Verbal and Visual Expression of Emotions on Kaskus: a Semiotic Study

Abstract

This research investigates the types of emoticons which occured on Kaskus. This is a qualitative research. The writer take the data from Kaskus, therefore it is a forum in the internet which has grown to be one of the most popular websites in Indonesia. To identify the types of Emotions on Kaskus, the writer analyzed the data using Ekman (2003) . From the discussions, there are verbal and non verbal sign in the emoticons that appear on Kaskus. The meaning of verbal sign and nonverbal sign in emoticon “marah” represents anger emotion. Emoticon “Ngakak” and “thumbup” represent enjoyable emotion. Emoticon “Sorry” and “Cool” represent sadness emotion. For future studies need to be conducted with an increased sample by using another media such as Whatsapp, YM, etc.