LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 317 Analysis on the Structure and Purposes of Travel Blog Posts Hanna Juliaty1 hanna.juliaty@ukrida.ac.id Agustina Dita2 agustinaditaa@gmail.com 1,2Universitas Kristen Krida Wacana Abstract Travel blogs have become a huge online platform used as a benchmark for Internet users to plan holiday itineraries, consider choices, and finalize travel-related purchase decisions. As popular travel blogs are often visited by online readers globally, there might be a shift in the purposes for writing travel blogs nowadays compared to traditional blog posts. Previous studies discussed the characteristics of blogs as a communicative platform; however, discussion on language features and blog structures used to achieve certain purposes of travel blogs is still scarce. This study, hence, aimed to evaluate the text structure and language function employed in popular travel blogs to determine their overall purposes. Eighteen posts were selected from six popular travel blogs and analyzed qualitatively by using Pascual’s (2018) blog structure moves and Jakobson’s (1960) language function framework. The findings showed that the travel blog posts consisted of four moves: situational, descriptive, closure, and invitational moves and that most of the moves mainly employed referential and emotive functions. Hence, the main purposes were to provide information on travel destinations and to express the bloggers’ feelings towards their travel experiences. The findings implied that the purposes of popular travel blog posts nowadays are related to the role of blogs as a source of information and the role of travel bloggers as social influencers in the online community. Keywords: language function; text purpose; text structure; travel blogs INTRODUCTION When it was first launched in the late 1990s, a blog or weblog was initially used for writing online diaries and personal experiences (Bruns, 2017). In recent years, due to the expanding numbers of its users, the blog has been growing to be one of the most effective digital media for people to share experiences, give recommendations, express self- thought and creativity, or regulate commercial or organizational intentions (Li & Wang, 2011). As blog posts provide perspectives, moods, attitudes, and thoughts of different people, each of the posts is packed in an interesting, semi-formal to informal, and interactive setting that the blogger has (Chen, Shang, & Li, 2014). This leads blogs to be considered as a place for self-published personal writing with flexible structure and purpose (Ting, Ting, & Hsiao, 2014) and a place to have an open discussion, in which everyone can join (Sinanan, Graham, & Jie, 2014). There are roughly a million blogs updated daily with different topics available on the Internet, e.g., photography, cooking, parenting, journalism, political and other genres (Bruns, 2017). Among numerous topics discussed in the blogosphere, traveling is one of the most popular and influential topics to be written about (Law, 2009). Travel blogs display individual entries that describe planned, current or past, travel in the form of travel diaries or reviews, written mainly in chronological order and provide a descriptive explanation, evaluation, or recommendation of the overall trip, activities, and experiences of the blogger while visiting a specific destination as a tourist (Bosangit, McCabe, & Hibbert, 2009; Pan, MacLaurin, & Crotts, 2007; Van Nuenen, 2016). Travel blogs have a wide range of audiences that are diverse in ages and locations because they embrace readers from different cultures and points of view (Pascual, 2018). Furthermore, as an online platform, travel blogs tend to be interactive, which makes reading https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ mailto:hanna.juliaty@ukrida.ac.id mailto:agustinaditaa@gmail.com http://journal.unnes.ac.id LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 318 travel blogs become one of the most popular online activities for many Internet users (Li & Wang, 2011). People browse through travel blogs as they offer community networks and virtual travel guides that are easy and efficient to be accessed (Law, 2009). In most countries, readers tend to think of travel blogs as a trusted platform that helps them plan travel itineraries or purchases (Ting et al., 2014). Consequently, travel blogs often influence readers to consider choices and finalize travel-related decisions, or become a benchmark for people who are interested to go to the places being written about (Chen et al., 2014). In blog writing, the character and personality of a blogger are communicated through the posts (Sinanan et al., 2014). Either the bloggers share a personal opinion on a certain topic, or they offer an account of their own experience, the language in this online platform is used to communicate meaning and intentions with a more personal tone due to the subjectivity that the bloggers express themselves with (Wang & Lin, 2011; Van Nuenen, 2016). As many blog posts are in the form of written text, in general, there are at least six writer’s intentions: to inform, to persuade, to evaluate, to direct, to entertain, and