Hate Speech Comments on Kim Soo Hyun’s Instagram Post: Pragmatic Approach

This research was conducted to analyze hate speech comments directed at the South Korean actor Kim Soo Hyun on Instagram. The data of this study consisted of 50 comments which were selected because they contained negative expressions and hate speech toward the actor. This study applied a descriptive qualitative method in analyzing the data. The objectives of the study were: (1) to identify the types of hate speech based on Mondal’s (2017) classification, and (2) to describe the intentions
of hate speech based on Kreidler’s (1998) theory of speech acts. The results of the study show that there are six types of hate speech found in the comments. The most dominant type is Behavior with 78%, followed by Other (10%), Physical (4%), Gender (4%), Race (2%), and Ethnicity (2%). In terms of intention, the study found five categories: Insulting (44%), Accusing (24%), Blaming (14%), Insinuating (12%), and Mocking (6%). These findings indicate that most hate speech toward Kim Soo Hyun focused on criticizing his behavior and
personal actions, and were often expressed in the form of direct insults and accusations. This research contributes to the understanding of how hate speech is expressed linguistically and pragmatically in social media, and it emphasizes the importance of promoting digital literacy and awareness in order to minimize hostile communication in online spaces.