Chapter One: Introduction
Background
When we communicate, we assume without realizing it, that we, and the people we are talking to will be conversationally cooperative- we will cooperate to achieve mutual conversation ends. This conversational cooperation even works when we are not being cooperative socially. For example, we can be arguing with one another angrily and yet we will still cooperate quite a lot to achieve their argument. This conversational cooperation manifests itself, according to Grice in a number of conversational maxims as he calls them, which we feel the need to abide by.
It is vital to understand these maxims as unstated assumptions we have in conversations. It is a given that we expect people to provide appropriate amount of information; we anticipate that they are telling the truth, being relevant and try to be as lucid as possible. However, in reality, people do not actually adhere to the maxims, at least not consciously. The flouting of maxims is even more rampant in social media conversation. So, we attempt to apply Grice’s framework to analyse the frequency of flouted maxims which occurs in one asynchronous social medium; Youtube. We are focusing on the comment section to bring forward the occurrences of violation of the maxims.
Research Questions
1. Do young generations frequently use profanity while conversing in social media?
2. Do the community use social media in the right way?
3. What is the contribution social medias give to the society?
4. Why young generation is much more upfront in virtual world than in real life?
Scope of Study
In this paper, we are going to investigate on occurences of the foulting maxims only in youtube comment section. We are using the approach of Grice’s four maxims in order to prove this.
Purpose of Study
To know the linguistic fearures which is most used in Youtube comments section.
Chapter Two: Methodology
Framework
Since this paper is looking into pragmatics perspective; Grice’s four conversation maxims, of of linguistic features found in the Youtube comments, which has not been previously researched upon, we decided it would be best to employ a mixed method between qualitative and quantitative approach as it would give a better understanding of the phenomenon and to provide a basis for possible further research that may be done in this particular area.
This research will use participant observation as a study design. It will be conducted on a sample of those commenting on Youtube account over certain topics. The data will be dissected by us, since we are using Grice’s approach to uncover this field. The data will comprise mainly on the usage of profanity and how people use social media to opine over certain things.
Sample
The sample will be selected based on convenience. Convenience is useful in a population where a sampling frame is not easily identifiable. As for the sample, we select around 1000 words of video comments in Youtube channel. This is due to the nature of this research as it aims to know on how people use language on social media. The researcher will dissect the data based on Grice’s four maxims approach.
Corpus
This paper use comments from comment section in Youtube channel as our main corpus. We select up to 1000 words of comments in the Youtube comment section.
Type of Research
This paper employs the mixed method by combining qualitative and quantitative research to improve an evaluation by ensuring that the limitations of one type of data are balanced by the strengths of another. This will ensure that understanding is improved by integrating different ways of knowing.
Chapter Three: Literature Review
Benson, P. (2015). Commenting to learn: Evidence of language and intercultural learning in comments on YouTube videos. Language Learning & Technology 19(3), 88–105. Retrieved from http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2015/benson.pdf
1) One important development with strong implications for research on Internet-based language learning is online communication takes place in various modes like YouTube.
2) YouTube videos create environments for comment on language and culture that are rich in terms of information exchange and negotiation of meaning.
3) The similarities lie mainly in the sequential organisation of turns and exchanges.
Varga, T. (2009). Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis: Language of YouTube Video Comments.
1) The more tones and senses conveyed through CMC, the more informal its language is.
2) Acronyms are among important formal aspects of the language of YouTube video comments, and that the most frequent acronym by far is LOL.
3) The third group of widely used Internet language features has been to a great extent discussed already because textual representation of laughter sounds can have many forms which partly overlap with acronyms and emoticons, which is called laughter variants. These include acronyms, such as LOL, ROFL and LMAO.
Semantically Enriched Machine Learning Approach to Filter YouTube Comments for Socially Augmented User Models
Ahmad Ammari , Vania Dimitrova , Dimoklis Despotakis
School of Computing, University of Leeds {A.Ammari, V.G.Dimitrova, scdd} @leeds.ac.uk
1) The Social Web, or Social Media, stores huge amount of social media data that is likely to be uncontrollable by the users in using the social media.