to express (Doyle et al., 2012; Togeby, 2014). Travel bloggers usually convey one or more of these intentions in different ways. For instance, if they aim to inform, they may enlighten the readers by sharing information and facts about tourist attractions and potential travel activities. If they aim to persuade, they may build arguments to influence the readers to visit certain tourism places or purchase certain travel-related products. If they aim to evaluate, they may share a subjective evaluation of travel- related topics or issues, e.g., whether or not certain tours in a tourist destination worth the cost. If they aim to direct, they may give instructions to perform travel-related tasks, e.g., how to book or take public transportation to get to a certain place while visiting a country. If they aim to entertain, they may engage the readers with interesting stories that they experienced during the trip. On the other hand, if they aim to express, they may explain abstract details of personal thoughts and emotions towards certain happenings in their travel experiences. Moreover, any information delivered to an audience is usually arranged in a certain structure that provides useful guidance for the audience to understand the information (Krifka, 2008). As travel blogs contain written texts read by the public audience on an online platform, the blog posts are also organized in a certain structure. The general travel blog posts are mostly written in a narrative structure that contains details of experience and information in a descriptive form. The narrative structure in travel blogs is a central element for bloggers to narrate their experiences in a storytelling style to generate emotion and empathetic responses from readers to relate with the bloggers’ experiences, opinions, and emotions (Hsiao et al., 2013). Although the organization of the travel blog posts is flexible, travel bloggers tend to follow a particular structure that consists of several moves, namely situational move, descriptive move, closure move, and invitational move (Pascual, 2018). The situational move is the first part of the blog post that consists of a topic introduction to meet certain expectations of the readers (Azariah, 2016). The descriptive move follows the situational move, where the bloggers usually explain in more detail several traveling aspects divided into a few sub-sections, e.g., the travel destination, tourist attractions, and certain interesting travel activities or itineraries. Due to the detailed information here, the descriptive move carries the ultimate purpose of the text (Heerschop Hogenboom, & Frasincar, 2011) to attract the readers to read the post until the end (Vraga et al., 2011). The descriptive move is followed by a closure move, in which the bloggers finish the post by providing a summary of the overall trip experiences and personal thoughts, and conclusion. The invitational move appears at the very end of a blog post after the closure move. Unlike the other three moves, some blog posts may not have an invitational move and only end the posts with the closure move. The invitational move contains the bloggers’ invitation to the readers to share feedback and comments https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 319 related to the blog post content so that more readers can engage in the discussion. One of the ways to determine the purpose of a text in text analysis studies is by examining its language function. Jakobson (1960) classifies six components of language function used to analyze written discourse: referential function (to inform), emotive function (to express emotions), conative function (to give instruction or direction), phatic function (to establish interaction), poetic function (to express meanings through poetic features), and metalinguistic function (to explain a concept using certain language code). As communication technologies are growing broadly and impacting how information is conveyed on online platforms, it is also necessary to study how written language is used in blogs as one of the largest online media nowadays. In the past two decades, there have been several studies on blogs as a medium of online communication. Some examine the interpersonal goals of bloggers (e.g., Stefanone & Jang, 2007), the discursive features, structure and communicative purpose of blogs (e.g., Pascual, 2018), and the roles of blog readers (e.g., Baumer, Sueyoshi, & Tomlinson, 2008). Despite various aspects that can be studied from blogs of different genres, studies on travel blogs generally focus on their impacts on tourism and marketing aspects (e.g., Li & Wang, 2011; Pan et al., 2007). As one of the leading communication tools in this digital era, blogs are predicted to keep growing (Bruns, 2017) and be encountered and used by global users of all ages for more diverse purposes. For this reason, this study aimed to examine the main purpose of travel blogs by analyzing the language function displayed in those blog posts. METHODOLOGY As it sought to examine the main purpose of travel blogs, the study was conducted in qualitative design using the content analysis method. In content analysis, the text is coded