AICLL 2019 The Second Annual International Conference on Language and Literature Volume 2019 Conference Paper Speech Acts and Discourse Pattern in Information Sharing Practice in Malaysian Web-Forums Shanthi, A., Thayalan, X, and Suppiah, P Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia Abstract Web-forum discussions are widely used in business, health and education and in general discussion virtually. This practice of sharing information via Internet is also known as Computer Mediated Discourse (CMD). By focusing on language used in web-forums, this study explores the practice of collaborative information sharing in Malaysian web-forums discourse by using Speech Acts Theory. The study found that forum-members used different speech acts to share information in an interactive manner. However, speech acts such as to explain, to suggest and to question were used more extensively than other types of speech acts. The study also found that speech acts to denote politeness such as to apologise, to greet were used in the web-forum interaction to sustain collaboration and camaraderie in online information sharing practices. The discourse pattern reveals that web-forum members interacted at two phrases; Phase 1 to seek general information about the topic of discussion, and Phase II to have a deeper discussion where new information is added to the topic of discussion that leads to new knowledge being created. The findings of the study can benefit our understandings on how best to conduct online interaction, be it in the business, health or academic sectors. Keywords: Web-forum, Computer-Mediated Communication, Language Forms and Functions, Information Sharing 1. Introduction Increasingly, it has been noted that Computer-mediated Discourse (CMD) via modes such as blogs, discussion forums or web-forums, wikis, emails and instant messaging have become an inexpensive way to collaborate, to exchange information and to seek answers to problems among members of a virtual community. In CMD information shar- ing practice can be understood as “a set of activities by which information is provided to others, either proactively or upon request, such that the information can impact people’s view or knowledge of the world” (Savolaine, 2015). Discussions using the Internet can either be synchronous or asynchronous. Discussion via web forums is categorized as asynchronous, because it does not require the reader to reply instantaneously to How to cite this article: Shanthi, A., Thayalan, X, and Suppiah, P, (2019), “Speech Acts and Discourse Pattern in Information Sharing Practice in Malaysian Web-Forums” in The Second Annual International Conference on Language and Literature, KnE Social Sciences, pages 888–901. DOI 10.18502/kss.v3i19.4915 Page 888 Corresponding Author: Shanthi, A. aliceshanthi@uitm.edu.my Received: 1 July 2019 Accepted: 18 July 2019 Published: 31 July 2019 Publishing services provided by Knowledge E Shanthi, A. et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited. Selection and Peer-review under the responsibility of the AICLL 2019 Conference Committee.