Digital Impoliteness Strategies in Response to Finance Minister Purbaya’s Assertions on the High-Speed Whoosh Project: A Pragmatic Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v14i1.18410Keywords:
Pragmatic Analysis, Linguistics Issues, Politeness Strategies, Impoliteness StrategiesAbstract
The phenomenon of impoliteness in digital spaces is gaining attention because it can affect the quality of public discourse, especially when it comes to national policy issues. This study aims to analyze the forms of impoliteness strategies used by netizens in responding to the attitude and statements of Finance Minister Purbaya regarding the project. Using a descriptive quantitative method, data was collected from netizen comments on the YouTube platform and classified based on Culpeper's impoliteness taxonomy. The results of the study show a total of 604 occurrences of impoliteness strategies, with positive impoliteness dominating at 37.1% through expressions of belittlement or disrespect. Bald on record impoliteness strategies also appeared significantly, mainly in the form of direct criticism without mitigation (10.76%). Meanwhile, negative impoliteness and sarcasm or mock impoliteness appeared in lower percentages, but still described a consistent pattern of verbal aggression. The results of the study show a total of 604 occurrences of impoliteness strategies, with positive impoliteness dominating at 37.1% through expressions of belittlement or disrespect. Bald on record impoliteness strategies also appeared significantly, mainly in the form of direct criticism without mitigation (10.76%). Meanwhile, negative impoliteness and sarcasm or mock impoliteness appeared in lower percentages, but still described a consistent pattern of verbal aggression. These findings indicate that netizens' responses tend to be evaluative-negative and are often realized through direct attacks on the self-image of public officials. This study concludes that netizens' rudeness is triggered by dissatisfaction with government statements and reinforced by the characteristics of digital communication, which allows for spontaneous expression without strong social control.
References
Akter, S., & Fichman, P. (2025). Expressions of partisanship among young political supporters on TikTok in the United States. Social Media + Society, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251370914
Anshori, M., Pawito, P., Kartono, D., & Hastjarjo, S. (2022). Comparative framing: Media strategy in public communication policy. KNE Social Sciences. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v7i5.10545
Antonakaki, D., Spiliotopoulos, D., Samaras, C., Pratikakis, P., Ioannidis, S., & Fragopoulou, P. (2017). Social media analysis during political turbulence. PLoS One, 12(10), e0186836. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186836
Ardiani, R. (2021). Impoliteness strategies used by netizens in commenting on political issues on social media. Jurnal Linguistik dan Sastra, 9(2), 115–127.
Arrasyd, A., & Hamzah, H. (2019). Impoliteness strategies in YouTube comment section found in Indonesian presidential debate 2019. English Language and Literature, 8(4). https://doi.org/10.24036/ell.v8i4.106618
Bousfield, D. (2008). Impoliteness in interaction. John Benjamins.
British Association of Internet Researchers. (2022). Ethical guidelines for internet research.
Creswell, J. W. (2014). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.). Sage Publications.
Culpeper, J. (1996). Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, 25(3), 349–367.
Culpeper, J. (2005). Impoliteness and entertainment in the television quiz show: The Weakest Link. Journal of Impoliteness Research, 1(1), 35–72. https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.1.35
Culpeper, J. (2011). Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press.
Fatema, S., Li, Y., & Dong, F. (2022). Social media influence on politicians' and citizens' relationship through the moderating effect of political slogans. Frontiers in Communication, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.955493
Freedom House. (2024). Freedom on the net: Indonesia country report—Konteks kebebasan digital, tekanan hukum, dan risiko pelecehan online. Freedom House.
Irawati, R., Sujatna, E., & Yuliawati, S. (2023). Strategi ketidaksantunan sarkasme warganet pada kolom komentar Instagram Ganjar Pranowo. Diglosia: Jurnal Kajian Bahasa, Sastra, dan Pengajarannya, 6(3), 911–930. https://doi.org/10.30872/diglosia.v6i3.739
Kaulika, A., Mansyur, A., & Wardoyo, C. (2024). Impoliteness strategies in hate speech comments on Noah Schnapp’s Instagram posts. Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics, 11(2), 449–464. https://doi.org/10.22219/celtic.v11i2.37942
Kentmen-Cin, C., et al. (2025). Hate speech on social media: A systemic narrative. Social Sciences. MDPI.
Koo, G. H. (2025). How social media news use predicts disinformation beliefs and support for political violence. Journalism & Political Communication. Taylor & Francis Online.
Masikki, S. M. H. (2023). Impact of social media on public perception of civil engineering projects (Case studies on public perception & social media). ResearchGate.
Nugroho, A. (2022). Digital impoliteness and online discourse: Pragmatic analysis of netizen comments on political news in Indonesia. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 12(1), 88–101.
Nurfitria, R., & Wijana, I. (2025). Impoliteness strategies in the comment section of Donald Trump’s Instagram account. Anglophile Journal, 5(1), 41–54. https://doi.org/10.51278/anglophile.v5i1.1482
Öz, A. M., et al. (2018). Twitter versus Facebook: Comparing incivility, impoliteness, and deliberative attributes. New Media & Society. SAGE Journals.
Pasana, C., Lemana, H., & Mamonong, V. (2023). Netizens at odds with the education department: Analysis of impoliteness strategies on an online platform. Rajabhat Chiang Mai Research Journal, 24(3), 31–48. https://doi.org/10.57260/rcmrj.2023.264796
Rahmawati, S. (2020). The use of impoliteness strategies in political discourse on Twitter. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(5), 601–615.
Rasmussen, S. H. R., et al. (2023). The event-driven nature of online political hostility: How offline events shape online hostility. PMC.
Razaq, H., Atta, A., & Aslam, S. (2023). Unveiling impoliteness strategies in political discourse: A case study of online press conferences and media platforms during the political crisis in Pakistan. Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review, 7(IV). https://doi.org/10.47205/plhr.2023(7-iv)29
Song, Y., et al. (2022). Contagion of offensive speech online: An interactional analysis of political discourse. Computers in Human Behavior. ScienceDirect.
Syahputra, H. (2023). Linguistic impoliteness in Indonesian social media comments on government policy issues. Jurnal Bahasa dan Komunikasi, 7(1), 45–60.
Theocharis, Y., Barberá, P., Fazekas, Z., & Popa, S. A. (2020). The dynamics of political incivility on Twitter. SAGE Open, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244020919447
Wulandari, D. (2022). A pragmatic study of impoliteness strategies on Instagram comments addressed to public figures.
Zhu, N., & Filik, R. (2023). Individual differences in sarcasm interpretation and use: Evidence from the UK and China. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49(3), 445–463. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001227
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Citation Check
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Christina Natalina Saragi, Dewi Paulina Silalahi, Nurainun Hasibuan, Renita Br Saragih

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
License and Publishing Agreement
In submitting the manuscript to the journal, the authors certify that:
- They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
- The work described has not been formally published before, except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture, review, thesis, or overlay journal.
- That it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere,
- That its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
- They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
- They agree to the following license and publishing agreement.
Copyright
Authors who publish with JOLLT Journal of Languages and Language Teaching agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.
Licensing for Data Publication
-
Open Data Commons Attribution License, http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ (default)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.














