T1 112011035 Full text
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
i
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
Approved by:
Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A
Neny Isharyanti, M.A
Supervisor
Examiner
ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
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accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best my
knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other
person expect where due references is made in the text.
Copyright@2015. Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang and Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul
All right reserved. No part of this thesis may be produced by any means without permission of at
least one of the copyright owner or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature,
Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang:
iii
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Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used In Online Social Media
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Thesis Examiner
Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A
Neny Isharyanti, M.A
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
1
INTRODUCTION
1
LITERATURE REVIEW
3
The Speech Act of Disagreement
3
Disagreement Strategies of EFL learners
4
The Nature of Computer Mediated Communication Interaction
4
Disagreement in CMC
6
THE STUDY
6
Research Question
6
Context of the Study
7
Participants
7
Instrumentation
7
Procedure of Data Collection
8
Data Analysis
9
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Strong Disagreement
11
12
Oralization Strategies
13
Blunt Statement of the opposite
14
Sarcasm
15
Use of insults and judgment
16
Bare Negative
17
Mitigated Disagreement
18
Oralization Strategies
18
Giving Explanation
19
Suggestions
20
Hedges, Clarification
20
Humor
21
Token Agreement, Positive Remarks
22
CONCLUSION
23
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
26
REFERENCES
27
APPENDIX
29
LIST OF TABLE
Table 1 Comparison between strong and mitigated disagreement
11
Table 2 Features of strong disagreement
12
Table 3 Features of mitigated disagreement
18
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
Gayuh Abyor K
Abstract
This study places the context on the current emerging media of communication that is
computer mediated communication (CMC) in shaping how speech act is performed. In
particular, a speech act of disagreement. The speech act of disagreement has received a little
attention in the field of pragmatic study. Moreover, there are just few researches investigating
disagreement in the context of English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners who perform it in
online social media. Thus, by investigating 16 EFL from English Department of Satya Wacana
Christian University when interacting on Facebook, this study focuses on analyzing the
disagreement strategies used by them. The data are gathered by examining participants‟
disagreement in responding to six Facebook statuses. Each status is designed with different
topics and social status. Then, in examining the data, this study adapts Fernandez‟s (2013)
framework of disagreement strategies. The strategy itself is divided into two categories, strong
disagreement and mitigated disagreement. Along with that, the method used is qualitative
supported by quantitative data. The finding reveals that the participants had tendency to use
mitigated disagreement rather than strong disagreement. By looking at this study, it can give a
better understanding for EFL learners in communicating their disagreement using proper
strategy.
Keywords: CMC, disagreement, EFL, disagreement strategies, strong disagreement, mitigated
disagreement
INTRODUCTION
The advancement in technology had provided human beings a new medium of
communication, the social media. With its worldwide networks, online social media has a role as
one of the agents of change in linguistic. One of the changes that are visible to see is how people
perform speech acts. A Speech act is language acts or linguistic acts that involved any essential
specimen of linguistic communication (Searle, 1969). In other words, it is an act that the speaker
performed when making an utterance. Fernandez (2013) believes that in understanding the
1
specific purpose of speech acts, a speaker cannot only depend on their linguistic competence but
also pragmatic competence. Linguistic competence is the knowledge of phonological rules,
morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items (Yano, 2003), while
pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately in any socio-cultural context
(Kreutel, 2007). Moreover, it is such a difficult task understanding what a speaker really means
as in the social network sites most of nonverbal cues are absent (Baym, 1996; Hancock,
Landrigan & Silver, 2007).
Speaking of foreign language acquisition, it is quite difficult process for the learners to
become proficient in both competences. Even though they can speak accurately in the sense of
grammar, but gaining social usage in various contexts is very challenging. It is due to the fact
that learners need to be aware of what is and what is not suitable in given contexts (Kasper,
1997) in which each society may have different appropriateness. Then, it is undeniable that the
cultural values and style of communication of one person may determine the production of
speech acts. Hence, the case of cross-cultural interaction between the users over the internet has
impacted the comprehension and production of different speech acts (Fernandez, 2013). As a
consequence, people really need to make sense in understanding interaction or argument in
online social media.
Among the various studies about speech acts, the speech act of disagreement has not been
viewed as a major subject to be discussed. More specifically, there are just very few studies
investigating disagreement strategies in the context of online media, whereas, this subject could
easily cause pragmatic failure and misunderstanding (Fernandez, 2013) as it seems to be more
hostile and offensive in internet language (Moor, 2008). Also, perhaps there is no recent study
exploring the case of Indonesian EFL learners in online social media. Thus, this paper aims to
2
analyze the issue of language activities in online social media, especially in the speech act of
disagreement performed by Indonesian EFL learners.
The Speech Act of Disagreement
In daily life communication, people cannot neglect the fact that sometimes disagreeing is
raised in between interaction or discussion. Disagreement can be seen as opposing other
speaker‟s prior statement or used to stand out different point of view that often has a „‟negative
connotation‟‟ (Kozcogh, 2013, pp. 216). Applying Searle‟s (1975) taxonomy of illocutionary
speech act Kozcogh (2013) proposes that disagreement is a representative act in which the
speech act that commit the speaker to the truth or falsity of the expressed proposition. Likewise,
Sifianou affirms that disagreement is “the expression of a view that differs from that
expressed by another speaker” (2012, p. 1). It can be represented by expressing criticism,
denial, and objection to previous statements or facts. Consequently, Sacks argued that people
tend not to boldly disagree with others because of social influences (as cited in Fernandez, 2013)
such as social distance, status, age and others.
On the other hand, though disagreements have been considered as unfavorable speech
acts (Leech, 2007), some researchers believe that disagreement is a fundamental component of
everyday interaction (Sifianou, 2012, Kozcogh, 2013) and that is needed to make a decision and
problem solving (Angouri & Locher, 2012). In this context, disagreement could be as a
supporting act (Fernandez, 2013) where it is showing the interlocutor‟s concern to the previous
speaker‟s statement. Due to its complexity views, then it is interesting to investigate the
disagreement strategies used by the speaker to convey his/her true intention, especially
disagreement performed by a non-native speaker of one language. In this study, disagreement in
pragmatic terms is limited to the framework of expressing opposition to another opinion.
3
Disagreement Strategies of EFL learners
As stated earlier, pragmatic and linguistic competence play a key role in how EFL
learners‟ express their disagreement. In pragmatic case, with the influence of socio-cultural
norms within the target language society, expressing disagreement can vary according to the
context. In regards to EFL learners which are non-native speakers of English, it is a crucial factor
to acquire such competence. However, it is said that they lack in pragmatic knowledge and tend
to apply their first language pragmatic norms when using the target language to express
something (Kasper, 1997). Then, it is interesting to see what strategies they employ in expressing
disagreement using English.
Kreutel (2007) in his contrastive study between ESL (English as a second language)
learners and native speakers in expressing disagreement found that non-native speakers tend to
use message abandonment or „‟blunt opposite‟‟ (p.1). They often left a message unfinished
because of language difficulties. As a result, desirable mitigation devices such as hedging or
explanation are less used. Yet, when they applied it, they sound inappropriate, harsh and rude
compared to native speakers. However, Lawson (2009) argues that in several cases when the
instrument used in the research is not taken in real life conversation, or in other word the
participant being brought in a made up situation, message abandonment can be judicious act as
there is ambiguity factors of non-verbal information that need to be considered such as gender or
sexual tension, personality and feeling that may not appear.
The Nature of Computer Mediated Communication Interaction
Online media are part of the new phenomenon of the latest linguistic medium which is
called Computer-mediated Communication (CMC). Locher (2010) contextualizes the topic of
CMC as the exchange of information through the mediation of technology such as
4
computers/internet, mobile phones, etc. As suggested by Baym (1996), the language used in
CMC is “written, yet is marked by many features associated with face to face interaction‟‟ (p.
316). The language is a mixture of oral and written elements. In other words, the production of
written language in CMC may assimilate with the natural style of spoken language (Sumakul,
2010). Also, the interaction can account interpersonal and mass communication (Baym, 1996).
Hence, online communication can be as real as face to face interaction as the participants are
triggered by their own real life expression (Locher, 2010), though the writers and readers may at
different times and places. Yet, to be noted, CMC language is argued to be lacking of expressive
behavioral cues or non-verbal cues that occurred in face to face communication (Walther &
Tidwell, 1995). As the result, the internal feeling or intended message of someone that can be
seen through gesture, tone and pitch voice or facial expression in traditional communication is
not really accommodated in CMC language. However, the development of CMC language has
brought a substitution on such paralinguistic cues through the use of CMC cues for instance
emoticons or using oralization strategies (Yus, 2011, as cited in Fernandez, 2013), such as
repetition of letters, capitalization, creative use of punctuation to convey the intended meaning.
CMC activities can be asynchronous (in delayed time such as email) and synchronous (in
real time such as chat rooms) (Abram, 2003). As this study is focusing on comment sections on
online social media, this interaction falls under asynchronous one. In this media, the reader may
able to post comments about a particular topic at ease. However, most of the responses may not
be in dialogic interaction with the author, but as Baym (1996) said, their response can also be
meant for a whole group. Thus, it can be read by others and the participants can respond to each
other.
