THE IMPOLITENESS OF NETIZEN'S COMMENT

ON CHELSEA FC INDONESIA TWITTER ACCOUNT

Restu Putri Hutabalian
I. INTRODUCTION

According to Jonathan Culpeper, an expert in linguistic impoliteness, impoliteness

can be defined as "a form of language behavior that conflicts with the face wants, or face
needs, of an addressee" (Culpeper, 2011). Impoliteness is a form of communication thatIn the
context of sports and football fandom, netizens, or individuals who actively engage in online
activities, particularly on social media platforms, have been known to use impolite language
to express their opinions violates social norms and expectations, and it has become
increasingly prevalent in online discourse. The use of impoliteness can be particularly
pronounced when fans are disappointed or frustrated with the performance of their favorite
football team. Haenlein (2020) defines social media as "a group of internet-based
applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, which
allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content", In the context of sports and
football fandom, netizens, or individuals who actively engage in online activities, particularly
on social media platforms, have been known to use impolite language to express their
opinions on social media. Particurilaly on this occasion we foucesed on one of the platforms
of social media called Twitter
Wann et al. (2001) define sports fandom as "an intense, personal, and enduring
attachment to a sport team or athlete". One particular football club that has recently been the
subject of much online criticism is Chelsea FC, an English football club that has experienced
a significant downturn in its performance. Once a dominant force in English football, the
team has struggled in recent seasons, leaving it perilously close to the relegation zone. Fans
of the club have taken to social media platforms such as Twitter to voice their opinions about
the team's poor performance, resulting in a wave of frustration and disappointment.
Li and Lee (2020) define netizenship as a new form of citizenship that arises from the
use of the internet and social media. The comments made by netizens on the Chelsea FC
Indonesia Twitter account have become increasingly impolite, and in some cases, even
abusive. Netizenship involves active participation in online communities, social networking,
and information sharing, as well as the ability to express one's opinions and views through
digital media. These comments reflect the strong emotional attachment and loyalty that fans
have toward their favorite football teams. When their teams fail to meet expectations, fans
can become disillusioned, angry, and frustrated, leading to the use of impoliteness as a means
of expressing their dissatisfaction.
This research proposal seeks to investigate the impoliteness of netizen comments on
the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account. Specifically, the study will explore the nature of
impoliteness in these comments and examine the reasons why netizens resort to such
behavior when expressing their opinions about the team's performance. The proposal will
also analyze the potential impact of impoliteness on the social media discourse surrounding
Chelsea FC and its fans.
 The study will draw on the theories of impoliteness (Culpeper, 2011), netizenship (Li
& Lee, 2020), social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), and football fandom (Wann et al.,
2001) to provide a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. The research aims to
contribute to the understanding of impoliteness in online communication and provide insights
into how social media users respond to the performance of their favorite football teams. The
findings of this study could also have practical implications for football clubs and their social
media teams, as they seek to manage and respond to online criticism from fans
This research proposal highlights the importance of investigating the use of impoliteness in
online communication and its impact on social media discourse. By examining the
impoliteness of netizen comments on the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account, this study
will provide insights into how sports fans use impoliteness to express their opinions and
emotions online. The study will also contribute to the understanding of how football clubs
and their social media teams can effectively manage online criticism from fans, ultimately
enhancing their relationship with their fan base.

1.1 Problem of study

1. What are the most common types of impoliteness expressed by netizens in comments
on Chelsea FC Indonesia's Twitter account?
2. What are the underlying motivations and reasons behind netizens' impolite comments
on Chelsea FC Indonesia's Twitter account?

1.2 Purpose of study

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impoliteness of netizen comments on
the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account and to identify the linguistic and discursive
strategies that are used to express impoliteness.

1.3 Scope of study

The scope of this study is limited to the analysis of netizen comments on the Chelsea
FC Indonesia Twitter account posted between April and May 2023.

1.4 Significance of the study

1) Theoretically
This study contributes to the literature on impoliteness and online
communication by examining the impoliteness of netizen comments in the
context of sports fandom.

2) Practically
The findings of this study can be useful for social media managers,
sports organizations, and other stakeholders who are interested in
 understanding the dynamics of online fan communities and the ways in which
they express their opinions and emotions. This can help in developing
effective strategies for managing online communities and promoting positive
interactions among fans.