and broken down into categories on a variety of word levels to describe the content, structure, or functions of the text, present important aspects of the content, and interpret meaning from the content of textual data (Neuendorf, 2002). The object of this study consisted of blog posts of bloggers’ traveling experiences from six popular travel blogs listed on The Ultimate Rank category in Blog Rank (blogmetrics.org), accessed in March 2020. Blog Rank was used because the website had been featured in some studies (e.g., Beagle, 2016; Schneider et al., 2013) and is commonly used as an engine to find the most popular blogs online. To find top-ranked travel blogs, a few categories on the website were clicked, i.e., ‘travel’ and ‘general travel’. Due to the large number of travel blogs listed on the results and the time restriction of this study, only the top six travel blogs were selected by considering relevant information about traveling activities and travel destinations presented in those blogs. In selecting those travel blogs, top-ranked blogs that belonged to organizations or companies were excluded as this study focuses on personal travel blogs written and maintained by individuals. The selected travel blogs had an average of 5-11 posts per month, indicating that the bloggers were active in posting at the time when the data of this study were collected. The six travel blogs also had many subscribers and visitors online, which made them have a wider spectrum of readers, resulting in a bigger chance of the blogs to appear on online search engines and to be read by various readers. As the blogs were on the highest rank in Blog Rank, the bloggers happened to come from North American countries, and their blogs used English as the language of communication. This indicated that the blog readers most likely consist of both native speakers and non-native speakers of English. Besides, the bloggers were full-time professional bloggers who maintained their blogs for a living. Therefore, in their blogs, they mainly provided various travel content for their readers. Due to the numerous entries in each travel blog, judgmental sampling was used to select only a few blog posts from each travel blog for the data of this study. Judgmental sampling is a sampling method where every unit of the population does https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ http://journal.unnes.ac.id LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 320 not have an equal chance to be selected because the sample is chosen based on the subjective judgment of the investigator (Berndt, 2018). In this study, the blog posts were selected based on a few criteria: the posts were more than 1,000 words in length, contained the bloggers’ travel journey to a specific travel destination, were published between December 2019 and January 2020 because these months were considered to be the peak for people looking for travel and holiday itineraries (Pan et al., 2007), and were searched and read by many readers among the other posts within the travel blogs. There were in total 103 posts compiled from the six travel blogs that met all those criteria. From those 103 posts, only 18 posts were selected as the data in this study. Some posts were eliminated as they discussed many topics besides the bloggers’ travel journey to a specific travel destination, or they contained mainly interviews, pictures, or links to videos and podcasts. The 18 selected blog posts were analyzed in several steps. Firstly, each post was read several times to identify both their structure and language function in it. Both Pascual’s (2018) framework of travel blog post structure moves and Jakobson’s (1960) framework of language function were used to identify each structure in the blog posts and the language function that occurred there. Secondly, each part of the blog posts that contained a structure move and language function was annotated and coded based on its theme, move, and type of language function. Thirdly, the identified theme, move, and language function in those posts was categorized in a table. Fourthly, the frequency of each language function that occurred in each move in the blog posts was counted and recapitulated in the table. Lastly, the results shown in the table were interpreted and analyzed to find the main purpose of those travel blog posts. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION From the analysis of all 18 travel blog posts, there were in total 808 language functions found. The language function that occurred with the highest frequency was the referential function, followed by the emotive function. The recapitulation of the occurrence of each language function in the blog posts is shown in Table 1. Table 1 Recapitulation of Language Function in All Travel Blog Posts Language Function Frequency of Occurrence Referential 341 Emotive 304 Conative 105 Poetic 55 Metalinguistic 2 Phatic 1 Total 808 From the table, as referential and emotive functions occurred in the highest frequency, it can be inferred that the main purposes of the travel blog posts were to provide information and to share the bloggers’ personal opinions and feelings regarding the visited