarding to the research problems.
4.1 Findings
In conducting the research, the writer found 19 data to be analyzed. The data are then classified into direct and indirect speech acts. As a result, there are 9
data for direct speech acts which consist of 6 assertives, 1 commissive, and 2 expressives, and there are 10 data for indirect speech acts which consist of 2
directives, 3 assertives, and 5 expressives.
4.2 Discussion
This section discusses the data based on the relation between its structure and function, and it is divided into direct and indirect speech acts.
4.2.1 Direct Speech Acts
There are 3 categories found from the data classified into direct speech
acts; they are assertives, commissives, and expressives.