5
Disagreement in CMC
A few researchers have gotten their interest in examining this issue. One notable
researcher is Baym (1996) who studied agreement and disagreement in an online discussion
group. She affirmed that the influence of the participants‟ gender, the institutions, and the genre
in online media are shaping the way someone express opinion. Due to her participants are 72%
female, she found out that written disagreement in this medium is more complex and mitigated
than face to face interaction. However, the widely phenomenon of flaming in CMC –attacking
others verbally online with offensive language- is argued by her to be more suitable for men's
disagreement styles. Moreover, Moor (2008) that examined flaming on YouTube with male as
dominant participants said that flaming is considered as something negative and they disliked it.
Therefore, it comes to a sense that expressing disagreement in CMC is much more complex than
it seems.
Another study conducted by Upadhyay (2010) investigated the correlation between
identity and impoliteness in online reader responses. He found out that the readers strategically
may voice their argument using impolite language that threaten the other reader‟s self-image. He
assumed that the absence of the physical context and the social distance in CMC makes the
readers may not consider other readers‟ self-image and blatantly speak their opposition. Then, it
is interesting to bring this issue on EFL learners and analyzing the strategies used by them.
THE STUDY
Research Question
The study was conducted to answer the following research question: “How do EFL learners
express disagreement in online social media?”
6
Context of the Study
The context of this study took place in Faculty of Language and Literature Satya Wacana
Christian University. This study was conducted in the second semester of the academic session
2014/2015. Furthermore, the study was done in one of the popular online social media;
Facebook. It is chosen due to Facebook allows its members to connect in an efficient way and
likely to facilitate any relationship, either with a close friend or strange one (Manago, et al.,
2012). Then, a group of discussion in Facebook was created to facilitate the participants to
interact with the topics given. Moreover, the qualitative approach was used to know the behavior
of disagreement strategies used by the participants. Along with that, it serves as the verbal
description in analyzing the content of the participants‟ comment. In relation to the aims of this
study, it was also supported by quantitative data.
Participants
The participants for this study were 16 students of Faculty of Language and Literature
Satya Wacana Christian University. All of them were students from batch 2011 consisting of 11
females and 5 males. Due to practical reasons in which the time was limited, the participants
were chosen using convenient sampling.
Instrumentation
The data used in this study were gathered by examining the participant‟s ideas and views
expressed through their opinion in the comment section on a Facebook group. Facebook was
selected because it offers a text facility through which the users can share and negotiate opinion
and besides that, it is very popular social media among the participants and they are familiar with
any features on Facebook. In here, the participants were gathered into one group. This is due to
in a private group it can hinder the participants from „‟information overload‟‟ (Caspi et al., 2003,
7
p. 231). Thus, by grouping the participants they would be more focus and would not confront
with too many data items. Moreover, as the group has a large number of the participants, it may
lead the communication to less interactive (Fay et.al, 2000). Then in this study, grouping the
participants into small private group might enhance interactive communication between the
participants .
In the group, the participants were administered with 6 Facebook statuses that they
needed to respond to. The statements were selected through a different background of arguable
topics such as politic, belief, culture and less arguable topics such as personal tastes. The
selection of the topics was based upon the matters of public concern which the participants
would generally meet them in daily conversation. Thus, it is expected that these topics would
elicit participants‟ opinion that implicitly or explicitly generate disagreement.
Procedure of Data Collection
In collecting the data, the writer‟s position was as non-participant observation. The data
were collected in the second semester of the academic session 2014/2015. The data were from
the participants‟ activity on a Facebook group that was intentionally being made for them.
Firstly, a piloting was done to see the appropriateness of the given statuses in eliciting
disagreement from the participants. Then, after revising it, the participants were asked to join a
group in Facebook that was made by the writer. In the group, there were already six statuses
from someone that was likened to be participants‟ acquaintance, friends, and lecturer. After all
participants were commented on with the statuses, the data then will then categorized and
analyzed accordingly.
8
Data Analysis
In this study, the analysis used an adaptation from Fernandes‟ (2013) framework in
identifying and categorizing the disagreement strategies employed by the participants. The
framework itself was based on the work of Kreutel (2007), Pomerantz (1984) and Rees-Miller
(2000). The strategies fall into two main categories with some sub-types: Strong disagreement
and mitigated disagreement.
Strong disagreement is a strategy that threatens the hearer‟s self-image in an unpleasant
manner. It has 7 sub categories or features. The first is using bare negative forms. It is identified
with a linguistic marker „no‟. The second is performative (I disagree/ I don‟t agree). The
participants use the form of „I disagree….‟ or „I don‟t agree….‟ without any explanation. The
third is blunt statement of the opposite. This is disagreement without stating any reasons. In other
words, this strategy blatantly expresses the opposite of the previous statement without any
explanation. The fourth is using rhetorical question. The fifth is sarcasm. It is verbal irony which
interpreted as exactly opposite from its literal meaning (Tepperman et al., 2006). The sixth is
oralization strategies. Oralization strategies are based on the study of cyberpragmatic by Yus
(2011). Fernandez (2013) asserted this strategy to identify disagreement in CMC language. It
stated that when a person interact with others in virtual conversations, which is lack of nonverbal cues, they access the intended interpretation of their messages by connoting their
messages with oralization such as to compensate attributes of orality found in the vocal, user
may use repetition of letters, capitalization and creative use of punctuation or use emoticon as the
substitute for visual channels of oral interaction. An emoticon itself is a graphic sign that
conveys non-linguistic information of face to face conversation (Dresner & Herring, 2010).
9
Lastly is using insults and judgement. The speaker disrespects and judges the hearer‟s idea or
personality in a rude manner.
On the other hand, mitigated disagreement is a strategy that it softens the threat to the
hearer‟s self-image. There are 10 subcategories or features in this strategy. First is token
agreement. The speaker employs „yes, but...‟ (Fernandez, 2013, p. 35) form. In other words, it is
disagreement with state agreement at the beginning. The second is using hedges. Hedging as
defined by Fraser (2010) is „‟a rhetorical strategy that attenuate either the full semantic value of a
particular expression‟‟ (p. 15). As for examples are, „it seems‟, „I guess‟, „I think‟ and so on.
Thus, hedging is used to soften any disagreement expressed by the speaker. The third is asking
for clarification. The speaker request for clarification using interrogative sentence. The fourth is
positive remarks. This strategy can be identified by giving a positive comment (praise or
compliments) at the beginning. The fifth is giving suggestions. By using this strategy Kreutel
(2007) stated that it can „solve, conceal or soften the disagreement‟ (p. 13). The sixth is giving
explanations. The explanation is used to support the argument of the speaker that can represent
his/her disagreement. The seventh is using oralization strategies to mitigate the disagreement.
Then ninth is using humor. The tenth is expressing regret like “I‟m sorry, but…”, “ I‟m afraid”
and so on. The eleventh is code switching. The speaker uses their first language, or other
language when disagreeing in the target language.
After all the data collected, it would be sorted as disagreement or not. Any comments
which did not belong into disagreement would not be analyzed. Then, in order to minimize the
subjectivity in analyzing the data, a second rater was involved to examine the categorization. The
second rater himself is the writer‟s supervisor, Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A.
10
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Through the 6 statements given in the Facebook group, the 16 participants produced 99
comments in which 65 were disagreements expressions. In here, disagreement is a comment
which opposed the idea of other speakers or previous posted comments. The data revealed that
the participants used various strategies of disagreement proposed in Fernandez‟s frameworks.
However, there were numbers of strategy that totally absent from the data, such as the use of
performative (I disagree/I don‟t agree), regret, rhetorical and code switching. The possible reason
is due to the context being given is more simple than eliciting natural data, such as face to face
discussion which may yield a higher amount of these strategies. Moreover, the total absence of
using regret in this study is in contrast with Kreutel‟s (2007) study which said that non-native
speakers overused this strategy. This is probably because the cases being administrated in this
study were perceived as less real or seen as fictitious by the participants. Thus, they may not feel
the actual self-image threat, either in themselves or the interlocutor, which happens in real
conversation.
In addition, most of the participants also performed more than one strategy in one
comment to express their disagreement. Therefore, the amount of the data collected is less than
the number of strategies used. The strategy itself, as mentioned earlier, is divided into strong
disagreement and mitigated disagreement.
Table 1
COMPARISON BETWEEN STRONG AND MITIGATED DISAGREEMENT.
Strategy of disagreement
Occurrence
%
43
36
Strong
Mitigated
75
64
Total
118
100
11
The emphasis of the finding shows that the participants performed strong disagreement
(36%) less than mitigated disagreement (64%). The result implies that the participants were
considering softening probable self-image threat which may occur when expressing
disagreement. This study finding is interestingly different from the result of previous finding that
nonnative speakers mostly appear to be employing unmitigated disagreement (Kreutel, 2007). A
possible explanation for this is on the same page with Baym‟s idea (1995) that participant‟s
gender may have great contribution to the final result, as in this study there are more women (11)
than men (5), in which women tend to prioritize maintaining relationship in a community.
Moreover, the presence of cues to participant‟s identity and the close relationship between the
participants may influence the result as they also tended to maintain the community.
Then, in this following section a closer look of each strategy will be discussed briefly
from the most highest occurrence to the least one.
