Linguistic features of fake accounts in twitter: a corpus study

This research analyzes the use of internet language features by fake accounts on Twitter. This research aims to determine the language features applied by fake account users and the reason for fake account users using some language features in their account. The writer chooses Twitter because of the variation of language features by fake account users. Twitter becomes one of the social media, which has many fake accounts in the cyber world. In analyzing data, the researcher used a mixed-method approach and collected 563 tweets from 30 fake accounts around mid of 2019 as the corpus collection. The internet language features by Danet (2001) with a capital letter, emoticon, multiple punctuations, written out laughter, music/noise, word letter replacement, and description of action also the internet language features by Mei (2010) with abbreviation, clipping, acronym, compounding, and derivation also used as the theory. The finding stated that fake account users in their tweets use some language features by Danet (2001) and Mei (201) except the rebus writing and asterisk for emphasis. Emoticon also becomes the most language features apply by fake users. Fake account users made several fake accounts to have a place to support their idol who focuses on the music area, expressing their sad feeling that can not explain in real life, and promote mental illness awareness. The word choice by fake account users was also taken the researcher's attention in the thesis. Most of the fake account users applied words that express their feeling to their idols. Few of them choose formal words for making stories about mythology or expressing gratitude. The popular emoticon mostly used to express every emotion. The finding of this research is that fake account users mostly applied simple words in their tweets. It is indicated with an abbreviation, emoticon, and multiple punctuation words.