Register Used by League of Legends E-sport Commentators: A Sociolinguistic Study

Abstract

League of Legends E-sport commentators may describe League of Legends matches using different terms from other sports competitions. Viewers who are not familiar with the League of Legends E-sport competition will find it difficult to understand the explanation from commentators. Viewers who are not part of the League of Legends community may not understand some of the terms used by League of Legends E-sport commentators. The terms used by the commentators are called register. Register is used by League of Legends E-sport commentators to explain the specific words or terms used in the competition. This study aims to provide an understanding of the specific and general terms used by League of Legends E-sport commentators and identify the language functions based on the register used. This research is based on sociolinguistic field and focused on register and language function. This study used qualitative method that used documentation to collect the data. This study used utterances from the League of Legends E-sport commentators taken from League of Legends Youtube videos as the object of the data. Data condensation, data display, and conclusion drawing are used for data analysis technique. In this study, there are two kinds of registers used by League of Legends E-sport commentators. The first is closed register which is a special register form that is only used by commentators of League of Legends E-sport. The second is more open register which is a general form of register. Based on the register used, there are three language functions used by League of Legends E-sport commentators. The first function is the heuristic function that is used to give questions that demand answers. The second function is the interaction function used to connect contacts between communicating parties. The third function is the representation function used to provide information, deliver facts, and make statements.

Keywords: E-sport, League of Legends, Register, Sociolinguistics.