2) People nowadays produce highly noisy content that is irrelevant or spam while using the social media more than potentially valuable social contributions.
3) A research roadmap is sketched toward augmenting user models with key user characteristics derived from social content. It has seven steps and the first step is the most vital stage: identifying and filtering noisy content to create data corpus about a specific activity.
4) The noisy and relevant comments will be will be recorded with their computed scores.
5) There are also a few works that have used machine learning to find quality contents from the user comments on the social space and this will be easier for the researcher to analyze the corpus.
Chapter Four: Findings
Maxims of Quality
As for maxims of quality, according to Grice, is to be truthful. In which, we cannot say anything that we believe is false and lack of evidence. While dissecting the comments from Youtube comments, numerous of remarks were violating the maxims of quality. Below are the examples of comments that violating maxims of quality:
KidRaph:
Sia is one of the most original singers out there and also I can`t believe that Kanye produced this track, his diversity in music is amazing.
stinkinburrows
+KidRaph She's so good anyone would love to produce her music, he just goes where the money is, don't give him too much credit, give the credit to Sia.
As for the above, stinkinburrows stating a statement which is untrue in real time, where the commentary on Kanye just goes where the money is, is flouting from the maxims of quality. As the commentator, giving an answer which is untrue and lack of evidence is violating the maxims of quality.
DojoMuppet:
+stinkinburrows uh you dumbass no one does it for free. he prob was passionate thats why its a great beat
While, DojoMuppet violating the maxims of quality as he provide inadequate answer, which is just probability and lack of evidence. Probability is a notion that imply guessing which can led to the false argument.
Charles Njapa (88-Keys)
+yeahIhave actually, the beat was for himself first.
As for Charles Njapa, his answer also violating the maxims of quality, as it is just an assumption without concrete evidence. In addition, it is just a personal opinion, but was expressed as it is the truth. When proposing an idea using a lexical ‘actually’, it somehow shows high degree of understanding. However, in this context, it is untrue as he telling false statement.
Maxims of Quantity
Grice suggested that conversation is based on a shared principle of cooperation. “Make your conversational contribution what is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” This principle was fleshed out in a series of maxims. This paper will illustrate all four types of conversational maxims violated by users as in the Youtube comment section to analyze to what extent does a person normally abide or try to be cooperative during a conversation.
The first one is maxim of quantity. There are two components that fall under this maxim. Firstly, make your contribution as informative as required; in other words, do not say too little that people will be left clueless. This can be seen in the first reply in the comment thread chosen. The thread begins with Sia is one of the most original singers out there and also I can’t believe that Kanye produced this track, his diversity in music is amazing by KidRaph. The reply to that is what we considered as too little information when Ted Sayan says yeezy season. This, of course, is clear as day to people who are used to the pop culture terms where one can grasp that Yeezy refers to the rapper Kanye West, and that Yeezy Season normally refers to his clothing line. But looking at it in a pragmatic sense, the reply intends to imply that this is the time for Kanye to shine, what with him producing great music and having just launched his new shoes collection Yeezy Boost. Notice how this might be not understandable to some who have no background knowledge of what Yeezy Season means. This is a case of the quantity maxim being violated. Secondly, do not make your contribution more informative than is required which essentially means do not say too much. To illustrate this, let’s analyze a reply made by John Plat to the original comment which reads Yeezy, is officially taking over 2016, you can book it. Haters, should turn a new leaf………. He’s back. This is what the first commenter is trying to reach at, at least for the first clause of the sentence. But the remaining …you can book it. Haters, should turn a new leaf……….. He’s back is arguably an unnecessary piece of information and does not in any way contribute to the original comment.
Maxims of Manner
The occurrence of cooperative principle in a social media conversation assumes the understanding of the context from one commenter to another. The maxim of manner in a conversation is applied when there is distinct clarity of the expression. Those who flout this maxim do not obey the rule in being clear and to be easily understood while conversing in social media.
