T1 112011035 Full text

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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

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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

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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:

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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

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Name : Gayuh Abyor Kumandhang Student ID Number : 112011035

Study Program : 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 Along

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With this non-exclusive royalty free right, SWCU maintains the right to copy, reproduce, print, publish, post, display, incorporate, store in or scan into a retrieval system or database, transmit, broadcast, barter, or sell my intellectual property, in whole or in part without my express written permission, as long as my name is still included as the writer.

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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

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LIST OF TABLE

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Spotting EFL Learners’ Disagreement Strategies Used 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

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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.

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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

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4 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

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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.

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6 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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

Blunt Statement of the opposite 8 19%

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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.

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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

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such as asking for clarification, use onomatopoeia laughter, and emoticon. Below is the example of such strategy:

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. ^^

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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

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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:

Participant 3 : No, I prefer my boyfriend, ahahahahaha

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„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

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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:

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

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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:

Participant 15: do your thesis, find a job, make a CV and see the answer

Hedges, Clarification.

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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

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

Participant 1: Really? That's not fair ;-(

Humor.

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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APPENDIX

In this questionnaire you will be asked to read 7 someone‟s opinions about a particular topic. Then, write what you would to say in each statement. If you would not say anything, leave it blank. Feel free to use any kind of natural response that you may produce on online social media (Facebook, Twitter or etc). Thus, you can use informal language, emoticon, repeat letters, etc. 1. 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)

2. To my students who celebrate valentine days, you will automatically get a bad mark for the upcoming test. (this was posted by your lecturer)

3. If we are not good in English that's okay because we are just part of society, If a president show off to other countries' leaders with broken English, that‟s unacceptable, better

get an interpreter to translate what he says. We are talking about a president not a motorcycle

taxi. (this was posted by your older friend)

4. What is wrong with terrorist? At least they can decrease the population of stupid people. (this was posted by friend)

5. In everyday life, always and always smart person loses against lucky person. I hate it. (this

was posted by your roommate friend in your boarding house)

6. 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)