You’re Terribly Awesome!: Compliments among Sing! User

Faizah Zakiyah Darojad

Department of English, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia

Keywords: Addressee, compliment, compliment giver, Sing!.

Abstract: This study explores on the types of compliments offered by users in Sing!, an online karaoke application

with comment section for chatting. The researcher classified the types of comments the Sing! users into the

choice of expressions. The classification was divided from 50 recordings extracted from several famous

Sing! users. The participants of this research were ten (10) famous personal Sing! users who had a huge

number of followers. Each participant contributed in providing five (5) recordings with comments, which

included a random quantity of participants’ favourite solo and duet recordings. These classifications then

was analysed with the theory of compliments to find out the types of compliments given in Sing!.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the past two years, an application called Sing!,

which was launched by Smule, has become a trend

as a platform for those who both love singing and

love engaging in online communication. It,

somehow, becomes a new innovation for those

people who are too lazy to go to karaoke place but

still want to communicate with other people through

the same hobby, singing. Through Sing! everyone

can share the same hobby and communicate via

online platform at the same time. It is relevant to the

idea that online chatting has become a culture

nowadays (Slama, 2010). Some studies discussing

the popularity of online chatting are common to find

from year to year (Notley, 2009; Wang et al., 2011;

Freiermuth, 2015). Numerous studies have focused

on comparing online chatting with face to face

interaction (Lipinski-Harten and Tafarodi, 2012;

Hallett and Barber, 2014; Meredith and Stokoe,

2014). Some are focusing on the point of view of

gender in online chatting (Guzzetti, 2008; Armentor-

Cota, 2011). Some others deal with examining the

intimacy among users in online chatting (Van

Manen, 2010; Saroca, 2012; Doh and Whang, 2014;

Wang, 2015). Another research has pointed out that

social networking sites, in the case of online chatting

through twitter, offer the possibility of extended

thinking about the third place role in developing

online connectivity (McArthur and White, 2016).

Interesting things when it comes to online

chatting are the use of words to compliment people.

There are several studies talking about compliments

(Buey, 1905; Adachi, 2016; Malcolm, 2016). Some

people focus on gender point of view in giving as

well as receiving compliment (Herbert, 1990;

Johnson, 1992). Herbert in his research found that

compliments from men are generally accepted,

moreover by women (Herbert, 1990). Meanwhile,

women commonly responded with several types of

sentences when they are given compliments. These

findings are based on the discussion of the

differences between male and female in speech as

well as the sociology of compliment work.

Several research dealing with online

compliments are also available (Maíz-Arévalo and

García-Gómez, 2013; Stabile, 2014). Maiz-Arevalo

& Gracia-Gomez explore on how Facebook users, as

one of online social networks, practice compliments

to praise other users and to strengthen social

understanding between people both in English and

Spanish (Maíz-Arévalo and García-Gómez, 2013).

The finding shows that compliments in both

languages follow certainly different frequencies of

practice which reflect deep cultural differences.

In relation to gender and communication,

Tannen, Michaud and Warner, and Basow and

Rubenfeld proposed the same idea that

communication and take-turning between different

gender were difficult to deal with (Tannen, 1990;

Michaud and Warner, 1997; Basow and Rubenfeld,

2003). However, a research by Edward and

Hamilton has debated the idea by providing a

research focusing on complex model that

Darojad, F.

You’re Terribly Awesome!: Compliments among Sing! User.

DOI: 10.5220/0009911605370545

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Recent Innovations (ICRI 2018), pages 537-545

ISBN: 978-989-758-458-9

537

incorporated gender role as a factor that influences

how the messages are interpreted Edwards and

Hamilton, 2004). MacGeorge et al. have also

proposed the same idea that the communication of

different gender is possible and not as difficult as the

myth, as well as Athenstaedt et al. have argued

(MacGeorge et al., 2004; Athenstaedt and Schwab,

2004). In addition, in terms of how each gender

reacts in communication, a research by Halberstadt

et. al has shown that women give more positive

reaction compared to men (Halberstadt et al, 1988).