Strong Disagreement
Table 2
FEATURES OF STRONG DISAGREEMENT
Strategy
Bare Negative
Blunt Statement of the opposite
Sarcasm
Oralization Strategies
-Capitalization
-Onomatopoeia
-Creative use of punctuation
-Phonemic repetition
-Emoticon
Use of insults and judgment
Total
12
Occurrence
3
8
8
%
7%
19%
19%
2
7
1
2
6
6
43
5%
16%
2%
4%
14%
14%
100%
Oralization strategies
In total of 18 occurrences this strategy occurs in the use of capitalization (5%),
onomatopoeia (16%), creative use of punctuation (2%), phonemic repetition (4%) and emoticon
(14%). To be noted in this study, these strategies, except emoticon, does not occur alone. It
complements either other strategy of strong disagreement or mitigated disagreement. Below is
the example of using oralization strategy:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 7: well I won't say that everyone should love him, and if you don't like him at
least respect him or just leave him alone. NO NEED to be rude and compare him
with this artist or that artist blah blah blah like seriously grow up please
In this example, participant 7 seemed to take a position as a mediator to say that her
disagreement was not only to the statement maker but also for the other participants who
voluntarily disagreed with the statement maker. The use of capitalization is identified in the
words „NO NEED‟ as the speaker needed to emphasize her point on being respectful and polite
with someone‟s idol. This strategy is in line with the Herring (2002) that social emotion can be
conveyed effectively through the creative use of keystrokes. The role of the emoticon at the end
of the statement can also convey the illocutionary force of the statement being produced (Dresner
& Herring, 2010) that in here the speaker employed an emoticon of squinting face that may
indicate her intention as to tell the other participants that the discussion would be just going
useless or as a suggestion.
One striking finding in this strategy is there was one occurrence where one participant only
used an emoticon to disagree with statement maker. Below is the example:
13
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 5
Actually, this is a variation of an emoticon, it is called a sticker. In here, participant 5
managed to speak her disagreement using only a sticker of a Minion, one of the characters in the
movie Despicable Me. She wanted to give a rough picture of her response to the statement maker
by squinting her eyes and giving a frown smile or cheek crease. In face to face conversations this
gesture can indicate her lack of belief toward the statement she read (Bousmalis, et al., 2009) in
which it posed as her disagreement.
Blunt statement of the opposite.
The use of a blunt statement occurred 8 times. Bell (1998) emphasized that by using this
strategy, it indicates a statement which is clear and direct yet contain the risk of being impolite.
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 12: security
The above example shows the genuine form of using blunt statement. In here, participant 12
directly stated his disagreement without any mean to associate his disagreement with another
strategy. This example occurs in a statement when the participant commented about his close
friend that has a doubt in the future as an English education graduate. However, most of the blunt
statements used by the participants in this study are accompanied by other mitigated strategies
14
such as asking for clarification, use onomatopoeia laughter, and emoticon. Below is the example
of such strategy:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 16: Should I ? Even Rhoma Irama is better than him ^^
In here, participant 16 firstly asked for clarification, then followed by opposite opinion and
ended with an emoticon happy face „^^‟. The use of clarification and the emoticon here can
signify the participant‟s effort to soften the disagreement expressed.
Sarcasm.
Indicating sarcasm in CMC language is quite difficult to grasp as sarcasm itself need the
involvement of speaker‟s emotion and voice tone (Joy, 2009). Yet, when the written statement is
complemented by verbal substitute (such as emoticon, internet slang) it can reduce the ambiguity
and provide more correct interpretation (Moor, 2008). In this study it can be shown in the
following example:
Status : Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world
ever. Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 11: Justin Justin Justin, I don't really know about him, but all I know that his life
story proving a statement which said "Charisma could make you on the top, but
only Character which could make u STAY on the top."
yaa, perhaps nowadays
Justin really need somebody to love, just like his song. ^^
Participant 11 used an emoticon „
‟ and „^^‟ that can be figured as a smiling face, but take
a closer look in the context of the speaker stated, which is a sarcasm, the emoticon can serve to
15
strengthen it. She also added an explanation that can remark as softening the disagreement, but in
fact it means the other way around.
Use of insults and judgments.
The total use of insults and judgments found in this study is 6 occurrences, with four out of
six are insults. Most of the occurrences were located on the topic of someone believe that there is
nothing wrong with terrorist acts. These strategies are considered as a strong disagreement as the
expression usually uses bold words that may wound the hearer‟s self-image. The orientation of
these strategies can also be directed to the hearer or in an implicit way as can be seen in these
examples:
Status: What is wrong with terrorist? At least they can decrease the population of stupid
people. (This was posted by your friend)
Participant 7: I think you left your brain somewhere, better go get it or else they'll make you
their next target
Participant 11: Hey terrorist, there is one stupid guy here just trow him a bomb, so that we
can reduce stupid people population !!
Each participant employed the use of insult in various ways. In the first one, participant 7
managed to express disagreement by firstly using hedging „I think’ that in this study it is
considered as softening disagreement, but, in fact, with the use of harsh words „you left your
brain somewhere….’ it makes the focus of the disagreement is aggravating for the hearer and
may cause dispute. On the other hand, in the second example, participant 11 pretended to address
her statement to the third person party that was being discussed, but, the intended meaning of the
speaker was actually to the statement maker as she implicitly insulted the statement maker with
„there is one stupid guy here’. The speaker also employed an emoticon „
16
‟ which is a
representation of a cute face. However, as stated by Dresner and Herring, many facial emoticons
are not representing only a single emotion (2010), in here instead of softening the disagreement,
it may serve to indicate an ironical or sarcasm statement which can strengthen the disagreement.
Bare Negative.
Kreutel (2007) identified this strategy as an undesirable feature of expressing disagreement
because of the lack of mitigation in it. With only three occurrences, this strategy is the lowest
being used by the participants. Here is the example:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine days, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant 9:Hah? There is no relationship at all
It did not use the form of „no‟ only, but accompanied with an interjection „hah ?’ to indicate
his disbelief, then followed by a brief argument. As Libert (2011) stated, the interjection has the
function of expressing the feeling of the speaker and in here it means strong emotion that can
strengthen the participant disagreement.
Interestingly, besides indicating the use of bare negative as strong disagreement in this
study, there were occurrences of using bare negative exclamation „‟no‟‟ in participant‟s
disagreement that appeared to be partly unmitigated moves. It is mainly because this strategy
was accompanied by other mitigated strategies. It can be seen in the following example:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 3 : No, I prefer my boyfriend, ahahahahaha
This statement does not use the pure form of bare negative „‟no‟‟. The speaker used „‟no‟‟
with blunt opposite and followed by mitigation device. The use of onomatopoeia laughter
17
„ahahahahaha’ and an emoticon of tongue sticking „ ’
„ are the indication of mitigation device
as the participant seems to jokingly tease the addressee. Similar to Kreutel‟s (2007) study, this
pattern could signify possible harshness to the addressee as employing mitigation only at the end
of their utterances.
Mitigated Disagreement
This following section presents the sub types of mitigated disagreement. Moreover, in the
table below, it shows that in total of 75 occurrences, the use of oralization strategies place the
position of the most used strategies employed by the participants. This is as similar as in strong
disagreement. However, oralization strategies in this category only occur in the case of
onomatopoeia and emoticon only. Then, the discussion of each strategy will be presented briefly
from the most frequently used to the least one.
Table 3
FEATURES OF MITIGATED DISAGREEMENT
Strategy
Occurrence
Token Agreement
2
Hedges
9
Clarification
8
Positive Remarks
2
Suggestions
12
Giving Explanation
14
Oralization Strategy
- Onomatopoeia
5
- Emoticon
19
Humor
4
Total
75
%
3%
12%
11%
3%
16%
18%
7%
25%
5%
100%
Oralization Strategies.
Speaking of oralization strategies used in mitigated disagreement, the participants
employed such strategy in 24 occurrences that appeared in onomatopoeia laughter (7%) (such as
18
wkwk or hahaha and hehe) and emoticon (25%). Interestingly, the use of emoticon strategy in
mitigated disagreement is the most used one compared to other strategies. One possible reason is
because by employing emoticons make the receiver understand the feeling or mood of the
speaker (Wei, 2012) and thus it lessens misunderstanding in comprehending the messages (Wolf,
2000). Therefore, instead of creating an obnoxious situation like in strong disagreement strategy,
it can lighten the mood of a discussion.
Status: In every day life, always and always smart person lose against lucky person. I hate
it. (this was posted by your roommate friend in your boarding house)
Participant 6: ahahahaha, you should've not made this status, smart person would not post
something like this but work harder to prove your statement wrong
hate doesn't
solve your problem my friend. Wkw
The above example shows the use of onomatopoeia laughter and emoticon at the same time.
Along with that the participant also employed other mitigated strategies such as giving
suggestion and explanation to make her disagreement more acceptable without threatening the
statement maker‟s self-image.
Giving Explanation.
In the case of giving explanation, there were 14 cases in total that occured in all of the six
statements given. Here is the example:
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 4: Of course because nowadays English is considered as one of the main
requirement for anyone who want to apply for a job so it will be useful for you in
many jobs.
