EXPLORING THE LANGUAGE USE IN WHATSAPP AS STUDY PRAGMATICS

PROPONENT OF WHATSAPP EMOTICON USAGE

Abstract

The present study investigated the structural classification analysis of conversation and
preference structure in WhatsApp emoticon usage. Yule (1996) illustrated that there are
types of structural classification in the first part of conversation such as proposal, offering,
requesting, and giving assessment. On the other hand, the second part of conversation was
the response utterances either preffered or dispreffered that were also occurred in
adjacency pair in several expressions such as questioning sequence, insertion sequence,
thanking expression, and parting expression. The present study applied a quantitative
method to obtain data by distributing a set of questionnaires to 36 users of WhatsApp. The
results showed that variables suggested by Yule (1996) were found in 11 data resources of
chatting which were also accompanied by the use of WhatsApp emoticon. Thus, it is argued
that WhatsApp emoticons are becoming the important tools as an online facilitator for
communication because emoticons can enhance the messages and can help to express
emotions or feelings.