A research by Wagner et al. also adds up the

findings of Halberstadt et al.’s research by providing

real findings of emotional reaction’s differences of

both gender (Wagner et al., 1993). Last, a research

by Mojica also provides an exploratory study toward

compliment-giving by describing that females tend

to give more and longer compliment than males

(Mojica, 2002).

Wolfson has stated that compliments are one of

many types of speech acts that have main function as

the establishment of solidarity between the speaker

and the addressee (Manes, and Wolfson, 1981;

Wolfson, 1983; Wolfson, 1989). Or if I may quote

Holmes’ statement (1988), "a compliment is a

speech act which explicitly or implicitly attributes

credit to someone other than the speaker, usually the

person addressed, for some good (possession,

characteristics, skills, etc.) which is positively

valued by the speaker and the hearer.” Wolfson has

formulated four types of objects of compliments:

 P

Possession. The speaker compliments the

addressee on his/her (new) possession, such as

clothing, or ornaments, etc.

 S

Skill. The speaker compliments the addressee

on the result of his/her skill or effort, including

cooking, writing, drawing, singing, etc.

 A

Appearance. The topic of complimenting is

hair, face, or overall appearance.

 P

Personality. The compliment is mainly about

addressee’s morally positive points such as

kindness, good championship, and general

features.

Of these four objects, the one that matches with

the purpose of this research is the skill as object of

compliment because singing is a part of skill.

As what the researcher has mentioned

chronologically above, it turns out that the topic

about compliment-giving has been a common issue.

The conducted research are found both in online and

offline topics. Several research even focus on the

way different genders deliver compliments.

However, to the best or the researcher’s knowledge,

no one has taken focus on the compliments given in

online karaoke platform. Based on my personal

experience, there are many compliments-giving

among users of Sing!, one of online karaoke

platform, which leads to the decision to make Sing!

as the media of this research.

Sing!, which was first launched in 2012 by

Smule, is chosen as the media of this study. This

application has become the most famous online

karaoke in the world with around 100 million

downloaders and around three million active users

(Playstore, 2018). It endorses around 25 million

people to produce music including singing, rapping,

and composing songs every month (Apteligent.com;

Digitalrealty.com). Its huge numbers of users are

very helpful in providing online data of

complimenting in online chatting. This application is

also relevant to the researcher’s focus on observation

because Ruismaki et al. in their research found that

the participants saw karaoke singing as a positive

achievement (Ruismäki et al., 2013), while

achievement is commonly followed by compliment

and sometimes insult. However, their research only

focuses on the detail of the achievement itself. It

does not discuss more on the consequences of

achievement; Compliments. Therefore, this study

focuses more on the compliments given from the

karaoke activities within Sing!.

Generally, this study may lead into another

new supporting finding regarding the preceding

theories of compliment and some other theories

this study may refer to. Theoretically, this study

contributes to the body knowledge of linguistic

area, especially in terms of pragmatic area, in

situations when interlocutors deal with

compliments. In addition, this research can lead to

other and broader research such as the use of

certain part of speech, maxim, or any other

language feature regarding compliments.

Practically, this study gives insightful

classification regarding compliment inside online

karaoke chatting area that may possibly help

readers and/or further researchers for the same

type of research which may focus on Sing! by

Smule itself, or the issue regarding compliment

within online chatting. This study can also provide

real samples of how different gender varies in

complimenting, in this case is for singing.

In this

research, I propose one big question for this study

to obtain a significant result that is What are the

types of compliment expressions found in Sing!?

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

538

2 METHOD

This study is designed to have a combination of

qualitative and descriptive approach in order to

describe the observation and detailed documentation

of a phenomenon of interest. Qualitative

methodology is known as a means to explore

attitudes, behavior and experiences through such

methods as interviews or focus group discussion

(Dawson, 2009). In short, qualitative approach is

particularly valuable in providing rich and in-depth

data (Litosseliti, 2010).

The main source of this study was the

compliment among different gender users in Sing!.