19
In the above example, participant 4 tried to state her reason for opposing the idea of the
statement maker. By using the word „because….’ she avoided the bluntness of her disagreement
and ideally tried to justify her opinion with some kind of explanation. The use of explanation
here can be a tool for someone to defend their idea in a more polite way. It can signify that the
participants were aware to not only state his or her disagreement, but also to support it with some
kind of explanation or, as Kreutel (2007) stated, to achieve a number of communicative purposes
in a more polite way.
Suggestions.
In contrast to Fernandez‟s finding (2013) where there were rare occurrences of suggestion,
in this study, using suggestion was seen in 12 cases (16%). The strategies employed are mostly
by the use of emoticons, onomatopoeia and in a rare case with capitalization in certain words.
The example of giving suggestions is mostly occurred in the discussion of someone that is being
considered as a close friend for the participants who have doubts in the future that there will be
no job for the English education graduate. Some participants used suggestion in a subtle manner
with thoughtful words. Therefore, in here, the disagreement can also indicate speaker‟s concern
toward the statement maker‟s view or in other words as a supporting act. It can be illustrated in
the following example:
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 15: do your thesis, find a job, make a CV and see the answer
Hedges, Clarification.
The common use of hedging in this study is „maybe‟ (2), „I think‟ (4), „perhaps‟ (1), „I don‟t
think so‟ (1), and „might‟ (1). Most of the occurrences of this strategy were also accompanied
20
with either strong disagreement such as use of insult and judgement or other mitigated
disagreement like humor or giving explanations.
A little less from using hedges is the strategy to ask for clarification. It was performed by the
participants in 8 occurrences. Most of them are employed in the discussion about a lecturer who
posted a peculiar rule to determine good grade for students. The participants who are situated as
one of the students used clarification directly to ask their confusion to the lecturer by using,
„Why?‟, „Really?‟, „Did you…?, or questioned the legality of the rule. The following is the
example of the case where a participant questioned the logic of the rule:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine day, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant
8:
What
is
the
relation
between
valentine's
day
and
grade?
Some of the cases of hedging and asking for clarification were also combined with either one of
strong disagreement strategies like blunt statement or other mitigated strategies such as
emoticons. It can be seen in the following example:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine day, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant 1: Really? That's not fair ;-(
Humor.
Humor in communication is perceived to minimize the tension in a tough situation and
generate positive emotions (Romero & Curthirds, 2006), so that disagreement can be softened.
However, using humor as a strategy to disagree rarely occurred in this study. There were only 4
cases (5%) seen in this study. In this following example, the humor is used implicitly by
participant 1 to comment on participant 9‟s respond toward a discussion about favorite singer.
21
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 9: what?hey dude, musician is just not only JB, many musicians are better than
him but it is up to you if you wanna love him just love him but do not force any
people to like him if they do not want to like him. for me The Police is better than
him. they have became a legend now. think twice dude
Participant 1: Participant 9….The Police? The KPK is better than the Police.. ouh.. hahah
Participant 9 disagreed with the statement maker by giving an explanation and also stated
that he chose The Police, an English rock band, rather than the statement maker‟s favorite singer.
Interestingly, Participant 1 responded it humorously by intentionally replacing The Police as a
band into the Police which is an organization or a person that deal with criminality. This is
indicated by stating that KPK, a Corruption Eradication Commission in Indonesia, is better than
the Police. In the Indonesian current news, the Police and the KPK are two organizations that
made headlines, as they seems to fight each other rather than work together. Participant 1 also
used onomatopoeia laughter „ouh’ and „hahah’ which can support her humorous act.
Token Agreement, Positive Remarks.
Token Agreement and positive remarks can much likely be the same because the distinction
is not clear enough (Lawson, 2009) as both strategies firstly affirm the idea of other‟s speaker
then followed by disagreement. Yet, there is little difference in which token agreement and
positive remarks strategy can be identified by giving a positive comment at the beginning. In this
study, the participants did not frequently employ either token agreement or positive remarks. In
fact, there were only two occurrences for each strategy. Below is the example of using those
strategies:
22
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 4: As a person that do not have a very special singer to adore haha, I think I like
to listen some of JB's songs but I don't think so that he is the most outstanding
musician in this world
Participant 6: yep, great musician, I agree. I love to hear his songs, but not news about him.
mostly about his attitude/bad behavior. Once he fix it, i bet everyone will start to
love his work (again)
In both examples, it can be seen that it employs „agreement/positive comment, but…‟
strategy. Participant 4‟s comment is considered as token agreement as the speaker firstly did not
really stand on the opposite of the statement maker by saying „I think I like‟. However,
participant 4 also employed „but’ that conveyed disagreement in certain point of the statement
maker‟s idea. The latter example shows positive remarks because Participant 6 had the same
opinion with the statement maker by saying „I agree. I love to hear his songs,….‟ This can be a
compliment for the hearer as it can soften the disagreement which will be voiced afterwards.
The rare occurrence of both strategies is much likely similar to Kreutel‟s (2007) finding as
she argued that collecting the data from face to face communication may have higher
occurrences of these strategy. In addition, Lawson (2009) also stated that the level of „disputable‟
topic or the context being used in the study also implied a different result.
CONCLUSION
The aim of the findings was to answer a question about how EFL learners express
disagreement in online social media, particularly in analyzing how EFL learners in the Faculty of
Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University state their disagreement on
23
Facebook. It has to be noted that due to the small-scale nature of the study, the findings of this
study cannot be generalized to all contexts beyond these cases. Even so, it still provides a better
understanding on the speech act of disagreement employed by EFL learners in the context of
CMC.
Through the data analysis, it revealed that 16 participants have acquired good knowledge
of both linguistic and pragmatic competences in voicing their disagreement. It can be seen from
the majority of disagreement strategies used by the participants, that they tended to use mitigated
rather than strong disagreement. This also indicates a contrast with previous findings (Kasper,
1997, Xuehua, 2006, Kreutel, 2007), that non-native speakers can also perform a well-produced
idea in disagreeing using the target language without relying too much on their first language
pragmatic and instead can adapt with the situation pretty well. Thus, it means that, they can
employ mitigated features disagreement appropriately without sounding harsh or rude. It is in
line with Fernandez‟s finding that non-native speakers do not essentially used strong
disagreement.
However, one important note is that there are many variables involved in analyzing
someone‟s disagreement. As stated earlier, the difference in age, gender, relationship with the
interlocutor can affect someone‟s behavior in expressing disagreement. The topic being
discussed also plays a key role in determining an individual‟s manner to express disagreement
(Fernandez, 2013) whether or not the speaker tries to preserve the potential emerging dispute
with the interlocutor during the discussion. Moreover, the models of communication in CMC
that allow the user to keep their identity also need to be account, since, the presence of
participants‟ information might limit the freedom in expressing opinion (Walther, 1996). Hence,
24
a further study that takes these variables into account may provide a valuable understanding in
the speech act of disagreement in CMC media.
As for the implication in teaching, this study provides a useful insight for teacher and
students to be aware with expressing disagreement through CMC. Since CMC has different
characteristics from face to face conversation, there is a need to give learners an effective way to
express disagreement in English in this medium. Thus, an emphasis on how to voice learner‟s
disagreement as sincere as possible yet at the same time also to minimize probable threats in the
speaker‟s and/ or the interlocutor‟s self-image is important. Therefore, a suggestion for teaching
disagreement is that learners need in order to know how to properly use mitigation disagreement
strategies. It is very beneficial because learners will someday encounter an inevitable argument
which requires them to be involved in it. Hopefully, by studying this research it may offer a
better understanding for EFL learners on how language activity, especially the speech act of
disagreement, is being shaped through online social media. Thus, this study can enhance their
social-cultural awareness and empowering them to communicate successfully using proper
strategies.
25
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the first place, my sincere thanks will be for my generous God, for His abundant love
and guidance gave me the strength to complete my study in the Faculty of Language and
Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University.
I would also like to give my deepest thanks for those who helped me a lot in finishing this
study. For my:
1. Beloved family, who never give up on supporting me throughout my first step in this
faculty until I reached this point. I would not be able to stand as I am if there is no my
father, my mother and my brother who patiently guide me in every step of my life.
2. Supervisor, Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A. With his guidance and advice has helped
me a lot in finishing this study.
3. Second reader, Neny Isharyanti, M.A, for her time to examine my study.
4. Dearest friend, Pramusita Raring Widhi, who always raises my spirit in the time of
my weariness.
5. Friends and all of the lecturers in the Faculty of Language and Literature of Satya
Wacana Christian University who gave me the unforgettable experience during my
study.
26
References
Abrams, Z. I. (2003). The effects of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on oral performance.
The Modern Language Journal, 87 (2), 157-167.
Angouri, J. & Locher, M. (20
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION PROGRAM
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
2015
i
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
112011035
Approved by:
Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A
Neny Isharyanti, M.A
Supervisor
Examiner
ii
COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or
accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best my
knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other
person expect where due references is made in the text.
