CONDOLENCE EXPRESSION USED BY SOCIAL MEDIA USERS FOR THE

PASSING OF KOBE BRYANT AND HIS DAUGHTER GIANNA

Submitted as a Partial Fulfilment of Requirements for Getting Bachelor

Degree of Education in English Department School of Teacher Training and Education.

by:

SEKAR HAPSARI PUJA UTAMA

A320160284

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION.

SCHOOL OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION.

UNIVERSITAS MUHAMMADIYAH SURAKARTA.

2020.

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CONDOLENCE EXPRESSION USED BY SOCIAL MEDIA USERS FOR THE

PASSING OF KOBE BRYANT AND HIS DAUGHTER GIANNA

Abstrak

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengkategorisasikan strategi dan niat dalam ungkapan

belasungkawa. dalam komentar pengguna media sosial dari berita meninggalnya bintang bola

basket Kobe Bryant dan putrinya. Dalam penelitian ini, peneliti menggunakan tipe penelitian

deskriptif kualitatif.. Data dalam penelitian ini dianalisis menggunakan teori.dari Elwood

(2004) untuk strategi belasungkawa dan teori Kreidler (2013) untuk menganalisis niat

ungkapan belasungkawa. Pertama, berdasarkan 77 komentar yang telah difilter, peneliti

mampu mengidentifikasi. 9 strategi ungkapan belasungkawa dalam komentar. pengguna

media sosial tersebut ; yaitu acknowledge of the death, expression of sympathy, future

oriented remarks, seeking absolution from God,, related question, expression of empathy,

statement of lacking words,, religious oriented sympathy and combination strategy. Kedua,.

dari 57 komentar peneliti menemukan 6 niat ungkapan. belasungkawa dalam komentar

tersebut yaitu; explaning, praising, condoling, sympathizing, empathizing dam suggesting.

Hasil dari penelitian ini strategi belasungkawa yang dominan digunakan adalah expression of

sympathy dan seeking absolution from God. Untuk niat ungkapan belasungkawa yang lebih

dominan digunakan adalah sympathizing.

Kata kunci : linguistik, pragmatik, belasungkawa, niat

Abstract

This study aims to categorize strategies and. intentions of condolences in the comments. of

social media users from the news of the death of basketball star Kobe Bryant and his

daughter. In this study, belong to descriptive qualitative research.. The data in this, study

analyze by using the theory of Elwood (2004). for the condolence strategy and Kreidler's

theory (2013) to analyze the intentions of condolences. First, based on. 77 filtered comments,

the researcher. able to identify. 9 condolence strategies in the comments of those social media

users; namely acknowledgment. of the death, expression of sympathy, future oriented.

remarks, seeking absolution. from God, related questions, expressions of empathy, statements

of lacking words, religious oriented sympathy and combination strategy. Second, from 57

comments researchers found 6 intentions of condolences in the comments namely;

explaining, praising, condoling, sympathizing, empathizing and suggesting. The results of

this study, the dominant condolence strategy is expression of sympathy and seeking

absolution from God. For the intention of condolence, the more dominant is sympathizing.

Keywords : linguistics, pragmatics, condolence, intention

1. INTRODUCTION

Communication in general can be interpreted as the process of sending and receiving

information or messages. .According to Lunenburg (2010), communication is the process of.

transmitting information and common understanding from one person to another..

Communication can. help build a relationship between people and each message delivered

has a specific purpose and purpose (Coates, 2009). Communication is one thing that can not

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be avoided, seeing when everyone wants to convey their thoughts through a communication,

one of them conveying a condolence.

Conducted from the study Hei (2018) in the research has the purpose to examine. the

ethnic variation of condolence. message written .by Malaysian. The data. of this study are 36

condolence messages written by Chinese, Malay and Indian in English. The researchers

applied the theory of Elwood (2004). The results of the study are that among the three ethnic

groups, Chinese ethnic use more words of hope and sympathy. In Malay ethnicity is a bit

more polytheistic and uttered indirectly, using sympathy with the word "sorry". Indian ethnic

writers say more sentences that relate directly to God. From ethnic varieties there are slight

differences in expressing condolence, this can occur because of the results of differences in

culture and social values.

Behnam et al. (2013) with the aim of their research is to .investigate the condolence.

between English and Persian. via text messages.. The data of this. study are obtained from 60

short messages including 30 from English and 30 from Persian. The theory used is the theory

of Elwood (2004). The results of this study are that the Persian message is more direct and

concise and is mostly religiously spoken. Meanwhile, the English message was more indirect

and contained sympathetic and apologetic.

Whereas a study conducted by Al-shboul (2013), investigates the expressions of

condolences in Jordanian Arabic delivered through social media namely Facebook. The data

of this study are 678 posted expressions of condolence in response to the death status of

contemporary Jordanian actors who died in 2011. These data analyzed using the assumptions

of Elwood (2004),. Farnia (2008), Pishgdam & .Morady (2012), Samavarchi & Allami

(2012). The results of this study relate to religious beliefs.. In addition to this finding it is also

found .that the majority of condolences in the comments of Jordanian society are based on

religious beliefs. The results obtained can provide information. for cross-cultural.

comparative studies and related. research.