The compliments were randomly collected from the

participants who the researcher purposely chose

among her famous friends in Sing!. In order to

choose ten participants, the researcher made

preliminary rules. The first rule was that the

participants must be famous users which can be

proven from the number of followers they have. The

researcher decided that users who have more than

2,000 followers can be a part of this research. It is

because, based on the researcher’s observation, the

more followers the users have, the more they have

fans as compliment givers. The second rule was that

the researcher chose ten users that the researcher

knows well in order to avoid misinterpretation in

describing the data. The last rule was that the

compliments made in the comment section of

participants’ recording counted were in English. If

the comment contained a combination of two or

more languages in it but the researcher found at least

a compliment in it, it would be included into the data

as well. Yet, the researcher still aimed to focus more

on English compliment. The participants chosen

were detailed in the following table.

Table 3.1 List of participants

NO Sing! Username Gender Followers

1 @BlueSargent Female

10,575

2 @Cinderella_JK Female

43,414

3 @Ciyarasn Female

2,374

4 @rhe17 Female

4,864

5 @sapphireskyfall Female

2,410

6 @00_tonxki Male

2,962

7 @Alfa_Jun Male

2,639

8 @Marchianto Male

6,716

9 @RenaltaAtha Male

4,145

10 @Suju_Heechul Male

4,909

According to Merriam, there are three types of

data collection; conducting effective interview,

being a careful observer, and mining data from

documents (Merriam, 2009). This study used the

third technique because of the platform that the

researcher had to get the data from, Sing!. The data

here refer to the compliments that the researcher

collected from the comment section in Sing!

recordings.

To collect the data, the researcher had to own an

account of Sing! first. After having an account, the

researcher searched ten mutual users who have the

most number of followers that would become the

participants of this study (data can be seen in table

3.1). Of five female and five male participants, the

researcher collected 50 recordings. Of the recording

that have been collected, the researcher then

collected the comments that contain compliments.

The comments that contain compliments, then, were

transferred to a sheet in Microsoft Excel in the form

of table to make it easier for the researcher to

analyze the data later. In order to analyze the data,

the data were classified into four scopes;

compliments based on the choice of adjectives,

special terms, swear words, and emoticons. the four

scopes are under a big scope of the choice of

expression.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Compliment Base on Choice of

Adjectives

From 415 compliments, there are 232 compliments

that contain adjectives in them. Each compliment

can vary in terms of the number of adjectives. It can

contain one or more adjectives in it, such as in the

following compliments:

 “👍👍👍👍 WOOWWW u guys did really

awesome @BlueSargent @tonxki

 “❤❤❤😘😘😘” @888888iak

 “*SPEECHLESS* SO PERFECT!.♥♡♥♡♥”

@LexVcodes

 “neo ddo El! i felt something different with your

voice, i heard stable vibra and veeery smooth.

love this collab! 😘💖🙆” @AnggiaPramudita

 “Oh my gosh Bachu I'm an embarrassment next

to you omg? You made it sound so effortless and

smooth and lovely you're fantastic 😭❤💕”

@BlueSargent

The compliments with adjective range from the

common ones such as nice and good to the intensive

You’re Terribly Awesome!: Compliments among Sing! User

539

ones that show how the compliment giver really

appreciates the singer(s) such as awesome, amazing,

perfect, wonderful, flawless, mind-blowing,

marvelous, outstanding, fantastic, incredible,

gorgeous, and lit. Those adjectives can be seen in

the following examples of compliments.

 “Good voice...i like your voice...” @Aina_nazili

 “U guys are amazing at singing and rapping”

@KAI_ONEW_

 “Flawlessssssssss 😭😭😭😭💕💕💕💕 my idol ...

😷😷💕💕💕 get well soon dear. I miss you

😎😒😒” @homkay_

 “your voice is incredible Jane, thanks for singing

this song, I will not get tired of listening to this

song ...” @PuddingJelly17

Not only that, some Sing! users are very creative

to include adjectives that represent character such as

cool, soothing, soft, energetic, cute, clear, pure,, hot,

smooth, sexy, sweet, angelic, lit, lovely and unreal.

These kind of adjectives, in my opinion, can make

the singers feel special by having character of their

singing voice. The examples of compliments with

these adjectives are in the following sentences.

 “So soothing voices ~ 😍” @Heynseu

 “Soft, yet energetic. That's oppa marchi 😁”

@hannurhay

 “I'm in heaven💀💀💀 those harmonies are

angelic. I'm not korean either 😂😂 your

pronunciation is almost perfect though !!!