Copyright@2015. Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang and Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul
All right reserved. No part of this thesis may be produced by any means without permission of at
least one of the copyright owner or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature,
Satya Wacana Christian University, Salatiga
Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang:
iii
PUBLICATION AGREEMENT DECLARATION
As a member of the (SWCU) Satya Wacana Christian University academic community, I
verify that:
Name
: Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang
Student ID Number
: 112011035
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: Language and Literature
Kind of Work
: Undergraduate Thesis
In developing my knowledge, I agree to provide SWCU with non-exclusive royalty free
right for my intellectual property and the contents therein entitled:
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used In Online Social Media
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Approved by
Thesis Supervisor
Thesis Examiner
Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A
Neny Isharyanti, M.A
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT
1
INTRODUCTION
1
LITERATURE REVIEW
3
The Speech Act of Disagreement
3
Disagreement Strategies of EFL learners
4
The Nature of Computer Mediated Communication Interaction
4
Disagreement in CMC
6
THE STUDY
6
Research Question
6
Context of the Study
7
Participants
7
Instrumentation
7
Procedure of Data Collection
8
Data Analysis
9
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Strong Disagreement
11
12
Oralization Strategies
13
Blunt Statement of the opposite
14
Sarcasm
15
Use of insults and judgment
16
Bare Negative
17
Mitigated Disagreement
18
Oralization Strategies
18
Giving Explanation
19
Suggestions
20
Hedges, Clarification
20
Humor
21
Token Agreement, Positive Remarks
22
CONCLUSION
23
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
26
REFERENCES
27
APPENDIX
29
LIST OF TABLE
Table 1 Comparison between strong and mitigated disagreement
11
Table 2 Features of strong disagreement
12
Table 3 Features of mitigated disagreement
18
Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used
In Online Social Media
Gayuh Abyor K
Abstract
This study places the context on the current emerging media of communication that is
computer mediated communication (CMC) in shaping how speech act is performed. In
particular, a speech act of disagreement. The speech act of disagreement has received a little
attention in the field of pragmatic study. Moreover, there are just few researches investigating
disagreement in the context of English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners who perform it in
online social media. Thus, by investigating 16 EFL from English Department of Satya Wacana
Christian University when interacting on Facebook, this study focuses on analyzing the
disagreement strategies used by them. The data are gathered by examining participants‟
disagreement in responding to six Facebook statuses. Each status is designed with different
topics and social status. Then, in examining the data, this study adapts Fernandez‟s (2013)
framework of disagreement strategies. The strategy itself is divided into two categories, strong
disagreement and mitigated disagreement. Along with that, the method used is qualitative
supported by quantitative data. The finding reveals that the participants had tendency to use
mitigated disagreement rather than strong disagreement. By looking at this study, it can give a
better understanding for EFL learners in communicating their disagreement using proper
strategy.
Keywords: CMC, disagreement, EFL, disagreement strategies, strong disagreement, mitigated
disagreement
INTRODUCTION
The advancement in technology had provided human beings a new medium of
communication, the social media. With its worldwide networks, online social media has a role as
one of the agents of change in linguistic. One of the changes that are visible to see is how people
perform speech acts. A Speech act is language acts or linguistic acts that involved any essential
specimen of linguistic communication (Searle, 1969). In other words, it is an act that the speaker
performed when making an utterance. Fernandez (2013) believes that in understanding the
1
specific purpose of speech acts, a speaker cannot only depend on their linguistic competence but
also pragmatic competence. Linguistic competence is the knowledge of phonological rules,
morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items (Yano, 2003), while
pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately in any socio-cultural context
(Kreutel, 2007). Moreover, it is such a difficult task understanding what a speaker really means
as in the social network sites most of nonverbal cues are absent (Baym, 1996; Hancock,
Landrigan & Silver, 2007).
Speaking of foreign language acquisition, it is quite difficult process for the learners to
become proficient in both competences. Even though they can speak accurately in the sense of
grammar, but gaining social usage in various contexts is very challenging. It is due to the fact
that learners need to be aware of what is and what is not suitable in given contexts (Kasper,
1997) in which each society may have different appropriateness. Then, it is undeniable that the
cultural values and style of communication of one person may determine the production of
speech acts. Hence, the case of cross-cultural interaction between the users over the internet has
impacted the comprehension and production of different speech acts (Fernandez, 2013). As a
consequence, people really need to make sense in understanding interaction or argument in
online social media.
Among the various studies about speech acts, the speech act of disagreement has not been
viewed as a major subject to be discussed. More specifically, there are just very few studies
investigating disagreement strategies in the context of online media, whereas, this subject could
easily cause pragmatic failure and misunderstanding (Fernandez, 2013) as it seems to be more
hostile and offensive in internet language (Moor, 2008). Also, perhaps there is no recent study
exploring the case of Indonesian EFL learners in online social media. Thus, this paper aims to
2
analyze the issue of language activities in online social media, especially in the speech act of
disagreement performed by Indonesian EFL learners.
The Speech Act of Disagreement
In daily life communication, people cannot neglect the fact that sometimes disagreeing is
raised in between interaction or discussion. Disagreement can be seen as opposing other
speaker‟s prior statement or used to stand out different point of view that often has a „‟negative
connotation‟‟ (Kozcogh, 2013, pp. 216). Applying Searle‟s (1975) taxonomy of illocutionary
speech act Kozcogh (2013) proposes that disagreement is a representative act in which the
speech act that commit the speaker to the truth or falsity of the expressed proposition. Likewise,
Sifianou affirms that disagreement is “the expression of a view that differs from that
expressed by another speaker” (2012, p. 1). It can be represented by expressing criticism,
denial, and objection to previous statements or facts. Consequently, Sacks argued that people
tend not to boldly disagree with others because of social influences (as cited in Fernandez, 2013)
such as social distance, status, age and others.
On the other hand, though disagreements have been considered as unfavorable speech
acts (Leech, 2007), some researchers believe that disagreement is a fundamental component of
everyday interaction (Sifianou, 2012, Kozcogh, 2013) and that is needed to make a decision and
problem solving (Angouri & Locher, 2012). In this context, disagreement could be as a
supporting act (Fernandez, 2013) where it is showing the interlocutor‟s concern to the previous
speaker‟s statement. Due to its complexity views, then it is interesting to investigate the
disagreement strategies used by the speaker to convey his/her true intention, especially
disagreement performed by a non-native speaker of one language. In this study, disagreement in
pragmatic terms is limited to the framework of expressing opposition to another opinion.
3
Disagreement Strategies of EFL learners
As stated earlier, pragmatic and linguistic competence play a key role in how EFL
learners‟ express their disagreement. In pragmatic case, with the influence of socio-cultural
norms within the target language society, expressing disagreement can vary according to the
context. In regards to EFL learners which are non-native speakers of English, it is a crucial factor
to acquire such competence. However, it is said that they lack in pragmatic knowledge and tend
to apply their first language pragmatic norms when using the target language to express
something (Kasper, 1997). Then, it is interesting to see what strategies they employ in expressing
disagreement using English.
Kreutel (2007) in his contrastive study between ESL (English as a second language)
learners and native speakers in expressing disagreement found that non-native speakers tend to
use message abandonment or „‟blunt opposite‟‟ (p.1). They often left a message unfinished
because of language difficulties. As a result, desirable mitigation devices such as hedging or
explanation are less used. Yet, when they applied it, they sound inappropriate, harsh and rude
compared to native speakers. However, Lawson (2009) argues that in several cases when the
instrument used in the research is not taken in real life conversation, or in other word the
participant being brought in a made up situation, message abandonment can be judicious act as
there is ambiguity factors of non-verbal information that need to be considered such as gender or
sexual tension, personality and feeling that may not appear.
The Nature of Computer Mediated Communication Interaction
Online media are part of the new phenomenon of the latest linguistic medium which is
called Computer-mediated Communication (CMC). Locher (2010) contextualizes the topic of
CMC as the exchange of information through the mediation of technology such as
4
computers/internet, mobile phones, etc. As suggested by Baym (1996), the language used in
CMC is “written, yet is marked by many features associated with face to face interaction‟‟ (p.
316). The language is a mixture of oral and written elements. In other words, the production of
written language in CMC may assimilate with the natural style of spoken language (Sumakul,
2010). Also, the interaction can account interpersonal and mass communication (Baym, 1996).
Hence, online communication can be as real as face to face interaction as the participants are
triggered by their own real life expression (Locher, 2010), though the writers and readers may at
different times and places. Yet, to be noted, CMC language is argued to be lacking of expressive
behavioral cues or non-verbal cues that occurred in face to face communication (Walther &
Tidwell, 1995). As the result, the internal feeling or intended message of someone that can be
seen through gesture, tone and pitch voice or facial expression in traditional communication is
not really accommodated in CMC language. However, the development of CMC language has
brought a substitution on such paralinguistic cues through the use of CMC cues for instance
emoticons or using oralization strategies (Yus, 2011, as cited in Fernandez, 2013), such as
repetition of letters, capitalization, creative use of punctuation to convey the intended meaning.
CMC activities can be asynchronous (in delayed time such as email) and synchronous (in
real time such as chat rooms) (Abram, 2003). As this study is focusing on comment sections on
online social media, this interaction falls under asynchronous one. In this media, the reader may
able to post comments about a particular topic at ease. However, most of the responses may not
be in dialogic interaction with the author, but as Baym (1996) said, their response can also be
meant for a whole group. Thus, it can be read by others and the participants can respond to each
other.
