This document discusses analyzing language politeness on Twitter based on Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory. Tweets on the topic of PTPTN (Malaysia's student loan program) were analyzed for positive and negative politeness strategies. Emoticons, punctuation, and capitalization were also examined. The tweets showed examples of both positive politeness through expressions of appreciation, and negative politeness through the use of face-threatening language. Overall, the findings indicate that both positive and negative politeness are present on Twitter and depend on the topic being discussed and individual perspectives.

1. INTRODUCTION
Computer Mediated Communication is defined as "communication that takes place
between human beings via the instrumentality of computers” (Herring, 1996). It is now
becoming more and more significant in teaching and learning process since technology has
become an essential tool of communication in the present days. This research paper will be
precisely analyzing on twitter, one of social network sites which is used universally
especially the youngsters. The corpus will further analyzed on language politeness based
on Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson's Politeness Theory and the findings will be
categorized in a proper table.
Research Objectives
The objectives of the research are as follow:
i) To categorize the chosen corpus into two major politeness (positive and
negative politeness) as listed by Brown and Levinson
ii) To look at the correlation of using emoticon, punctuation and capitalization
with language politeness
METHODOLOGY
Sampling
We choose a social network called Twitter, specifically the trending topic on
PTPTN sponsorship for Malaysian local students as our corpus. The length of the corpus is
five pages and it contains quite a number of posts and updates. It will be analyzed from the
perspective of politeness theory as defined by Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson. In
the analysis process, we will be giving attention to some of the aspects of politeness in the
corpus including the use of smiley to replace the role of facial expressions to communicate
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2. emotions, the use of punctuation to really understand the intended messages of the tweets,
and the word choice in order to determine the level of politeness.
Research Framework
This research paper will be focusing on language politeness as in Penelope Brown and
Stephen Levinson's Politeness Theory. Hence, a corpus will be chose to be the tool of the
research and the analysis will be based on Brown and Levinson's framework that consists
of:
i) Positive and negative face
ii) Face-Threatening Act (FTA), and
iii) Politeness strategies
However, the research paper will be only analyzing on Brown and Levinson's
politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson suggest five strategies of politeness in order to
avoid or lessen the Face Threatening Act. The strategies are as in the figure below:
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3. FINDINGS
Table 1: Criteria of politeness in Twitter
Emotional Expressions Politeness
Emoticons Punctuation Capitalization Positive Negative
    
Table 2: Tweets on politeness based on the trending topics in Twitter
POSITIVE POLITENESS NEGATIVE POLITENESS
Jadi xyhla pinjam dari awl RT @PatingWong: it's annoying how some students keep on
ptptn berlandaskan riba dlm diam,riba tu blaming the government or PTPTN.. they're like
harrom,ni klu kita xbayar,kt padang mahsyar nk a dog who bites the hand who gives it food
kira cema
Saya bukan budak ptptn..bukan budak mara..sy aku takde terlibat apa2 dengan PTPTN. btw,
omak bapak sy yg tanggung..skrg..masa ini sy PTPTN tuh hape? :p :p
pulak membalas jasa mereka..:)
(ˆ⌣ˆ) RT @Ana_Mansor: Sama la kita :P RT Sama lah kita. RT @iqbaalwazir: Kami org
@fanazzz: RT mizzDayana: Saya takde hutang kebanyakan, tak mampu nk biaya yuran, itu
PTPTN sebab kami takda pilihan selain pinjaman tu. Ok
x? #ptptn
So, we got no rights for free education? RT Tak faham dengan orang yang asek complain
@firdaushjdarus dengan PTPTN! Sedar lah diri sikit awak tu
#dearanwaribrahimabolishing PTPTN cause MEMINJAM!klau tak ko makan nasi lauk garam
students not working hard in study. je!
@BabyjaneJuliet saya budak MARA & RTJebatMustDie PTPTN borrows money from
PTPTN. :-) EPF to finance e students. If he waives all
RM40B+ of PTPTN debt, say goodbye to your
EPF dividends.
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4. DISCUSSION
From the table above, we found out that language politeness appears on Twitter.
Being one of the Computer-mediated communication tools, the spoken word is expressed
through writing. The findings that we have completed are based analyzing the language
politeness on the network itself which also includes emotional expressions, positive and
negative politeness.
Since this is a CMC based analysis, emotional expressions do frequently
materialized in the tweets, it is of course an intention to express emotions overwhelmingly
but in this paper, we have also include the use punctuations and capitalizations.
Punctuations and capitalizations might enable us to sense and interpret the emotions thus
indicating that it is the textual emotion of expressions.
Language politeness in twitter appears in mostly every tweet, this is due to the
different opinions, view and reactions that the subscribers express and thinks based on their
own point of view. In Positive politeness we have agreed to examine the perspective from
Colloquialisms/Slang, Vocatives, Inclusive Pronouns, Salutations/Closings,
Complementing, Expressing agreement, Apologies, Encouraging participation and
expressing appreciation. Meanwhile, Negative politeness bears Hesitation, Rational for
FTA, Formal Verbiage, Disclaimers and Self-depreciation.
Based on our observation, Twitter functions as a communication medium when the
trending topics are available where the followers will tweet or in easy words talk about it.
In this analysis, we have chosen the trending topic PTPTN, a financial loan for university
students in Malaysia. The reaction varies and different followers have vast opinions and
comments as well as curiosity arises among the followers.
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5. The issue of PTPTN invokes both positive and negative politeness. For example,
one of the tweets that indicate positive politeness is.
“Saya bukan budak ptptn..bukan budak mara..sy omak bapak sy yg tanggung..skrg..masa
ini sy pulak membalas jasa mereka..:)”
Here the follower is expressing appreciation to his/her parents and complimenting
them in aiding his/her studies. This is one of the examples for the positive politeness in the
tweets regarding with the trending topics. The smiley appears as an indicator that the
follower is expressing relief and delighted with the situation.
The example of negative politeness appears on the tweet:
“it's annoying how some students keep on blaming the government or PTPTN.. they're like
a dog who bites the hand who gives it food”
Here the follower is using the Face Threatening act to the students who blame the
government. We can sense the discredit towards the student blaming the Ministry of
Higher Education for the ruckus of the failure to pay the debt. Moreover, we found out in
some tweets based on our chosen corpus , emoticons such as ==', (⌣_⌣) and. ;( signifies
the negative politeness and negative expressions.
To conclude this discussion, we can clearly see that all the emotions expressions
and the language politeness whether positive or negative appears to indicate the different
emotions and expressions that different people view one another.
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6. CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, the language politeness in Twitter varies since it is a communication
medium involving different people. Based on our findings, the emotional expressions and
politeness appears and we can say that the positive and negative politeness plays a pivotal
role in the interaction yet is still depends on the trending topic because the more interesting
the trending topic, the more reactions provided by the subjects (follower) on Twitter. As a
matter of fact, the responses actually adhere with the topic they are talking about does not
jumble up with separate topics.
Bibliography
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A Sociolinguistic Approach to Analyzing Relational Messages," in Proceedings of
the 36th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 2003
Herring, S. C. (1996). Computer-Mediated Communication. Philadelphia: John Benjamins
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Scialdone, M.J, Li, Q., Crowston, K., & Heckman, R. (2008, February 8). Group
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Distributed Teams. Retrieved from
http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/15275
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