Out of the 41 comments, there are 6 comments that violated the maxim of manner. A comment from a user named Ted Sayan replied “yeezy season” to a comment by Kid Raph when the user commented “Sia is one of the most original singers out there and also I can’t believe that Kanye produced this track, his diversity in music is amazing”. Ted Sayan provided ambiguous feedback where it needs to be understood by getting out of the context of the comment. ‘Yeezy’ refers to the singer who co –produced the song Reaper by singer-songwriter Sia.
Another example of a violated maxim is seen from the user Ozymandias, where he commented “And I’m ‘bout to tear it up. Haters start your engines. I hear ‘em gearing up. People talk so much shit about me in barbershops. They forgot to get their haircut”. We believe he quoted a song lyric but the expression is very obscure. Such evidence portrays how a maxim of manner is flouted throughout the conversation. The same can be said when another user, Mondra Hawkins, contributed to the conversation by replying “at the end of the day it’s just about the music. Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan were a bit arrogant as well. But they dominated basketball and boxing”. The unnecessary mention of Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan is showing a flouted maxim in this conversation.
A conversation that does not disobey the maxims cooperates to produce a nice flow of understanding and cohesiveness. One clear comment that flouted the maxim of manner is when the user 6sam6lol6 interrupted the conversation by replying “That’s my uncle Juan”. The comment shows ambiguity and obscurity, so it flouts the maxim of manner. Besides that, another evidence is when Christian 0000 replying “L” to Van Litespeed. The user flouted the maxim as it serves no direct connection to Van Litespeed’s comment.
Maxims of Relation
The maxim of relation can be applied in conversation when there is a phrase that is not relevant to the context. In social media, people usually write only according to what they want to write. They tend to not bother on the relevance of the sentence and sometimes it leads to misinterpretation because there are people who will understand the sentence in the other way.
Based on the YouTube comments, there are some comments that violates the maxim of relation. The first comment is from Ozymandias, which the person replies to First name greatest Last name ever that reads “And I’m ‘bout to tear it up. Haters start your engines. I hear ‘em gearing up. People talk so much shit about me in barbershops. They forgot to get their haircut”. People are talking about an artist producing music for a singer but this person suddenly replies with lyrics from the said artist. There is no direct correlation to the first comment that he replies to.
A comment from CTHEWOLF777 also violates the maxim of relation. The comment is “yeah but he is going for president facepalm”. It doesn’t relate to the context of the argument. The first commenter is talking about Kanye’s music diversity and suddenly this user leaves a comment saying he’s running for presidency. This also simultaneously violates the maxim of manner as it is not made clear what it means by the use of “but”. To make it clearer, this comment is made to reply to the original thread saying “…Kanye produced this track, his diversity in music in amazing”. There is another random comment in the comment section. A YouTube user with the username of 6Sam6lol6 suddenly commented “That’s my uncle Juan!” There is no relation to what the people are arguing in the comment section, not to mention very random.
The last comment that violates the maxim of relation is from Clash of Clans. The comment is also not a direct reply, rather, it is just a promotion about games. The comment is “Yo! I found this really crazy promotion that’s also going pretty damn viral now lol. https://sites.google.com/site/giftcardspromotion99/?696583 Now you can get tons of vouchers of steam, XBox, PSN and more, all for nothing.haha. It takes around 3 mins to get it. I have got 2 so far, they’ve launched this last week. You can get it every 2 days, it’s AWESOME!” It goes without saying that this comment is not, in any way, related to the main discussion topic, which is regarding Kanye West.
As the maxims stand, there may be an overlap, as regards the length of what one says, between the maxims of quantity and manner; this overlap can be explained (partially if not entirely) by thinking of the maxim of quantity (artificial though this approach may be) in terms of units of information. In other words, if the listener needs, let us say, five units of information from the speaker, but gets less, or more than the expected number, then the speaker is breaking the maxim of quantity. However, if the speaker gives the five required units of information, but is either too curt or long-winded in conveying them to the listener, then the maxim of manner is broken. The dividing line however, may be rather thin or unclear. For example, the reply Yeezy season by Ted Sayan can be categorized into these two maxims, both for being obscured and unclear while at the same time being not as informative as required.