II. LITERARY REVIEW

1. Impoliteness
There are many literary reviews that have analyzed about impoliteness from other
perspectives that could become a reference for this analysis, such as: The journal article was
written by Oz, Zheng, and Chen (2017), entitled "Twitter versus Facebook: Comparing
incivility, impoliteness, and deliberative attributes" they used Their hypothesis that said
people might see the affordances of Twitter differently than Facebook, but the results of this
study do not prove what they expected. They used the affordances theory which proposed that
people have a relationship with technology that influences the process by which they use
these technologies (Nagy and Neff, 2015). This theory is used to contrast the incivility,
impoliteness, and deliberative attributes in between Facebook and Twitter. They found that
people are more uncivil and impolite on Twitter and exhibited more deliberative attributes in
their political talk on Facebook, but these results did not last long.
Meanwhile Bayraktaroglu, Arin & Sifianou (2012) entitled “The Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove:
How Politeness Can Contribute to Impoliteness”, analyze how people used impoliteness and
politeness in daily life in one interaction. They used Culpeper 1996 and Brown and Levinson
1978 theory to analyse the category of impoliteness and politeness strategies. These theories
used to know what the differences are described between impoliteness and politeness to see
how to find both strategies in one interaction.
Impoliteness in language has turned into general habit in everyday conversation. Speaking
impolitely is not the same as speaking harshly. It aims to disrupt or even embarrass the
interlocutor’s face. On the other side, speaking harshly does not always aim to damage
people’s face, but it may demonstrate familiarity between the two speakers. Bousfield and
Lakoff (2008: 3) defined it as, “Impoliteness is behaviour that is face-aggravating in a
particular context”.
According to Culpeper (2005a:38) “impoliteness comes about when: (1) the speaker
communicates face-attack intentionally, or (2) the hearer perceives and / or constructs
behavior as intentionally face-attacking, or a combination of circumstance (1) and (2)”.
Impoliteness in language is not only seen through what is said, but also needed to consider
the context as well as situation of the speech.
2. Impoliteness Strategies
Culpeper (1996) develops impoliteness theory into five strategies which are being the
contrary of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework. Culpeper’s theory involves:
1. Bald on-record impoliteness
It is impoliteness strategy expressed by speakers to their interlocutors directly, clearly, and
succinctly. This strategy creates a situation where speaker has no intention of saving
interlocutors’ faces or does not want to maintain a good relationship with interlocutors.

2. Positive impoliteness
Positive impoliteness is a strategy used by speakers to destroy the positive face of
interlocutors. Positive face is a person’s desire to be accepted, respected, needed, treated
equally, and respected for what he or she believes. This sample includes ignoring others,
isolating, leaving interlocutors, showing disinterest, using derogatory nicknames, and using
taboo words.
3. Negative impoliteness
Negative impoliteness aims to threaten the negative face of interlocutors. Negative face
means an individual desire to be independent, have freedom of activity, without being
restrained, and without coercion from anywhere. Actions of threatening the interlocutor’s
negative face include disturbing interlocutor’s freedom or one’s desire not to be disturbed.
For examples are the act of scaring, ridiculing, insulting, belittling, invading personal space,
associating interlocutor with negative aspects, and making other people seem indebted.
4. Sarcasm or mock politeness
Some named this strategy as pseudo impoliteness. This strategy is expressed with politeness,
so that it is as if the utterance spoken is polite even though it means the opposite. The
politeness that is expressed actually has other purposes, such as making fun of and so on.
Speaking is uttering mock politeness for social disharmony.
5. Withhold impoliteness
Withhold politeness is impoliteness that occurs due to the speaker’s negligence or
intentionally not to use the politeness as what should be done. For instance, people who have
been assisted do not say ‘thank you’ or they do not utter any permission sentences upon
borrowing other people’s stuffs.
3. Netizen
“Netizens are not internet users, rather netizen is a word to describe anyone on the internet
who supports the public and collaborates with the internet to help maintain and provide the
internet itself.” (Hauben:1996). Literally netizens are internet users, but netizens themselves
are internet users if they support the public and use the internet for the sake of the internet
community itself, then that is the true meaning of netizens, because according to Hauben,
netizens are individuals who are citizens/society/dwellers of cyberspace. which has virtually
no boundaries, and individuals can communicate without any restrictions.
4. Chelsea Football Club
Chelsea Football Club is an English professional football club based in Fulham, West
London. Founded in 1905, they play their home games at Stamford Bridge. The club
competes in the Premier League, the top division of English football. They won their first
major honour, the League championship, in 1955. The club won the FA Cup for the first time
in 1970, their first European honour, the Cup Winners' Cup, in 1971, and became the third
English club to win the Club World Cup in 2022.
Chelsea are one of five clubs to have won all three pre-1999 main European club
competitions, and the only club to have won all three major European competitions twice.
They are also the only London club to have won the Champions League and the Club World
Cup. Domestically, the club has won six league titles, eight FA Cups, five League Cups, and
four FA Community Shields. Internationally, they have won the UEFA Champions League,
the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Super Cup twice each,
and the FIFA Club World Cup once since their inception. In terms of overall trophies won,
Chelsea are the fourth-most successful club in English football.
The club has rivalries with neighbouring teams Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, and a
historic rivalry with Leeds United. In terms of club value, Chelsea is the seventh most
valuable football club in the world (as of 2021), worth £2.39 billion ($3.2 billion), and is the
eighth highest-earning football club in the world, with earnings of over €493.1 million (as of
May 2022).
5. Twitter
Twitter is a widely used free social networking tool that allows people to share information,
in a real-time news feed (Mistry 2011) through posting brief comments about their
experiences and thoughts (Bristol et al 2010). Public messages sent and received via Twitter
or ‘tweets’ are limited to no more than 140 characters and can include links to blogs, web
pages, images, videos and all other material online. Despite the brevity imposed by this
media tool, Twitter use is extensively used in a wide variety of circumstances and, according
to Mollett et al (2011, p1), ‘thousands of academics and researchers at all levels of experience
and across all disciplines already use Twitter daily’.

III. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design
The research method is a scientific way to obtain data with specific purposes and uses.
According to Darmadi (2013: 153), the research method is a scientific way to obtain data for
a specific purpose. The scientific method means that research activities are based on scientific
characteristics, namely rational, empirical, and systematic. The research method consists of
two parts, namely the qualitative method and the quantitative method. The author chose a
qualitative method to collect data and complete this research.
According to Creswell (2012), qualitative research is a means to explore and understand the
meaning of individuals or groups that are ascribed to human social problems. The research
process involves questions and procedures that arise; collect data in participant settings;
analyse data inductively, building from specific themes to general themes; and make
interpretations of the meaning of the data. The final written report has a flexible writing
structure. Also, according to Creswell (2012), qualitative methods are divided into five types,
namely phenomenological research, grounded theory, ethnography, case studies and narrative
research.
From the statement above the qualitative method is used to assist the writer in describing the
data. The results of the analysis will form a picture of the investigation that has been carried
out through observing individuals or groups. Qualitative methods, especially descriptive
ones, are the best way to help authors analyse data.
Qualitative text analysis method is a type of research that will be conducted. The researcher
chose this type of qualitative research because this research will only focus on analysing the
impoliteness used by Twitter users in comments on the Chelsea FC Indonesia account. The
purpose of choosing this type of research is so that the researcher can carry out a more
directed analysis in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
3.2 Research Instruments
To achieve research objectives, researchers will use observation as the main research
instrument. Researchers will observe and record examples of comments that contain elements
of impoliteness in them, focusing on the language and words used in these comments. The
researchers will make an observation sheet to record their findings, including what forms of
impolite are most often expressed by netizens in the comments on the Chelsea FC Indonesia
Twitter account and what are the motivations and reasons underlying the disrespectful
comments of netizens on the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account.
3.3 Research Procedures
The survey will be conducted within 2 weeks, in the last week of April and the first week of
May. During the research period, the researcher observed the comments expressed by
netizens in the comment section of the Chelsea FC Indonesia account. The collected reports
are recorded in the observation sheet that has been prepared. At the end of the research
period, the researcher categorizes the forms of impoliteness most often expressed by netizens
in comments on the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account and outlines the motivations and
reasons underlying the impolite comments of netizens on the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter
account.
3.4 Data Analysis
The data analysis technique used is qualitative analysis. The collected data will be analysed
using a qualitative approach, namely text analysis. The researcher will identify and categorize
the words in sentences of netizen comments regarding impoliteness on the Chelsea FC
Indonesia Twitter account and describe the motivations and reasons underlying the impolite
comments of netizens on the Chelsea FC Indonesia Twitter account.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSION

After analysing the data, the researcher found 15 comments containing the type of linguistic
impolite used by netizens in the comment’s column of the Chelsea FC Indonesia account.
1. Bald on Record Impoliteness
 The comment above belongs to this type of impoliteness because it is clear that the
comment was disclosed to the Chelsea FC players or can we say the interlocutor of the
commenter in a clear and straightforward manner. The commenter deliberately dropped the
interlocutor face with the word "stupid" written on it.
2. Positive Impoliteness

The comment above belongs to this type of impoliteness because the speaker
deliberately destroys the positive face of the other person by issuing words that deliberately
drop by saying "keep up the spirit" but for the next defeat. The speaker deliberately destroys
the desire of interlocutor to be accepted even with defeat, deliberately making the interlocutor
feel disrespected or humiliated.
3. Negative Impoliteness

The two comments above include this type of impoliteness because the speaker
intentionally threatens the positive face of the interlocutor. The actions that arise in the two
comments are insulting, belittling and associating interlocutor with negative aspects. This is
proven by the sentence when someone mentions dirty words in it, then that action is
considered insulting. The order for the FC players to become a mass organization included
ridicule because mass organizations and football players were much different, especially
when they had to do with parking attendants to increase parking fees.
4. Sarcasm or Mock Impoliteness

5. withhold Politeness