The Verbal Irony Used for Comment on Facebook in The Case of Love Triangle News in The Entertainment Industry and Cyber Bullying: A Pragmatics Study

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study the characteristics and the functions of the verbal irony used for comments on Facebook in the case of love triangle cases in the entertainment industry based on pragmatics. The data were collected from October 2018 - September 2019 with a total of 258 utterance. The analysis showed that the Facebook users used 4 types of verbal irony: 1) contradictory adjacent expressions, 2) echoic irony, 3) irrational expressions and 4) over exaggerate expressions. These types of verbal irony were used to sarcasm, express feelings, parody and make fun as the Facebook users wanted to comment on the persons in the news. Making fun was the function that was used because the Facebook users wanted to share opinions among themselves. These functions, therefore, reflected negative attitudes of the Facebook users towards the persons in the news, causing cyber bullying.