5
Disagreement in CMC
A few researchers have gotten their interest in examining this issue. One notable
researcher is Baym (1996) who studied agreement and disagreement in an online discussion
group. She affirmed that the influence of the participants‟ gender, the institutions, and the genre
in online media are shaping the way someone express opinion. Due to her participants are 72%
female, she found out that written disagreement in this medium is more complex and mitigated
than face to face interaction. However, the widely phenomenon of flaming in CMC –attacking
others verbally online with offensive language- is argued by her to be more suitable for men's
disagreement styles. Moreover, Moor (2008) that examined flaming on YouTube with male as
dominant participants said that flaming is considered as something negative and they disliked it.
Therefore, it comes to a sense that expressing disagreement in CMC is much more complex than
it seems.
Another study conducted by Upadhyay (2010) investigated the correlation between
identity and impoliteness in online reader responses. He found out that the readers strategically
may voice their argument using impolite language that threaten the other reader‟s self-image. He
assumed that the absence of the physical context and the social distance in CMC makes the
readers may not consider other readers‟ self-image and blatantly speak their opposition. Then, it
is interesting to bring this issue on EFL learners and analyzing the strategies used by them.
THE STUDY
Research Question
The study was conducted to answer the following research question: “How do EFL learners
express disagreement in online social media?”
6
Context of the Study
The context of this study took place in Faculty of Language and Literature Satya Wacana
Christian University. This study was conducted in the second semester of the academic session
2014/2015. Furthermore, the study was done in one of the popular online social media;
Facebook. It is chosen due to Facebook allows its members to connect in an efficient way and
likely to facilitate any relationship, either with a close friend or strange one (Manago, et al.,
2012). Then, a group of discussion in Facebook was created to facilitate the participants to
interact with the topics given. Moreover, the qualitative approach was used to know the behavior
of disagreement strategies used by the participants. Along with that, it serves as the verbal
description in analyzing the content of the participants‟ comment. In relation to the aims of this
study, it was also supported by quantitative data.
Participants
The participants for this study were 16 students of Faculty of Language and Literature
Satya Wacana Christian University. All of them were students from batch 2011 consisting of 11
females and 5 males. Due to practical reasons in which the time was limited, the participants
were chosen using convenient sampling.
Instrumentation
The data used in this study were gathered by examining the participant‟s ideas and views
expressed through their opinion in the comment section on a Facebook group. Facebook was
selected because it offers a text facility through which the users can share and negotiate opinion
and besides that, it is very popular social media among the participants and they are familiar with
any features on Facebook. In here, the participants were gathered into one group. This is due to
in a private group it can hinder the participants from „‟information overload‟‟ (Caspi et al., 2003,
7
p. 231). Thus, by grouping the participants they would be more focus and would not confront
with too many data items. Moreover, as the group has a large number of the participants, it may
lead the communication to less interactive (Fay et.al, 2000). Then in this study, grouping the
participants into small private group might enhance interactive communication between the
participants .
In the group, the participants were administered with 6 Facebook statuses that they
needed to respond to. The statements were selected through a different background of arguable
topics such as politic, belief, culture and less arguable topics such as personal tastes. The
selection of the topics was based upon the matters of public concern which the participants
would generally meet them in daily conversation. Thus, it is expected that these topics would
elicit participants‟ opinion that implicitly or explicitly generate disagreement.
Procedure of Data Collection
In collecting the data, the writer‟s position was as non-participant observation. The data
were collected in the second semester of the academic session 2014/2015. The data were from
the participants‟ activity on a Facebook group that was intentionally being made for them.
Firstly, a piloting was done to see the appropriateness of the given statuses in eliciting
disagreement from the participants. Then, after revising it, the participants were asked to join a
group in Facebook that was made by the writer. In the group, there were already six statuses
from someone that was likened to be participants‟ acquaintance, friends, and lecturer. After all
participants were commented on with the statuses, the data then will then categorized and
analyzed accordingly.
8
Data Analysis
In this study, the analysis used an adaptation from Fernandes‟ (2013) framework in
identifying and categorizing the disagreement strategies employed by the participants. The
framework itself was based on the work of Kreutel (2007), Pomerantz (1984) and Rees-Miller
(2000). The strategies fall into two main categories with some sub-types: Strong disagreement
and mitigated disagreement.
Strong disagreement is a strategy that threatens the hearer‟s self-image in an unpleasant
manner. It has 7 sub categories or features. The first is using bare negative forms. It is identified
with a linguistic marker „no‟. The second is performative (I disagree/ I don‟t agree). The
participants use the form of „I disagree….‟ or „I don‟t agree….‟ without any explanation. The
third is blunt statement of the opposite. This is disagreement without stating any reasons. In other
words, this strategy blatantly expresses the opposite of the previous statement without any
explanation. The fourth is using rhetorical question. The fifth is sarcasm. It is verbal irony which
interpreted as exactly opposite from its literal meaning (Tepperman et al., 2006). The sixth is
oralization strategies. Oralization strategies are based on the study of cyberpragmatic by Yus
(2011). Fernandez (2013) asserted this strategy to identify disagreement in CMC language. It
stated that when a person interact with others in virtual conversations, which is lack of nonverbal cues, they access the intended interpretation of their messages by connoting their
messages with oralization such as to compensate attributes of orality found in the vocal, user
may use repetition of letters, capitalization and creative use of punctuation or use emoticon as the
substitute for visual channels of oral interaction. An emoticon itself is a graphic sign that
conveys non-linguistic information of face to face conversation (Dresner & Herring, 2010).
9
Lastly is using insults and judgement. The speaker disrespects and judges the hearer‟s idea or
personality in a rude manner.
On the other hand, mitigated disagreement is a strategy that it softens the threat to the
hearer‟s self-image. There are 10 subcategories or features in this strategy. First is token
agreement. The speaker employs „yes, but...‟ (Fernandez, 2013, p. 35) form. In other words, it is
disagreement with state agreement at the beginning. The second is using hedges. Hedging as
defined by Fraser (2010) is „‟a rhetorical strategy that attenuate either the full semantic value of a
particular expression‟‟ (p. 15). As for examples are, „it seems‟, „I guess‟, „I think‟ and so on.
Thus, hedging is used to soften any disagreement expressed by the speaker. The third is asking
for clarification. The speaker request for clarification using interrogative sentence. The fourth is
positive remarks. This strategy can be identified by giving a positive comment (praise or
compliments) at the beginning. The fifth is giving suggestions. By using this strategy Kreutel
(2007) stated that it can „solve, conceal or soften the disagreement‟ (p. 13). The sixth is giving
explanations. The explanation is used to support the argument of the speaker that can represent
his/her disagreement. The seventh is using oralization strategies to mitigate the disagreement.
Then ninth is using humor. The tenth is expressing regret like “I‟m sorry, but…”, “ I‟m afraid”
and so on. The eleventh is code switching. The speaker uses their first language, or other
language when disagreeing in the target language.
After all the data collected, it would be sorted as disagreement or not. Any comments
which did not belong into disagreement would not be analyzed. Then, in order to minimize the
subjectivity in analyzing the data, a second rater was involved to examine the categorization. The
second rater himself is the writer‟s supervisor, Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A.
10
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Through the 6 statements given in the Facebook group, the 16 participants produced 99
comments in which 65 were disagreements expressions. In here, disagreement is a comment
which opposed the idea of other speakers or previous posted comments. The data revealed that
the participants used various strategies of disagreement proposed in Fernandez‟s frameworks.
However, there were numbers of strategy that totally absent from the data, such as the use of
performative (I disagree/I don‟t agree), regret, rhetorical and code switching. The possible reason
is due to the context being given is more simple than eliciting natural data, such as face to face
discussion which may yield a higher amount of these strategies. Moreover, the total absence of
using regret in this study is in contrast with Kreutel‟s (2007) study which said that non-native
speakers overused this strategy. This is probably because the cases being administrated in this
study were perceived as less real or seen as fictitious by the participants. Thus, they may not feel
the actual self-image threat, either in themselves or the interlocutor, which happens in real
conversation.
In addition, most of the participants also performed more than one strategy in one
comment to express their disagreement. Therefore, the amount of the data collected is less than
the number of strategies used. The strategy itself, as mentioned earlier, is divided into strong
disagreement and mitigated disagreement.
Table 1
COMPARISON BETWEEN STRONG AND MITIGATED DISAGREEMENT.
Strategy of disagreement
Occurrence
%
43
36
Strong
Mitigated
75
64
Total
118
100
11
The emphasis of the finding shows that the participants performed strong disagreement
(36%) less than mitigated disagreement (64%). The result implies that the participants were
considering softening probable self-image threat which may occur when expressing
disagreement. This study finding is interestingly different from the result of previous finding that
nonnative speakers mostly appear to be employing unmitigated disagreement (Kreutel, 2007). A
possible explanation for this is on the same page with Baym‟s idea (1995) that participant‟s
gender may have great contribution to the final result, as in this study there are more women (11)
than men (5), in which women tend to prioritize maintaining relationship in a community.
Moreover, the presence of cues to participant‟s identity and the close relationship between the
participants may influence the result as they also tended to maintain the community.
Then, in this following section a closer look of each strategy will be discussed briefly
from the most highest occurrence to the least one.
