Word Formation on Twitter Posts

ISSN: 2302-920X

Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud

Vol 18.2 Pebruari 2017: 16-23

Word Formation on Twitter Posts

I Wayan Suparta^1*, Yana Qomariana², Ni Ketut Sri Rahayuni^{3 [123]}English Department Faculty of Arts, Udayana University ¹[ian.suparta@gmail.com] ²[yqomariana@yahoo.com] ³[ketutsrirahayuni@gmail.com] *

Corresponding Author

Abstrak

Skripsi ini berjudul “Pembentukkan Kata pada Postingan Twitter”. Penelitian ini terinspirasi dari fenomena di media sosial bernama Twitter di mana beberapa penggunanya cenderung menciptakan istilah-istilah baru yang unik dan menarik lalu kemudian menggunakannya sebagai salah satu alat untuk berkomunikasi. Peristiwa ini terjadi dikarenakan ada beberapa hal yang tidak bisa mereka ungkapkan dengan istilah yang sudah ada sebelumnya. Berdasarkan fenomena tersebut, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengklasifikasikan dan menjelaskan proses pembentukkan kata pada postingan Twitter dan juga menentukan makna yang muncul akibat proses tersebut.

Sumber data penelitian ini diambil dari beberapa postingan di Twitter. Pengumpulan data penelitian ini menggunakan metoda dokumentasi dengan teknik pencatatan. Kemudian data yang telah terkumpul dianalisa menggunakan metoda deskriptif kwalitatif. Berdasarkan teori morfologi oleh Lieber (2009), terdapat delapan proses pembentukkan kata yang ditemukan pada penelitian ini yang kemudian dianalisa dan dideskripsikan makna kata tersebut menggunakan teori makna oleh Chaer (2014). Terdapat lima makna yang ditemukan pada analisa data yakni makna leksikal, makna gramatikal, makna kontekstual, makna konseptual dan makna asosiatif.

Kata kunci: pembentukkan kata, makna, postingan Twitter

• 1 . Background of the Study

Morphology is the study of word formation, including the ways in which new words are coined in the languages of the world, and the forms of words are varied depending on how they are used in sentences (Lieber, Rochelle, 2009:2). Nowadays, many new words are used in the daily life because of the influence of

globalization. In this globalization era, it is easy for everyone to accept new things very quickly including words either written or spoken from the different parts of the world. Thus, people try to use some new, simple, and meaningful words as a tool of communication with people from different parts of the world. That may occur because of the development of technologies, particularly the internet.

Internet is one kind of the technologies that is highly influential in the society. The internet becomes people’s habit, people have been using the internet as a communication media; by using the internet, and social media has risen to be a media of communication. Consequently, many people try to use and create new, simple, and meaningful term on social media. There are many social media which are used by the society, but one of the most widely used is Twitter. This social media contributes to the formation of some ‘new words’ which are related to the word formation process. The phenomenon happening on Twitter is that some of the words used there are newly created words. The users of Twitter tend to create new terms which are unique and interesting, because there are things that they cannot express using a term that already exists.

The process of creating some new words by the users of Twitter can be categorized as one part of morphology called word formation. Those new words are formed by creating new terms by combining existing words or by giving new words and unique suffixes and prefixes. It can also be created through abbreviation, derived words, and transferred words which belong to the word formation process. According to Lieber (2009), word formation processes include affixation, compounding, conversion, coinage, back-formation, blending, acronym and initialism, and clipping.

This study was conducted to find out the process of word formation on Twitter posts. Besides, this study also determines the meanings shown by the process of word formations that occur on Twitter posts. Hopefully, this study can help us learn more and understand the types and the meaning of the word formation process on Twitter posts.

• 2 . Problems of the Study

Based on the background of the study above, there are two problems that can be formulated as follows:

• 3    What processes of word formations are found on Twitter posts?

• 4    What are the meanings shown by the processes of word formations that occur on Twitter posts?

• 3.    Aims of the Study

In line with the research problems, this study has two aims as follows:

• 1.    To classify the process of word formations on Twitter posts.

• 2.    To analyze the meanings shown by the process of word formations that occur on Twitter posts.

