ASSIGNMENT 3 - Corpus Linguistic

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

 

ASSIGNMENT 2 - CMC Corpus

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

LITERATURE REVIEW

Apparently, users of blogs are booming from time to time. Various types of blogs such as academics, business, sports, religion, etc. are created based on users’ interest. Hence, many researchers have been studied about blog usage in terms of various aspects. Research on blog has been done by Shu-ming Wang and Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin entitled “The Effect of Social Influence on Blogger’s Usage Intention”. The purpose of the study is to explore relationships among social influence, blog platform qualities and usage intention for improving the understanding of the effect that social influence exerts on blogger’s usage intention. 

The findings show that in term of technical perspectives, information quality, system quality and blog functions quality influence blogger’s usage intention. In term of social perspectives, social influence affects blogger’s usage intention directly and indirectly through blog platform qualities. Moreover, the findings revealed the differences between blog readers and writers in the perceptions of blog platform qualities and the intensity of path coefficients among factors in the conceptual model. 

In the study entitled “The Corporate Blog as an Emerging Genre of Computer-mediated Communication: Features, Constraints, Discourse Situation” written by Cornelius Puschmann focuses on corporate or enterprise blogging used by business professionals to further organizational goals. It shows the purpose of corporate blogs which serve for extra-organizational such as marketing, public relations, customer relationship management as well as knowledge management.

Puschmann’s method is to describe corporate blogs empirically via a text-typographic corpus study. He conducted both qualitative evaluation of individual texts and specific linguistic construction in them. Moreover, he also approached the corpus data holistically using scalar statistical measures such as lexical density, f-score and propositional idea density, as well as degree of dimensional variation.

In Murray L. ,Hourigan T. , and Jeanneau C. research entitles “Blogs writing integration for academic language learning purposes: towards an assessment framework”, it aims to identify pedagogical roles for blogs in language teaching and learning besides the ways of assessment language learner writing in terms of their creativity also improvement. Students at Third level Institution were asked to write a blog for five months and they can only write about language learning strategies and experiences with the declared aim of improving student language learning strategies through self – reflection and self – expression.

To conclude for this research, they found that most students understood the potential of blogs are as a reflexive tool on LL and the benefit thereof. The blog writing also represents aspects of a post – process method with opportunities to rationalize as reflect upon the “expressions of the self”.

INTRODUCTION

Blog is a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links (marketingterms.com). It has been used widely for individual to express and share their interest and thoughts to the world. Today, blog has also being used as a medium to promote and sell products as well as service. These features are called as ‘Corporate Blogging’ or business blogging.

For this task, the blog that is going to be focused on is business blog that offers photography service which is Anna Rina Photography. Anna Rina is a Malaysian photographer whom offers service in shooting weddings and lifestyle portraits. Her services cover not only locally but internationally such as in Perth, Singapore, Bali and Krabi. This shows that she is a well known talented photographer. Moreover, her blog was nominated as the Best Photography Blog for Blogger’s Choice Awards.

Therefore, in completing this task, we will be studying on the blogger’s usage intention of corporate blogging. In dealing this element we will be focusing on two linguistic elements which are social distance and politeness through text, links, graphics and the structure of the blog.

ANALYSIS

In Anna Rina’s blog, we can see the intention of the blogger is to offer and promote her photography services in shooting weddings and lifestyle portraits. Therefore, there are a lot of pictures that are being used to portray her services. Moreover, in this blog, there are many pictures from different concept. The blog show various concepts for example in the wedding shots, she uses concept such as romantic, traditional and modern weddings. From all the concepts, the blogger’s intention can be conveyed in which shows that she is a professional in her field.

The blog also uses links in order to make it more organized and clear for viewers. There are six major links which are consists of Home, About Me, Services, Categories, Testimonials and Contact. Moreover, the blogger also uses sub-links to narrow the categories. Photo links are also used as an image to portray her interests. For example, the image of weddings is used for wedding categories. Whilst, the pictures tells that the blogger build and maintains her solidarity with her clients. 

In addition, the blog’s structure is well organized in which every posting has a unique format. The structure of every post must contain title, description texts, pictures, and comments. She updated her profiles into specific categories and dates are inserted as an indication to the events. The blog is also being organized vertically in order to ease of use by viewers. 

To analyze the text, we will relate it to main linguistic aspects which are; social distance and politeness. This is due to reason that the blogger uses words that symbolize her solidarity with the clients. Therefore, we will be focusing in three parts in the blog which are; the introduction, the description of every post, and every comment of the postings. 

The texts used in the introduction are meant to attract people. She first briefly mention about her profile with her experience as being one of professional photographer. Other than that, the blogger share her passion in her blog. She cites her solidarity with the audience and viewers by indicating the ‘smiley-mode’ in the texts. 

Throughout her posts, she always tells the stories about every couple and their sweet memories. The blogger and her clients are both shared common ideas of their interest. She also captures the images by inserting her expressive text from romantic lyrics. As in to strengthen their bond of solidarity, the blogger not only used expression such as (:-D) in the introduction, but also in the posts written. Despite of that, it shows close social distance between her and the viewers by using words like ‘yummy’, and expressive spellings like ‘cuteeee’ , ‘enjoyyy’, ‘kiiidd’. 

When it comes to commenting parts from the viewers, the politeness shown through the viewers comment instead of her own but the social distance between the blogger and the viewers cannot be seen because there are no responses from her own party. This might due to the fact that she assumes the commentary as only a complimentary and regular feedback.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion politeness and social distance are used in personal business blogging as shown in Anna Rina’s blog. This can be shown through pictures, wordings, and symbols throughout her blog. Her organizations of the blog are very friendly user and structured because it shows her professionalism. Her words and how she writes also shows her personality which is friendly, outspoken and carefree.

Her style of writing also managed to influence viewers to visit her blog and at the dsme time promoting her skill and business. In other word, she succeeds to portray her intentions and passion. The blog is very interesting that it manages to get nominated as the Best Photography Blog for Blogger’s Choice Awards.

Corpus: 

http://www.anna-rina.com/

References:
THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL INFLUENCE ON THE BLOGGERS’ USAGE INTENTION
by Shu-ming Wang and Judy Chuan-Chuan Lin
THE CORPORATE BLOG AS AN EMERGING GENRE OF COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION by Cornelius Puschman
LANGUAGE LEARNING PURPOSES: TOWARDS AN ASSESSMENT FRAMEWORK
by Liam Murray, Tríona Hourigan & Catherine Jeannea