Chapter Five: Discussions
The conversations in social media are diverse in terms of their topics and backgrounds of the users. Benson (2015) mentioned on the variety of users that participate in the conversation as one of their ways of language learning medium. A social media like Youtube serves as one of the many Internet-based tools in helping their research development. The event of users providing cooperative principle while conversing can be seen throughout the process. However, the violated maxims happen when the differences of the users come into play. Any differences can disturb the entire flow while maintaining the implied meaning. Benson also said YouTube videos create environments for comment on language and culture that are rich in terms of information exchange and negotiation of meaning. The violated maxims can naturally occur as some of the intended clear meaning got interfered in the way.
Benson also specified on the turns and exchange in commenting. These similarities allow us to investigate the differences, which lie in interference to the turn-taking rule caused by asynchronous sequences of interaction. The maxims can overlap where a maxim of manner can be flouted together with the other maxims. The turn-taking system can exhibit the possibilities of the flouting of maxims where a comment can showcase an ambiguous and irrelevant feedback at once.
Based on the literature reviewed, it is found out that one of the characteristics of the linguistics feature employed in Youtube comments section is the use of acronyms. Acronyms are among important formal aspects of the language of YouTube video comments, and that the most frequent acronym by far is LOL. To relate it to the Grice’s conversational maxim framework, we found that the use of acronym L to be violating both the maxim of quantity and manner in that it gets in the way of communicating a clear and informative message. Now, considering L is not the most commonly used acronym among users, and that only certain people who are well-exposed with the popular culture terms would get it, it is obvious that the use of it violates the conversational maxims. It violates the maxim of quantity in the sense of being too short of an acronym that it does not give enough information of even clue as to what it means. Meanwhile, the maxim of manner is violated when the acronym used is obscured and not clear. An example of how the use of this will create confusion is given below, taken from the Youtube comments analyzed:
Keith Thomas: stfu bitch L
Christian 0000: L
Sharathedog: I don’t get this “L” thing
L means loss, according to these people, but in a simpler explanation it is used to refer losers. Basically, they are calling each other names. Other than this, there common acronyms used mostly pertaining to laughing style namely LOL and LMAO.
In addition, it is argued that people nowadays produce highly noisy content that is irrelevant or spam while using the social media more than potentially valuable social contributions. Ammari, Dimitrova, and Despotakis (2011) have stated the conversations in social media are susceptible to unwanted comments or replies. The violation of maxim of relation is likely to occur due to the nature of Internet that is borderless. Being so open and have no limitations in terms of the participants and topics can lead to interference from irrelevant parties.
Social media can be uncontrollable in terms of participation of extraneous users and data. As cooperative principle is a way to make a conversation to be understood, this possibility is can restrict the linear course of a conversation. They mentioned this occurrence as the nature of social media conversation, so the Internet users will come across violation of maxim of relation all the time. At the same time of such incidents, it is also very likely that the users will violate other rules of cooperative principle. Maxim of relation can overlap with maxim of quality in which they can be violated simultaneously.
Conclusion
YouTube video comments are an asynchronous type of computer-mediated communication which allows the users of the Internet to respond to the viewed videos. Their asynchronous nature consists in the delay between the time of posting the comment and the time of it being read by other users. It was, however, found out that they also come with synchronous-like characteristics which include the quick disappearance of the comments to the frequently commented videos from the first page, and the low average number of 23 words per comment in the corpus under investigation.
Many of these observations demonstrate that YouTube is diverse both in its audiovisual and linguistic content and that not only in different types of CMC, but also within its specific type, the Internet language is not uniform and needs to be studied in relation with all its contexts.
APPENDIX
Total
of comments: 41
Maxims
|
Frequency
|
Quality
|
9
|
Quantity
|
11
|
Relation
|
6
|
Manner
|
6
|
Total
|
32
|
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