• 4.    Research Method

This study used documentation method in collecting the data which means that the data were taken from written material, Twitter posts. Some tweets were posted by the Twitter users that contained the process of word formation captured as a screenshot and printed. The method of analyzing data used in this study is descriptive qualitative method which means that the information gathered is not in numerical form. Qualitative method was applied in analyzing data in order to give an actual explanation descriptively. Descriptive qualitative method was used to classify and analyze the process of word formation based on the theory by Lieber (2009) and the meaning found in it based on the theory of meaning by Chaer (2014).

• 5.    Findings and Discussions

The discussions of word formation are described in paragraphs. Firstly, before describing in paragraph, each word formation process was included in a table contains the data obtained from each process.

• 1.    Affixation

There are two types of affixation frequently used on Twitter posts namely prefix re- and suffix –er.

Table 1. Affixation Process

No.	Word	Stem	Prefix/ Suffix	Result	Word Formation
1.	Recheck	Check (V)	re-	Recheck (V)	Affixation
2.	Twitterer	Twitter (N)	-er	Twitterer (N)	Affixation

• 1.    Retweet

The word ʻretweetʼ belongs to quantitative affixes because the prefix re- means ʻrepeatedʼ action. The contextual meaning of the word ʻretweetʼ is an activity of Twitter users when they like a certain post of someone and re-uploaded it on their timeline using their own account. The users can also add some words using their own language to explain why they like that post.

• 2.    Twitterer

Contextually, the word ʻtwittererʼ means a person who has a Twitter account and uses it to communicate with others accounts. This word refers to personal affixes because the suffix –er creates ʻpeople nounʼ and form ʻagent nounʼ (the ‘doer’ of the action).

• 2.    Compounding
  
  Table 2. Compounding Process

  No.	Word	Word Class	Words	Word Formation
  1.	Beetweet	Noun	bee (N) + tweet (N)	Compounding
  2.	Hashtag	Noun	hash (N) + tag (N)	Compounding

  • 4.1.    Beetweet

The word ʻbeetweetʼ has the associative meaning ‘a sweet tweet like honey which is produced by beeʼ. The word ‘bee’ is used to denote something that attracts so many people. This word is a slang term used to describe a ʻhot tweetʼ. Usually this is a popular, trending topic on Twitter.

• 4.2.    Hashtag

Semantically, the word ʻhashʼ has a lexical meaning ʻa hot dish of cooked meat and potatoes that are cut into small pieces and mixed togetherʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:686) and the word ʻtagʼ has lexical meaning ʻa small piece of paper, cloth, plastic,

etc. attached to something to identify it or give information about itʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:1519). Contextually, a hashtag is the ‘#’ symbol before a word or series of words (all run together without a space).

• 4.3.    Conversion
  
  Table 3. Conversion Process

  No.	Word	Word Class	Word Formation
  1.	Tweet	Noun/Verb	Conversion
  2.	Comment	Noun/Verb	Conversion

• 1.    Tweet

In this term the word ‘tweetʼ is a noun. This word is categorized as the conversion type noun that comes from a verb. This word is a noun which has lexical meaning ʻa message sent using the Twitter social networking serviceʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:1609).

• 2.    Comment

This word is categorized as a noun and also a verb. In this term the word ‘commentʼ belongs to conversion because it has two classes of words but it is unknown which one is the original class word of this word. Generally, this word is often used in two types of word classes (verb and noun), but in Twitter, this word is more commonly used as a noun.

• 4.4.    Coinage
  
  Table 5. Coinage Process

  No.	Word	Word Class	Word Formation
  1.	Egotwistical	Adjective	Coinage

• 1.    Egotwistical

The word ‘egotwistical’ is a new word that can be categorized as an adjective. Morphologically, this word is a combination of two words; ‘egotistical’ and ‘twitter’. Actually, the word ʻegotwisticalʼ is adopted from the word ʻegotisticalʼ which means self-centered. From its contextual meaning, the word ʻegotwisticalʼ is the term used to describe a user who talks about himself/herself too much on Twitter.

• 4.5.    Back-formation

In this research, the writer does not find the word categorized as back-formation word because it is very rarely used; moreover, American or western term has a different sense to the term in Indonesia.

