Pragmatic multifunctionality of Indonesian swearing in google play app reviews

A mixed-method corpus study

Bibliographic Data

ID24144104
AuthorsRatna Soraya (Universitas Sumatera Utara), Nurlela Nurlela (0000-0001-8177-0223, Universitas Sumatera Utara, corresponding author), T Thyrhaya Zein (0000-0001-9415-6329, Universitas Sumatera Utara), Prihantoro Prihantoro (0000-0001-7708-9785, Diponegoro University), Mulyadi Mulyadi (0000-0002-8431-0887, Universitas Sumatera Utara), Mahriyuni Mahriyuni (Universitas Sumatera Utara)
Year2026
Volume5
Publication date2026-09-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers in Language Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2813-4605 • E-ISSN: 2813-4605
PublisherFrontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3389/flang.2026.1879834
OpenAlexW7207600013
LanguageEN
References cited47

Background Swearing in digital communication is conventionally viewed as a straightforward marker of offensiveness, but its pragmatic value is systematically reshaped by platform norms, interactional goals, and sociocultural inference, challenging the adequacy of binary offensive-language models. Methods This study adopts a mixed-method corpus-pragmatic design to examine Indonesian swearing in Google Play comments from League of Legends: Wild Rift, Netflix, and X/Twitter, using lexicon-based detection across 500,599 non-empty comments, keyword-in-context interpretation, and contextual coding of six pragmatic categories: cognitive devaluation, animalized reference, corporeal taboo, death/dirt/disgust, moral abuse, and expletive intensification. Results Indonesian digital swearing performs catharsis, complaint, humor, solidarity, evaluative intensification, and ideological stance-taking, showing it is not reducible to aggression; platform differences are systematic, with gaming reviews foregrounding competence-based blame and cathartic release, streaming reviews concentrating service dissatisfaction and complaint intensification, and social-media reviews mobilizing public stance and identity positioning, while a Cohen's kappa of 0.3858 between lexicon-based and contextual detection confirms that lexical detection alone cannot explain pragmatic force. Conclusion The study contributes a culturally situated, data-grounded model for interpreting Indonesian digital swearing beyond binary offensive-language classification and offers practical implications for platform-sensitive annotation, sentiment analysis, and content moderation.

Blame · Complaint · Conversation · Foregrounding · Identity (music) · Indonesian · Politeness · Pragmatics · Sociocultural evolution · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Humor Studies and Applications · Swearing, Euphemism, Multilingualism