💓💓💓😍” @sapphireskyfall

 “OMG LIT DEYM 😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕 I

JUST GOT AN EARGASM WITH THIS

HAHA

😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕👏👏👏👍👍👍🌈🌈🌈🔥

🔥🔥” @KML_maria

In addition, some adjectives are added with

intensifier to emphasize that the singers are “that”

good or “that” awesome. Based on the data I

collected, the compliment givers use so, too, very,

really, totally, absolutely and additional a

parenthesis of adjectives like mega super lit to

emphasize their compliment with the adjectives they

use. Some of the examples are in the following

compliments.

 “Wowww Ur too good Bro #Perfect 👏

”

@chillimalay2011

 “YOUR RAP WAS ABSOLUTELY

FLAWLESS YOU SOUND EXACTLY LIKE

THEM OMG 😭😭❤” @MultifandomedASF

 “U ARE VERY FANTASTIC , U SING THIS

VERY GOOD😎😎😎😎😎 HOW MANY

VOICE DID U HAVE????? ITS SO SIMILAR”

@jongintoofab

 “OMG AM I TOO LATE TO REALISED THIS

MEGA SUPER LIT COVER????? 😭😭😭”

@imranimm

3.2 Compliment Base on Choice of

Special Terms

From 415 compliments found, there are 80

compliments that seem special because of the usage

of special terms. Special term refers to the term that

represents or indicates how the compliment givers

appreciate the voice of the recording owners. The

terms themselves cannot be classified into other

classification because of their incompatibility to

other classifications. The terms are divided into

seven classifications based on the function;

branding, personification, pun, resemblance, slang,

state of condition, and religious statement.

Branding refers to giving a brand or a name to a

specific object to make it more valuable. Here are

two examples of branding in compliment:

 “I'm a #RHANE fan 😍😍😍❤ 😂”

@pearlycielle

 “Omo RJ 😭😭😭😭😭” @homkay_

Both compliment are found in the same

recording. Both compliments refer to the recording

owner and her partner’s name, Rheta (@rhe17) and

Jane (@BlueSargent). Both compliments also point

out that #RHANE as well as RJ are very special

because they are formed from the joint name of

Rheta and Jane only, which imply the brand is

special and cannot be formed if it is not from Rheta

and Jane’s name. It is slightly different from

personification. Personification refers to a person

who has a lot of particular quality or characteristic.

Here are some examples of personification in

compliment:

 “Flawlessssssssss 😭😭😭😭💕💕💕💕 my idol ...

😷😷💕💕💕 get well soon dear. I miss you

😎😒😒” @homkay_

 “💞 Such a goddess 😊😊 IDOL 😍” amishani_

 “LEGEND ONLY 👏👏👏” @AlfanBagus

All three examples above are the personification

of the recording owner as the compliments are

directed to them. However, there is another

compliment that implies the personification of the

compliment giver like “First 5 seconds of the song

then baaaaam~ automatically a fan 😍😍😍” by

@thenamelessqueen. Yet, the four personification

examples have similarity in terms of their part of

speech classification; all of them are noun. The next

ICRI 2018 - International Conference Recent Innovation

540

one is pun, which is a clever yet humorous use of a

word that has more than one meaning. Of the

collected data, there are two recordings that have

pun in the compliment; a song titled Beautiful and a

song titled Burn It Up by Wanna One. The

compliments in both of them are word-played in

order to match the title of the songs. In Beautiful,

there are four compliments that have pun like:

 “So beautiful😭😭❤” @teravirginiawan

 “BEAUTIFULLLL😍😍😍😍😍” @ireneee_s

 “WOW!This is so beautiful💜” @miss_kpop_01

 “beneran so beautiful 😭😭😭💕💕” @pinkrushb,

which in full English is “It literally is so

beautiful.”

Compared to four other recordings @Marchianto

(the recording owner) provides for this research, the

use of word beautiful in compliment only exist in

this recording. It means that the tendency to

compliment him with the word beautiful is very low.