Strong Disagreement
Table 2
FEATURES OF STRONG DISAGREEMENT
Strategy
Bare Negative
Blunt Statement of the opposite
Sarcasm
Oralization Strategies
-Capitalization
-Onomatopoeia
-Creative use of punctuation
-Phonemic repetition
-Emoticon
Use of insults and judgment
Total
12
Occurrence
3
8
8
%
7%
19%
19%
2
7
1
2
6
6
43
5%
16%
2%
4%
14%
14%
100%
Oralization strategies
In total of 18 occurrences this strategy occurs in the use of capitalization (5%),
onomatopoeia (16%), creative use of punctuation (2%), phonemic repetition (4%) and emoticon
(14%). To be noted in this study, these strategies, except emoticon, does not occur alone. It
complements either other strategy of strong disagreement or mitigated disagreement. Below is
the example of using oralization strategy:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 7: well I won't say that everyone should love him, and if you don't like him at
least respect him or just leave him alone. NO NEED to be rude and compare him
with this artist or that artist blah blah blah like seriously grow up please
In this example, participant 7 seemed to take a position as a mediator to say that her
disagreement was not only to the statement maker but also for the other participants who
voluntarily disagreed with the statement maker. The use of capitalization is identified in the
words „NO NEED‟ as the speaker needed to emphasize her point on being respectful and polite
with someone‟s idol. This strategy is in line with the Herring (2002) that social emotion can be
conveyed effectively through the creative use of keystrokes. The role of the emoticon at the end
of the statement can also convey the illocutionary force of the statement being produced (Dresner
& Herring, 2010) that in here the speaker employed an emoticon of squinting face that may
indicate her intention as to tell the other participants that the discussion would be just going
useless or as a suggestion.
One striking finding in this strategy is there was one occurrence where one participant only
used an emoticon to disagree with statement maker. Below is the example:
13
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 5
Actually, this is a variation of an emoticon, it is called a sticker. In here, participant 5
managed to speak her disagreement using only a sticker of a Minion, one of the characters in the
movie Despicable Me. She wanted to give a rough picture of her response to the statement maker
by squinting her eyes and giving a frown smile or cheek crease. In face to face conversations this
gesture can indicate her lack of belief toward the statement she read (Bousmalis, et al., 2009) in
which it posed as her disagreement.
Blunt statement of the opposite.
The use of a blunt statement occurred 8 times. Bell (1998) emphasized that by using this
strategy, it indicates a statement which is clear and direct yet contain the risk of being impolite.
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 12: security
The above example shows the genuine form of using blunt statement. In here, participant 12
directly stated his disagreement without any mean to associate his disagreement with another
strategy. This example occurs in a statement when the participant commented about his close
friend that has a doubt in the future as an English education graduate. However, most of the blunt
statements used by the participants in this study are accompanied by other mitigated strategies
14
such as asking for clarification, use onomatopoeia laughter, and emoticon. Below is the example
of such strategy:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 16: Should I ? Even Rhoma Irama is better than him ^^
In here, participant 16 firstly asked for clarification, then followed by opposite opinion and
ended with an emoticon happy face „^^‟. The use of clarification and the emoticon here can
signify the participant‟s effort to soften the disagreement expressed.
Sarcasm.
Indicating sarcasm in CMC language is quite difficult to grasp as sarcasm itself need the
involvement of speaker‟s emotion and voice tone (Joy, 2009). Yet, when the written statement is
complemented by verbal substitute (such as emoticon, internet slang) it can reduce the ambiguity
and provide more correct interpretation (Moor, 2008). In this study it can be shown in the
following example:
Status : Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world
ever. Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 11: Justin Justin Justin, I don't really know about him, but all I know that his life
story proving a statement which said "Charisma could make you on the top, but
only Character which could make u STAY on the top."
yaa, perhaps nowadays
Justin really need somebody to love, just like his song. ^^
Participant 11 used an emoticon „
‟ and „^^‟ that can be figured as a smiling face, but take
a closer look in the context of the speaker stated, which is a sarcasm, the emoticon can serve to
15
strengthen it. She also added an explanation that can remark as softening the disagreement, but in
fact it means the other way around.
Use of insults and judgments.
The total use of insults and judgments found in this study is 6 occurrences, with four out of
six are insults. Most of the occurrences were located on the topic of someone believe that there is
nothing wrong with terrorist acts. These strategies are considered as a strong disagreement as the
expression usually uses bold words that may wound the hearer‟s self-image. The orientation of
these strategies can also be directed to the hearer or in an implicit way as can be seen in these
examples:
Status: What is wrong with terrorist? At least they can decrease the population of stupid
people. (This was posted by your friend)
Participant 7: I think you left your brain somewhere, better go get it or else they'll make you
their next target
Participant 11: Hey terrorist, there is one stupid guy here just trow him a bomb, so that we
can reduce stupid people population !!
Each participant employed the use of insult in various ways. In the first one, participant 7
managed to express disagreement by firstly using hedging „I think’ that in this study it is
considered as softening disagreement, but, in fact, with the use of harsh words „you left your
brain somewhere….’ it makes the focus of the disagreement is aggravating for the hearer and
may cause dispute. On the other hand, in the second example, participant 11 pretended to address
her statement to the third person party that was being discussed, but, the intended meaning of the
speaker was actually to the statement maker as she implicitly insulted the statement maker with
„there is one stupid guy here’. The speaker also employed an emoticon „
16
‟ which is a
representation of a cute face. However, as stated by Dresner and Herring, many facial emoticons
are not representing only a single emotion (2010), in here instead of softening the disagreement,
it may serve to indicate an ironical or sarcasm statement which can strengthen the disagreement.
Bare Negative.
Kreutel (2007) identified this strategy as an undesirable feature of expressing disagreement
because of the lack of mitigation in it. With only three occurrences, this strategy is the lowest
being used by the participants. Here is the example:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine days, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant 9:Hah? There is no relationship at all
It did not use the form of „no‟ only, but accompanied with an interjection „hah ?’ to indicate
his disbelief, then followed by a brief argument. As Libert (2011) stated, the interjection has the
function of expressing the feeling of the speaker and in here it means strong emotion that can
strengthen the participant disagreement.
Interestingly, besides indicating the use of bare negative as strong disagreement in this
study, there were occurrences of using bare negative exclamation „‟no‟‟ in participant‟s
disagreement that appeared to be partly unmitigated moves. It is mainly because this strategy
was accompanied by other mitigated strategies. It can be seen in the following example:
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 3 : No, I prefer my boyfriend, ahahahahaha
This statement does not use the pure form of bare negative „‟no‟‟. The speaker used „‟no‟‟
with blunt opposite and followed by mitigation device. The use of onomatopoeia laughter
17
„ahahahahaha’ and an emoticon of tongue sticking „ ’
„ are the indication of mitigation device
as the participant seems to jokingly tease the addressee. Similar to Kreutel‟s (2007) study, this
pattern could signify possible harshness to the addressee as employing mitigation only at the end
of their utterances.
Mitigated Disagreement
This following section presents the sub types of mitigated disagreement. Moreover, in the
table below, it shows that in total of 75 occurrences, the use of oralization strategies place the
position of the most used strategies employed by the participants. This is as similar as in strong
disagreement. However, oralization strategies in this category only occur in the case of
onomatopoeia and emoticon only. Then, the discussion of each strategy will be presented briefly
from the most frequently used to the least one.
Table 3
FEATURES OF MITIGATED DISAGREEMENT
Strategy
Occurrence
Token Agreement
2
Hedges
9
Clarification
8
Positive Remarks
2
Suggestions
12
Giving Explanation
14
Oralization Strategy
- Onomatopoeia
5
- Emoticon
19
Humor
4
Total
75
%
3%
12%
11%
3%
16%
18%
7%
25%
5%
100%
Oralization Strategies.
Speaking of oralization strategies used in mitigated disagreement, the participants
employed such strategy in 24 occurrences that appeared in onomatopoeia laughter (7%) (such as
18
wkwk or hahaha and hehe) and emoticon (25%). Interestingly, the use of emoticon strategy in
mitigated disagreement is the most used one compared to other strategies. One possible reason is
because by employing emoticons make the receiver understand the feeling or mood of the
speaker (Wei, 2012) and thus it lessens misunderstanding in comprehending the messages (Wolf,
2000). Therefore, instead of creating an obnoxious situation like in strong disagreement strategy,
it can lighten the mood of a discussion.
Status: In every day life, always and always smart person lose against lucky person. I hate
it. (this was posted by your roommate friend in your boarding house)
Participant 6: ahahahaha, you should've not made this status, smart person would not post
something like this but work harder to prove your statement wrong
hate doesn't
solve your problem my friend. Wkw
The above example shows the use of onomatopoeia laughter and emoticon at the same time.
Along with that the participant also employed other mitigated strategies such as giving
suggestion and explanation to make her disagreement more acceptable without threatening the
statement maker‟s self-image.
Giving Explanation.
In the case of giving explanation, there were 14 cases in total that occured in all of the six
statements given. Here is the example:
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 4: Of course because nowadays English is considered as one of the main
requirement for anyone who want to apply for a job so it will be useful for you in
many jobs.
