Speech Acts and Discourse Pattern in Information Sharing Practice in Malaysian Web-Forums

Abstract

Web-forum discussions are widely used in business, health and education and in
 general discussion virtually. This practice of sharing information via Internet is also
 known as Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD). By focusing on language used in
 web-forums, this study explores the practice of collaborative information sharing in
 Malaysian web-forums discourse by using Speech Acts Theory. The study found
 that forum-members used different speech acts to share information in an interactive
 manner. However, speech acts such as to explain, to suggest and to question were
 used more extensively than other types of speech acts. The study also found that
 speech acts to denote politeness such as to apologise, to greet were used in the
 web-forum interaction to sustain collaboration and camaraderie in online information
 sharing practices. The discourse pattern reveals that web-forum members interacted
 at two phrases; Phase 1 to seek general information about the topic of discussion, and
 Phase II to have a deeper discussion where new information is added to the topic
 of discussion that leads to new knowledge being created. The findings of the study
 can benefit our understandings on how best to conduct online interaction, be it in the
 business, health or academic sectors.