In this research can provide several benefits such as theoretical. The benefits of this

research can also contribute to the study of linguistics and in this study can demonstrate

pragmatic analysis especially in terms of condolence strategies and intentions of condolence.

There are also practical benefits in this study can have the effect of increasing knowledge

about the correct strategy when expressing condolences so that finally they can use the

correct and appropriate strategy when giving a speech with a condolence situation. The

objective of the study are to categorize the strategy of condolence for Kobe Bryant and his

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daughter Gianna and to categorize the intentions involved in the condolence utterance in

response for the passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna.

2. METHOD

The type of this research is descriptive qualitative.. The object of this research is the

expression of condolence of the passing Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna. The

researcher can find the object in utterance written by social media users which can be in the

form of words and sentences.. The sources of the data are the sad news of Kobe Bryant and

his daughter Gianna taken from the websites usatoday.com, bbc.com, tmz.com, vogue.com,

instagram and twitter. The data collected by reading all the data and grouping the data by

each categories. The problem discussed in this research is to describe the condolence strategy

and condolence expressions given by social media users. In this news commentary there are

many strategies and intentions of expression.

3. FINDING AND DISCUSSION

Table 1. Data finding of Strategies of Condolence Expression

No Strategies of Condolence

Utterance

Example ∑ Percentages %

1. Acknowledgement of the

Death

Oh my God! 9 12%

2. Expression of Sympathy My condolence to his

family

16 21%

3. Future Oriented Remarks Sending love and

prayers to his family

11 14%

4. Seeking Absolution from

God

Rest In Peace 16 21%

5. Related Question Is that Kobe Bryant? 2 3%

6. Expression of Empathy Thinking of all this

family

5 6%

7. Statement of Lack Words I have no words 6 8%

8. Religious Oriented

Sympathy

God is so power full 1 1%

9. Combination Expression RIP, My condolence to 11 14%

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his family

Total 77 100%

The table below is the topic of the second objective of the study, which is to categorize

the intentions of expression condolence in social media.

Table 2. Data Finding of the Intentions of Expression Condolence

The finding of strategy of condolence as shown in table 4.1, there are nine strategies of

expression of condolences according to Elwood (2004) and there is one additional strategy.

These strategies are acknowledgement of the death, expression of sympathy, offer of

assistance, future oriented remarks, expression of concern, seeking absolution from God,

related questions, religious oriented sympathy, expression of empathy, statement of lacking

word, offer assistance and combined expression. In this study, not all the strategies can be

found from 76 expressions. The finding of the intentions, that there are 6 the intention of

condolence expression based on the illocutionary act according to Kreidler (2013) who stated

seven illocutionary acts namely assertive, performative, declarative, verdictive, expressive,

commisive and phatic. The findings of the intentions are explaining, announcing, praising,

condoling, sympathizing, empathizing and suggesting. The dominant type of strategy

condolence is expression of sympathy and seeking absolution from God with 16 data (21%).

This means that social media users prefer to offer condolence that are universal and have

positive meanings for the deceased and the family that was left behind. And the most

No The Intention Example ∑ Percentages

(%)

1. Explaining To his daughter was on plane to 4 7%

2. Praising We lost a King 12 21%

3. Condoling My condolence to all their families 7 12%

4. Sympathizing My sympathy goes out to all the

families

29 51%

5. Empathizing Heart going out to the Bryant family 4 7%

6. Suggesting What about the other family, they`re

important also

1 2%

Total 57 100%

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dominant illocutionary intentions are sympathizing with the findings of 29 data (51%) then

praising with the result of 12 data (21%). This means that saying condolence is not only to

give sympathy and empathy but can also provide a positive assessment during the life of the

deceased.

4. CONCLUSION

Based on the findings in this study, the researcher provide conclusion into :

4.1 The Strategies of Condolence

The researcher analyzes the condolence strategy write by social media users

for the passing of Kobe Bryant and his daughter. The most dominant condolence

strategy is expression of sympathy and seeking absolution from God with 16 data

(21%). For the next sequence there is a future oriented remarks and combination of

expression strategies with 11 data (14%). Then the strategy acknowledgement of the

with the discovery of 9 data (12%). The others strategy, statement of lacking words

has 6 data (8%) and expression of empathy with 5 data (6%) . And then the strategy

of related question get 2 data (3%). And the lowest frequency is a religious oriented

sympathy strategy, there is only 1 data (1%).

4.2 The Intention of Condolence Expression

After analyzing the intentions, the researcher found 6 intentions out of 57 data.

They are explaining, praising, condoling, sympathizing, suggesting and empathizing.

The intentions are explaining, announcing, praising, condoling, sympathizing,

empathizing and suggesting. In this study not all the intentions based on

illocutionary are found out of 57 data only six intentions are found. The most

dominant illocutionary intentions are sympathizing with the findings of 29 data

(51%), then there is praising with 12 data (21%), after that the intention of condoling

with the finding of 7 data (12%), then the intention of explaining and empathizing

with the same finding with 4 data (7%) and the lowest frequency is suggesting with

1 data (2%). In this research, it can be seen that expressing condolences not only

gives sympathy, but can also provide an intention to announce and give praise or a

explaining during the life of the deceased.

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