• 4.6.    Blending
  
  Table 5. Blending Process

  No.	Word	Word Class	Formation	Word Formation
  1.	Twitosphere	Noun	twitter (N) + atmosphere (N)	Blending
  2.	Twabulous	Noun	tweet (N) + fabulous (Adj)	Blending

• 1.    Twitosphere

From its contextual meaning, twitosphere is an expression used to describe the “World of Twitter” which means the situation of Twitter made by the users of Twitter; it can be happy, fun, scary, sad, etc.

• 2.    Twabulous

The word ʻfabulousʼ means ʻextraordinary, extremely goodʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:524). From its contextual meaning, twabulous is a slang term used to describe a fabulous tweet which means a tweet that contains a good information, picture, video or etc.

• 4.7.    Acronym and Initialism
  
  Table 6. Acronym and Initialism Process

No.	Abbreviation	Term	Word Formation
1.	YOLO	You Only Live Once	Acronym
2.	TMB	Tweet Me Back	Initialism

1. YOLO

From its contextual meaning, it can be interpreted in a number of ways, but most often indicates an activity that shows someone enjoying their life and generally used by teenagers who are doing an interesting activity, for example: camping, hiking, touring, etc. and sometimes can be categorized as an extreme activity and then they post a tweet with some photos or videos.

• 2.    TMB

This abbreviation is often used as a hashtag ‘#TMB’ on Twitter post. From its contextual meaning, TMB is often used when someone sends a tweet to other twitterer and asks them to reply it.

• 4. 8. Clipping
  
  Table 7. Clipping Process

No.	Word	Base	Word Formation
1.	Bio	Biography	Clipping
2.	Pict	Picture	Clipping

1) Bio

Semantically, the word ‘bio’ has lexical meaning ʻa biography or short profile of someoneʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:133). From its contextual meaning, the word ʻbioʼ refers to a profile of a twitter users containing a name, hobby, profession, email address and some sentences “about yourself” which can describe who you are.

• 2) Pict

Semantically, from the whole word, this word has lexical meaning ʻa painting or drawing, etc. that shows a scene, a person, or thing; a photographʼ (Hornby, A.S., 2010:1104). Contextually, on Twitter, this word is often used for various photos about people, animal, food, nature, place, and so on.

• 6.    Conclusion

Based on the discussion, it can be concluded that Twitter contributes to the production of some ‘new words’ which are related to word formation process. Based on the research, the process of affixation is the most common process found on Twitter posts followed by blending and initialism process. Those three processes of word formations are the processes that were very often used on Twitter posts. Meanwhile, coinage and conversion are the two processes that are rarely used on Twitter posts. In this research, the back-formation process did not exist in any terms because it is very rarely used on Twitter posts.

Based on the findings and discussions, there are two types of affixation found on the data sources namely prefix re- and suffix –er. There are five words formed by adding prefix re- and seven words formed by adding suffix –er. There are five compound words with the pattern N+N=N, one word has the pattern V+Adj=V, and one word has the pattern V+N=V. There are three words that can be categorized as conversion which has two classes of words; noun and verb. There is one word that can be categorized as coinage. There are seven blend words with the pattern N+N=N, one word has the pattern N+Adj=N, one word has the pattern Adj+N=N, two words have the pattern N+V=N, and one word has the pattern V+N=N. There are two types of abbreviation; namely acronyms and initialisms, seven words can be categorized as acronyms and nine words can be categorized as initialisms. There are eight clipping words found in the data sources; six black clipped words, one fore clipping word, and one complex clipping word.

• 7.    Bibliography

Anggraeni, Desita. 2011. Word Formation Process in Outdoor Advertisement (A Case Study of Billboard Installed in Semarang). Undergraduate Thesis. Diponegoro University. Semarang.

Chaer, Abdul. 2014. Linguistik Umum. Jakarta: Rineka Cipta.

Dewi, Luh Putu Laksmi Prema. 2015. Types of Word Formation on Instagram Hashtags. Undergraduate Thesis. Udayana University. Denpasar.

Hornby, A.S. 2010. Oxford Advanced Learnerʼs Dictionary; 8^th Edition. London: Oxford University Press.

Leech, Geoffrey. 1976. Semantics 1 and 2. Utrecht: Uitgeverij Het Spectrum.

Lieber, Rochelle. 2009. Introducing Morphology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Plag, Ingo. 2002. Word-Formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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