It is only coincidence that the compliment givers

pick adjective beautiful as a pun compliment to the

song title. Meanwhile, there are three compliments

that have pun in Burn It Up. Here are several

examples of them:

 “Burn me😍😍😍😭🔥🔥💕” @teravirginiawan

 “Omg kak burn my earsssssssssss 🐢🐢🐢”

@williamsedgard

 “Burn me kak 😍” @saptoajin

If I may add the use of emoticon, some

compliment givers use the emoticon of fire to

symbolize the “burning” which, once again, is a pun

to the song title. Here are two examples:

 “OMG OMG OMG KAK

MARCCCHHH😍😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥🔥” @ireneee_s

 “🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥” @Nu1ts_yoobaby

Resemblance refers to the fact or being similar

or alike to somebody or something else. The most

common examples in this data are the resemblance

of the recoding owner’s voice to the voice of a real

singer. Here are some examples:

 “YOU BOTH DID WELL 👉ONE VOICE LIKE

TAEYEON👈

👉ANOTHER VOICE LIKE

DEAN👈” @_MindyPhang

 “is this taeyeon?

😂 @BlueSargent @Bomizzang you guys voice

really sounds like taeyeon” @missjinki

 “this is so gooooodddddd, you sound like baejin

💕💕” @stupidumdum

 “It's so good! Your voice is so nice! Haha... you

sound like Sung Woon so much! :)”

@theuniquecorn

 “Oh mai gatt😅😅😅 i think you sound that really

exactly like themm, i thought u was

'rose'😅😅😅really awesome” @Cinderella_JK

Some names may sound unfamiliar to readers,

therefore here is the singers’ reference. Taeyeon

refers to SNSD’s main vocalist, Taeyeon. Dean

refers to a Korean R&B singer, Dean. Baejin refers

to Bae Jinyoung of Wanna One. Rose refers to

Blackpink’s main vocalist, Rose. Sung Woon refers

to Wanna One main singer, Ha Sung Woon. Next,

slang refers to a very informal word or expression.

Here are some examples of compliment with slang:

 “You rock this one so hard 😍👌👌👌👍👍👍”

@_UP_Madsmusic

 “This is why i love refugee arc, march hyung you

slay this song especially with those harm”

@MinAgust

 “woaah you tho Wie 😍😍 you nailed all parts

🔥🔥🔥” @Alfa_Jun

 “OMG LIT DEYM 😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕 I

JUST GOT AN EARGASM WITH THIS

HAHA 😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕

👏👏👏👍👍👍🌈🌈🌈🔥🔥🔥” @KML_maria

The four red words are the slang words. Rock

here is used to say that something, i.e. the recording,

is very good. Slay here means to have strong effect

or do something very impactful to something or

somebody. In this case is that the recording

owner/singer has managed to sing very well that the

recording turns out to be good. Nail here means to

do the recording right. Different from three previous

examples which are informal words, Eargasm is a

new word which is used only in a situation when

someone listens to something very good, music in

common. It is a combination of ear and orgasm.

Therefore, it can be interpreted as an orgasm to the

ear(s) after listening something very good.

Meanwhile, state of condition is the condition of

someone while/after something happened. In this

case, it is the condition of the compliment giver

while/after listening to the recording. Here are some

of the examples:

 “eonniiii it's so beautifuuull 😭😭😭 feels like i'm

listening to CD 😭😭 love love Rheta eonni and

Jane 😭❤❤❤💕💕” @RNA16

 “Ahh this is so perfect! I feel like like listening to

angels!! ☺😍💕💖❤💙💛💜💚” @tanica21

 “I'M LEGIT CRYING 😍😍😍JUST

WOWWWW!!!😍😍😍”

@BTS_V_TAEHYUNG

 “IM IN HEAVEN!! 😢😢😢” @friend34160

You’re Terribly Awesome!: Compliments among Sing! User

541

Last, religious statement is a statement

connected with religion. Here are some examples of

religious statements in compliment:

 “BLESSED MY EARS😭😭 THIS IS JUST SO

AMAZING👏👏👏 YOU'RE

AWESOME~✨✨👍”

