SYUHAILIN BT.

SHAHUDDIN
1028544
PPG TESL/SECTION 10

Facebook is about face and the negotiated public image mutually by granted each
other to participate in a communicative event. In the meantime, discourse analysis is the
examination of language use by members of a speech community. It involves looking at both
language form and language function and includes the study of both spoken interaction and
written texts. It identifies linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social
and cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different texts and
types of talk. A discourse analysis of written texts might include a study of topic development
and cohesion across the sentences, while an analysis of spoken language might focus on these
aspects plus turn-taking practices, opening and closing sequences of social encounters, or
narrative structure.
For this task, I have selected a facebook status from my ex-student, Muhammad
Aizats wall to make a discourse analysis. I personally think it is suitable for me to use his
status pertaining to an ordinary dilemma faced by adolescent now a day. Muhammad Aizat
was sharing his thoughts after someone he used to care made him feel uneasy even though he
did nothing to her. In his status I noticed that there are lots of unconventional spelling and
miss used of punctuation mark. For example, u-you, ur-your and repetition of full stop at
the end of the message. There are lots of grammatical error too in the sentences.
In his status, Muhammad Aizat used a conjoined clauses which it was temporally
ordered clauses that connected with conjunction and. He used a lot of and in the message,
even after the full stop This might happened because his proficiency in SL is quite low.
However, it is good to know that he tried his very best in expressing his feelings using the
SL. Muhammad Aizat must choose an appropriate cohesion and use it in a proper place.
The writer uses a lot of theme, which is relatively predictable information because
most of the intended audience had experienced being in love and also dealing with past
relationships. In the comments are the rheme which is relatively unpredictable information,
which is for example SASA. People who knew the writer and his group of friends would
know who SASA is because it is used to refer to Syahir Ahmad who likes to use the acronym
S.A. in the end, he was called SASA.
The message is an unplanned discourse as is the type of conversation we have most
frequently.

This is because the register used in the message is informal and there is a lot of

interaction with the other people who comment on the message. Another aspect is that there
are a number of deictic expressions, for example the usage of then in the status update.
There are also evidence of interruptions and overlaps that the writers used in the message.

The approach that should be used in conveying the message by using Etnography of
Communication, which it is the way we communicate, depends a lot on the culture we come
from. For example, there are some stereotypes like Finnish people are the hardest nation for
communication and the Turkish people are very talkative and friendly? Ethnography
investigates speakers culture. In this aspect, we can see that the writer is writing about his
own experience to his friends and his friends also commented on his message. They are of the
same cultural background, which enables them to share each others experiences on the topic
of the message.
Muhammad Aizat also used a few forms and functions in the message. In short,
grammatical form is what a word looks like, for example nouns and adjectives, and it is
clearly separate from grammatical function which is what a word does. A few examples of
form in the above message are conjunction like unfortunately and nouns like she and
you. On the other hand, the example of the usage of function in the message is For that
person if you dont like me simply block or delete me.
One of the components of discourse in this message the nextness where in unplanned
discourse, phrases are often produced one after another to shows that they are related. In
written discourse, syntactic structures and explicit cohesive ties can mark these relationships.
In this case, nextness can be a strong evident as each phrase is connected to each other and all
the phrases are related.
Another component of discourse that appeared in these chat is conjoined and
embedded clauses. It is also an unplanned discourse which is often delivered clause by clause
or phrase by phrase. Unplanned discourse seldom uses subordinating clause markers such as
if, that, because, etc. In the messages. Muhammad Aizat and his Facebook friends utilize the
conjunction, and which suggest that each phrase is connected to the other and to show
cohesion of the message.
To conclude this task, I would say that text-based computer-mediated communication
differs from face-to-face conversation in a way that the users do not have access to variety of
resources normally used to issue contextualisation cues, such as body language, facial
expression and paralinguistic signals. The conversation between Muhammad Aizat and his
friend is an unplanned discourse where there are several components such as nextness,
conjoined and embedded have been used in conveying their messages to each other. As an
English teacher, I can use this knowledge in discourse analysis not only as a research method
for investigating my own teaching practices but also as a tool for studying interactions among

language learners. Through discourse analysis, I can by exploring what language is and how
it is used to achieve communicative goals in different contexts. Thus discourse analysis can
help to create a second language learning environment that more accurately reflects how
language is used and encourages students toward their goal of proficiency in another
language.