Vocative Speech Acts in Indonesian Live Commerce: A Sociolinguistic Study of Address Terms on Shopee

Abstract

In order to engage audiences, establish rapport, and promote transactions, sellers are depending more and more on linguistic methods as live commerce continues to expand as a digital marketplace form. In online business interactions, such as live selling on sites like Shopee, where people are most used to, sellers usually employ address acts to build rapport and keep the audience interested. By examining the deliberate use of address words by Indonesian Shopee vendors, the study fills this gap. The usage of address words in Indonesian live commerce is examined in this study with an emphasis on how they function as vocative speech acts in online sales transactions to be the most Idonesian use as addressee terms. This study uses a qualitative method followed by a combination of vocative speech act theory supported by sociolinguistics of address terms to analyze how sellers address customers by using specific calls. There are 20 addressee terms used which are 3 the most widely used such as “Kakak, Kak, Sayang” with addressee term of “Kakak” as the most people used in addressing to Shopee live streaming are found in this research.