@ndaa_oth

 “Waaa 신기하다 😭😭😍😍this is so beautiful

what did i do to be blessed like this

😭😭😍😍💕💕🔥🔥” @KML_maria

 “Seriously I haven’t been feeling Christmas

because I still can’t go home because of work but

singing this with you gave me the BIGGEST

CHRISTMAS RUSH and I feel it IN MY SOUL

you’re so good 😭😍♥🔥✨🎶” @BlueSargent

 “I love your voices 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 this is

beautiful and makes me want to go outside and

wish everyone merry christmas” @swn97

3.3 Compliment Base on Choice of

Swear Words

From 415 compliments, there are only nine

compliments that contain swear words. The variation

of swear words found in the data is not as wide as

the variation of other classification on the choice of

expression. Those nine swear words can be divided

into three kinds; damn, heck, and fuck/fucking. The

interesting fact about the finding of the swear words

here is that six of the nine compliments with swear

words are written in capitalization, while some other

swear words are not written in capitalization but the

rest of the sentence is written in capitalization. Here

are two examples of swear words in compliments

both in capitalization and not.

 “OK OMHGUH THIS IS GREAT

😍😍❤😭😭❤😍👏👏 YOU CAN PLAY

GUITAR TOO WTF SKILLS” @angelishiii

 “damn ms. popular~ I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

OMF SENPAI SLAYY CAN I BE UR FAV

DONGSAENG” @finesseonbaek

If we go into details about capitalization in the

data, the swear words can be divided into two kinds;

the ones that are certainly written in capitalization

like fuck/fucking and the ones that can be written in

either capitalization or not like damn as well as heck.

The combination of swear words and capitalization

writing style can be interpreted as a stress on

pointing out how good the recording is. Here are

some examples of options to write the swear words

in capitalization or not.

 “OMFG JANE! YOU BEAUTIFUL

TALENTED GIRL YOU!!! I absolutely LOVE

your voice! EVERYTIME you join me I just

close my eyes and let your voice take me to

another place!! Please give me your talent

😫💦❤” @SailorSeokjin

 “HOLY HECK OH MYGOSH THIS IS SO

GOOD I WANNA CRY I WASNT TAGGED

BUT I STALK YOUR ACCOUNT SO IM

HERE BUT THIS IS AMAZING AHHH”

@macckkiiee

 “How in the heck do u rap so fast 😂😂 sooo

amazing

😍😍💕 ty for having a listen 😆😆🙆”

@sapphireskyfall

 “OMG LIT DEYM 😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕 I

JUST GOT AN EARGASM WITH THIS

HAHA

😍😍😍🔥🔥🔥💕💕💕👏👏👏👍👍👍🌈🌈🌈🔥

🔥🔥” @KML_maria

 “Omg demn ur voice @Alfa_Jun ahhh😍😍😍😍

so hawttt BTW ur vocal so

awesome😘😘😘❤❤” @PXCYJANE_

Based on the examples above, it is clear that the

tendency to combine fuck/fucking with capitalization

is higher than the tendency to combine damn and

heck with capitalization. In my opinion, fuck/fucking

has the tendency to sound harsher compared to

damn, while damn is also assumed to sound harsher

compared to heck. Therefore, it can be assumed that

the tendency to write in capitalization is getting

higher by the choice of swear words that the

compliment givers use; fuck/fucking is more likely to

be written in capitalization compared to damn, and

damn is more likely to be written in capitalization

compared to heck.

In terms of the relation between giving

compliment by using swear words, the compliment

givers do not intend to offend the recording owner

by writing the swear words. The swear word may be

interpreted as an offensive statement if it is written

only in a single word like “Fuck!” or “Damn!” with

a certain context that causes the writer to react with

the swear word. Another option is that it is written in

a complete sentence that shows the situation to cause

the writer to react with the swear word like “Fuck!

He scammed me!” or “Damn! That bitch hurts my

friend.” The examples in two sentences above are

clearly different from the context of the swear word

usage in the compliments found in Sing!. The swear

words are written in a sentence with a combination

of compliment like “OMFG JANE! YOU

BEAUTIFUL TALENTED GIRL YOU!!! I

absolutely LOVE your voice!” by @SailorSeokjin.

Though it is started with a fuck but it is followed

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542

with you beautiful talented girl that clearly shows

how the compliment giver adores the recording

owner. Thus, as I stated in the first paragraph of this

sub chapter, I can conclude that the use of swear

words here can be interpreted as a stress on pointing

out the good quality of the recording instead of

offending the recording owner as how the swear

words are used in common.