19
In the above example, participant 4 tried to state her reason for opposing the idea of the
statement maker. By using the word „because….’ she avoided the bluntness of her disagreement
and ideally tried to justify her opinion with some kind of explanation. The use of explanation
here can be a tool for someone to defend their idea in a more polite way. It can signify that the
participants were aware to not only state his or her disagreement, but also to support it with some
kind of explanation or, as Kreutel (2007) stated, to achieve a number of communicative purposes
in a more polite way.
Suggestions.
In contrast to Fernandez‟s finding (2013) where there were rare occurrences of suggestion,
in this study, using suggestion was seen in 12 cases (16%). The strategies employed are mostly
by the use of emoticons, onomatopoeia and in a rare case with capitalization in certain words.
The example of giving suggestions is mostly occurred in the discussion of someone that is being
considered as a close friend for the participants who have doubts in the future that there will be
no job for the English education graduate. Some participants used suggestion in a subtle manner
with thoughtful words. Therefore, in here, the disagreement can also indicate speaker‟s concern
toward the statement maker‟s view or in other words as a supporting act. It can be illustrated in
the following example:
Status: Don’t know what to say anymore, but is there any future for students who majored in
English education nowadays? (This was posted by your close friend)
Participant 15: do your thesis, find a job, make a CV and see the answer
Hedges, Clarification.
The common use of hedging in this study is „maybe‟ (2), „I think‟ (4), „perhaps‟ (1), „I don‟t
think so‟ (1), and „might‟ (1). Most of the occurrences of this strategy were also accompanied
20
with either strong disagreement such as use of insult and judgement or other mitigated
disagreement like humor or giving explanations.
A little less from using hedges is the strategy to ask for clarification. It was performed by the
participants in 8 occurrences. Most of them are employed in the discussion about a lecturer who
posted a peculiar rule to determine good grade for students. The participants who are situated as
one of the students used clarification directly to ask their confusion to the lecturer by using,
„Why?‟, „Really?‟, „Did you…?, or questioned the legality of the rule. The following is the
example of the case where a participant questioned the logic of the rule:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine day, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant
8:
What
is
the
relation
between
valentine's
day
and
grade?
Some of the cases of hedging and asking for clarification were also combined with either one of
strong disagreement strategies like blunt statement or other mitigated strategies such as
emoticons. It can be seen in the following example:
Status: To my students who celebrate valentine day, you will automatically get a bad mark
for the upcoming test. (This was posted by your lecturer)
Participant 1: Really? That's not fair ;-(
Humor.
Humor in communication is perceived to minimize the tension in a tough situation and
generate positive emotions (Romero & Curthirds, 2006), so that disagreement can be softened.
However, using humor as a strategy to disagree rarely occurred in this study. There were only 4
cases (5%) seen in this study. In this following example, the humor is used implicitly by
participant 1 to comment on participant 9‟s respond toward a discussion about favorite singer.
21
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 9: what?hey dude, musician is just not only JB, many musicians are better than
him but it is up to you if you wanna love him just love him but do not force any
people to like him if they do not want to like him. for me The Police is better than
him. they have became a legend now. think twice dude
Participant 1: Participant 9….The Police? The KPK is better than the Police.. ouh.. hahah
Participant 9 disagreed with the statement maker by giving an explanation and also stated
that he chose The Police, an English rock band, rather than the statement maker‟s favorite singer.
Interestingly, Participant 1 responded it humorously by intentionally replacing The Police as a
band into the Police which is an organization or a person that deal with criminality. This is
indicated by stating that KPK, a Corruption Eradication Commission in Indonesia, is better than
the Police. In the Indonesian current news, the Police and the KPK are two organizations that
made headlines, as they seems to fight each other rather than work together. Participant 1 also
used onomatopoeia laughter „ouh’ and „hahah’ which can support her humorous act.
Token Agreement, Positive Remarks.
Token Agreement and positive remarks can much likely be the same because the distinction
is not clear enough (Lawson, 2009) as both strategies firstly affirm the idea of other‟s speaker
then followed by disagreement. Yet, there is little difference in which token agreement and
positive remarks strategy can be identified by giving a positive comment at the beginning. In this
study, the participants did not frequently employ either token agreement or positive remarks. In
fact, there were only two occurrences for each strategy. Below is the example of using those
strategies:
22
Status: Justin Bieber is simply the best and the most outstanding musician in the world ever.
Everyone should love him. (This was posted by your acquaintance)
Participant 4: As a person that do not have a very special singer to adore haha, I think I like
to listen some of JB's songs but I don't think so that he is the most outstanding
musician in this world
Participant 6: yep, great musician, I agree. I love to hear his songs, but not news about him.
mostly about his attitude/bad behavior. Once he fix it, i bet everyone will start to
love his work (again)
In both examples, it can be seen that it employs „agreement/positive comment, but…‟
strategy. Participant 4‟s comment is considered as token agreement as the speaker firstly did not
really stand on the opposite of the statement maker by saying „I think I like‟. However,
participant 4 also employed „but’ that conveyed disagreement in certain point of the statement
maker‟s idea. The latter example shows positive remarks because Participant 6 had the same
opinion with the statement maker by saying „I agree. I love to hear his songs,….‟ This can be a
compliment for the hearer as it can soften the disagreement which will be voiced afterwards.
The rare occurrence of both strategies is much likely similar to Kreutel‟s (2007) finding as
she argued that collecting the data from face to face communication may have higher
occurrences of these strategy. In addition, Lawson (2009) also stated that the level of „disputable‟
topic or the context being used in the study also implied a different result.
CONCLUSION
The aim of the findings was to answer a question about how EFL learners express
disagreement in online social media, particularly in analyzing how EFL learners in the Faculty of
Language and Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University state their disagreement on
23
Facebook. It has to be noted that due to the small-scale nature of the study, the findings of this
study cannot be generalized to all contexts beyond these cases. Even so, it still provides a better
understanding on the speech act of disagreement employed by EFL learners in the context of
CMC.
Through the data analysis, it revealed that 16 participants have acquired good knowledge
of both linguistic and pragmatic competences in voicing their disagreement. It can be seen from
the majority of disagreement strategies used by the participants, that they tended to use mitigated
rather than strong disagreement. This also indicates a contrast with previous findings (Kasper,
1997, Xuehua, 2006, Kreutel, 2007), that non-native speakers can also perform a well-produced
idea in disagreeing using the target language without relying too much on their first language
pragmatic and instead can adapt with the situation pretty well. Thus, it means that, they can
employ mitigated features disagreement appropriately without sounding harsh or rude. It is in
line with Fernandez‟s finding that non-native speakers do not essentially used strong
disagreement.
However, one important note is that there are many variables involved in analyzing
someone‟s disagreement. As stated earlier, the difference in age, gender, relationship with the
interlocutor can affect someone‟s behavior in expressing disagreement. The topic being
discussed also plays a key role in determining an individual‟s manner to express disagreement
(Fernandez, 2013) whether or not the speaker tries to preserve the potential emerging dispute
with the interlocutor during the discussion. Moreover, the models of communication in CMC
that allow the user to keep their identity also need to be account, since, the presence of
participants‟ information might limit the freedom in expressing opinion (Walther, 1996). Hence,
24
a further study that takes these variables into account may provide a valuable understanding in
the speech act of disagreement in CMC media.
As for the implication in teaching, this study provides a useful insight for teacher and
students to be aware with expressing disagreement through CMC. Since CMC has different
characteristics from face to face conversation, there is a need to give learners an effective way to
express disagreement in English in this medium. Thus, an emphasis on how to voice learner‟s
disagreement as sincere as possible yet at the same time also to minimize probable threats in the
speaker‟s and/ or the interlocutor‟s self-image is important. Therefore, a suggestion for teaching
disagreement is that learners need in order to know how to properly use mitigation disagreement
strategies. It is very beneficial because learners will someday encounter an inevitable argument
which requires them to be involved in it. Hopefully, by studying this research it may offer a
better understanding for EFL learners on how language activity, especially the speech act of
disagreement, is being shaped through online social media. Thus, this study can enhance their
social-cultural awareness and empowering them to communicate successfully using proper
strategies.
25
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the first place, my sincere thanks will be for my generous God, for His abundant love
and guidance gave me the strength to complete my study in the Faculty of Language and
Literature of Satya Wacana Christian University.
I would also like to give my deepest thanks for those who helped me a lot in finishing this
study. For my:
1. Beloved family, who never give up on supporting me throughout my first step in this
faculty until I reached this point. I would not be able to stand as I am if there is no my
father, my mother and my brother who patiently guide me in every step of my life.
2. Supervisor, Dian Toar Y.G Sumakul, M.A. With his guidance and advice has helped
me a lot in finishing this study.
3. Second reader, Neny Isharyanti, M.A, for her time to examine my study.
4. Dearest friend, Pramusita Raring Widhi, who always raises my spirit in the time of
my weariness.
5. Friends and all of the lecturers in the Faculty of Language and Literature of Satya
Wacana Christian University who gave me the unforgettable experience during my
study.
26
References
Abrams, Z. I. (2003). The effects of synchronous and asynchronous CMC on oral performance.
The Modern Language Journal, 87 (2), 157-167.
Angouri, J. & Locher, M. (20