places, travel activities, travel experiences and travel-related itineraries (e.g., transportations, local foods, accommodations, and tour services in the travel destinations). Also, when analyzed further, each language function occurred not only in a different frequency but also in different parts of the blog posts. This indicated that specific parts of the travel blog posts conveyed different purposes. The language function and the inferred purposes found in each structure of the blog posts are discussed in the following subsections. Language Functions in the Situational Move https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 321 The situational move is the beginning part of a travel blog post, where the blogger introduces a travel destination as a topic to be discussed in the entire blog post (Pascual, 2018). An example of a situational move in a travel blog post is shown in the following excerpt: “Chile is one of the most popular destinations (and one of my favorites) in South America. I was blown away by the beauty of the country, the delicious and inexpensive food, the plethora of different eco-systems, and how hospitable the locals were. (And, as someone who works online, how much they are investing in tech!)” –Blog Post 2 In this excerpt, the blogger opened the post by introducing Chile, the country destination that he would like to share in the rest of the blog post. The blogger introduced the destination country as “one of the most popular destinations” and “one of my favorites”, which most likely was aimed to attract the readers’ attention and curiosity towards Chile. In the next sentences, the blogger added more details to his previous statement about Chile, i.e., his reasons for stating that Chile was one of his favorite places. In mentioning the reasons, various aspects were highlighted about the country that might be interesting to the readers, e.g., its landscapes and nature (“beauty of the country”), its local foods (“the delicious and inexpensive food”), its richness of natural environments (“the plethora of different eco-systems”), its friendly citizens (“how hospitable the locals were”), and its technology investment provided for its people and tourists. From all 18 blog posts, there were a total of 70 language functions occurred in the situational move. The frequency of the occurrence of each language function in the situational move is shown in Table 2. Table 2 Language Function in Situational Move Language Function Frequency of Occurrence Referential 30 Emotive 31 Conative 3 Poetic 6 Metalinguistic 0 Phatic 0 Total 70 Table 2 shows that the language functions occurred most dominantly in the situational move were emotive function and referential function. These two language functions frequently appeared in the three major themes found in the situational move, as shown in Table 3. Table 3 Major Themes and Language Functions Occurred in Situational Move Major Themes Major Language Functions 1. Introduction of the destination referential and emotive 2. Travel itineraries referential and emotive 3. Personal feelings and opinions towards the destination emotive As shown in Table 3, the situational move of the travel blog posts mainly contained referential and emotive functions to convey specific purposes, which were providing information about the travel destination (shown by the first and second themes) and expressing the bloggers’ feelings and opinions towards the travel destination and experiences (shown by the third theme). In this move, the emotive function was used by the bloggers in expressing personal opinions of https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ http://journal.unnes.ac.id LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 322 the experiences and the visited places. Reasons and some personal background for choosing the destination were also frequently mentioned using the emotive function. In utilizing the emotive function, the bloggers shared a part of their personality to the readers, which resulted in a possibility of them appearing as more authentic, genuine, and honest to the readers (Azariah, 2016). On the other hand, the referential function was used by the bloggers in describing the travel destination and travel itineraries. This language function mainly had a role in introducing the topic of the blog post to the readers. By giving a brief description of the travel destination and itineraries in the situational move, the bloggers provided hints to the readers about the content that was going to be discussed in the rest of the post (Togeby, 2014). In sum, the bloggers tended to use emotive and referential functions at the beginning of their blog posts to introduce the travel destination and to share some personal background for selecting or preferring the destination to their readers. This characteristic of the situational move was similar to the traditional blogs, in which the beginning part also consisted of an introduction about the topic of the blog post and a brief explanation or background on why the topic was important or necessary to be written and discussed in the rest of the blog post. Language Functions in the Descriptive Move A descriptive move is