3.4 Compliment Base on Choice of

Emoticons

From 415 compliments found, there are 336

compliments that contain emoticons in it. The

compliments in terms of the usage of emoticon can

be classified into two scopes; compliments with

emoticons only and compliments that combine

emoticons and words. Here are some examples of

the choice of emoticons in compliments:

 “Wow 😍😍😍😍😍😍 why don't u both be an

idol 😘😘😘😉😉😉😉 amazing job guys

😉😉😉😉😉

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹”

@_hyiera___18

 “😍😍😍💘💘💘💘💕💕💕👏👏👏😍” @tatantut

 “nice 💕” @_LADY_DAICRIS_

As classified in the paragraph above, some

compliments found in Sing! are expressed with

emoticons only. Some compliments are expressed

with only a single type of emoticon like in the

following examples:

 “♡♡♡♡♡” @123RunandGo

 “❣❣❣” @Favorite7

 “😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍” @Jeywelery

Meanwhile, some others are expressed with a

variation of emoticons like in the following

examples:

 “🎤🎶👍” @Riceman77

 “😍😍😍👍👌👏👏👏” @chavantae

 “❤🌹💛💙💙💜💘” @n659

As the function of emoticon is to express the

speaker or sender’s feelings, therefore the use of

emoticon only in the comment column in Sing! can

still be considered as a compliment like the six

examples above.

Beside expressed with emoticons only, some

compliments found in Sing! are expressed with the

combination of praising words and emoticons. The

unique finding about this combination is that the

different tendency to use different quantity of

emoticons. The tendency to use more emoticons is

higher when the compliment givers use a small

number of words to compliment. Here are some of

the examples:

 “OMG😱 THAT'S PERFECT!👏♥

👏👏

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏”

@AAHII

 “I ❤ this Duet....❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💞”

@rifandiidm1

 “😱😱😱😱😱💖💖💖💖💖💖❤❤❤❤❤😍😍😍

😍😍 IDOL!” @pearlycielle

On the other hand, the tendency to use more

emoticons is lower when the compliment givers use

a huge number of words in compliment. Here are

some of the examples:

 “oh my god bomi this is. the most PERFECT.

collab. like. omgggg this is my favorite out of

everything we've done together you're SO

GOOD 😭😍” @BluesSargent

 “I don’t know any Korean, but your voice is

GORGEOUS, and this is one of my fav songs

ever 😻 No clue if I’m pronouncing anything

correctly😹” @Deadkitty4two

 “"Dear Taeyeon and Dean" please Make another

collab 주세요~ where have i been? I just found

out about this awesome collab♥♡” @LexVcodes

The possible reason for those two cases above is

that because of the function of emoticon, as I have

mentioned in the previous paragraph, that it is used

to express the speaker or sender’s feelings. The more

expressive the words are, the less emoticons the

compliment giver need. And the less expressive the

words are, the more emoticons the compliments

giver need to point how her feeling and appreciation

towards the recording and recording owner.

However, some other variables may happen due to

the different characters of the compliment givers,

which is not going to be discussed in this research.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Compliments in Sing! can be classified into four

groups; choice of adjectives, choice of special terms,

choice of swear words, and choice of emoticons.In

terms of adjective choices, some users use common

ones and some other use intensive one. Some prefer

to use adjectives that represent character, while

some others also vary in adding intensifier to the

adjectives. In terms of special term, they can be

divided into seven groups; branding, personification,

pun, resemblance, slang, state of condition, and

religious statement. Meanwhile in terms of swear

words, they are divided into degree of harshness.

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543

Last, in terms of emoticons, they are divided into

compliments with emoticons only and compliments

that combine emoticons and words. Based on this

research, it is highly recommended for further

researcher to do further research on how users with

different gender compliment to see how this research

works with gender differences.

Through this research, other and broader

research such as the use of certain part of speech,

maxim, or any other language feature regarding

compliments may be taken. Besides, this study gives

insightful classification regarding compliment inside

online karaoke chatting area that may possibly help

readers and/or further researchers for the same type

of research which may focus on Sing! by Smule

itself, or the issue regarding compliment within

online chatting.

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