the main part of a travel blog post, in which the blogger provides a detailed explanation about the topic of the travel blog post, mainly about the trip (Pascual, 2018). An example of a descriptive move in a travel blog post is shown in the following excerpt: “Tbilisi is surrounded by hills, one of which is home to the ruins of Narikala Fortress, which dates back to the fourth century. Take the cable car up for amazing views overlooking the city and the Mtkvari River. And the restored historic Old Town is full of colorful window frames, gorgeous balconies, ornate spiral staircases, and intriguing alleyways to explore.” –Blog Post 3 In this excerpt, the blogger gave detailed information about things done in the country destination. The blogger explained the geographical location (“surrounded by hills”) and history of the destination, i.e., the place existed a long time ago (“home to the ruins of Narikala Fortres which dates back to the fourth century”). In the next sentence, the bloggers also included information about things to do in the visited place (“Take the cable car up”) and give a detailed description of the sights that could be seen (“full of colorful window frames, gorgeous balconies, ornate spiral staircases”) and things that could be found in the (“intriguing alleyways to explore.”) The bloggers described the destination in details using sensory details so that readers can imagine what it is really like to visit the destination. From all 18 blog posts, out of 808 language functions in total, the majority of them occurred in the descriptive move (631 occurrences). The frequency of the occurrence of each language function in the descriptive move is shown in Table 4. Table 4 Language Function in Descriptive Move Language Function Frequency of Occurrence Referential 276 Emotive 230 Conative 83 Poetic 39 Metalinguistic 2 Phatic 1 Total 631 https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 323 Table 4 shows that the language functions occurred most dominantly in the descriptive move were referential and emotive functions. These two language functions regularly appeared in the three major themes found in the descriptive move, as shown in Table 5. Table 5 Major Themes and Language Functions Occurred in Descriptive Move Major Themes Major Language Functions 1. Activities to do in the destination referential and emotive 2. Description of certain places or tourist attractions referential and emotive 3. Historical background of the visited places referential As shown in Table 5, the descriptive move of the travel blog posts mainly contained referential and emotive functions to convey specific purposes, i.e., providing more detailed information about the travel destination, including the available activities to do there, interesting facts about the places, and some historical background of certain places that would enhance the readers’ knowledge about the destination. In this move, the referential function was used by the bloggers in elaborating necessary and interesting information of the travel destination, e.g., the address of certain places in the destinated country or city, famous places within and nearby the destination, travel itineraries that should not be missed while doing the trip, and estimated budget for the trip. Historical background of the places was often also provided, e.g., historical events that occurred in the places and the past stories of the places. The referential function was used dominantly in the descriptive move of the travel blog posts as it enabled the bloggers to describe the information in detail in order to help the readers felt as if they were experiencing the trip themselves. Since most travelers that are planning to travel somewhere would most likely browse through travel blogs first (Ting et al., 2014), it is important for travel blogs to be a reliable source of information to help readers make well-informed decisions about their travel itineraries. On the other hand, the emotive function was used by the bloggers in describing personal opinion and feelings about the travel experiences shared in the blog posts (Togeby, 2014), e.g., what the bloggers liked or disliked from the experience and a range of best travel activities to do during the trip. In using the emotive function in sharing their personal travel stories, the bloggers tended to show many personal expressions or preferences in informal language to the readers. In the descriptive move, both the referential and emotive functions were followed by the conative function in terms of their frequency (see Table 4), where the bloggers gave travel-related advice to the readers, and poetic function, which contained the bloggers’ personal feelings towards the travel destination. A minor occurrence was also found for the metalinguistic and phatic functions. From the data, these two language functions only occurred in the descriptive move and not in other moves. In sum, the bloggers tended to use mostly referential and emotive functions in the body of their blog posts to address deeper information of a particular topic to the readers in a narrative style so that the readers could get immersed in their travel experiences (Pascual, 2018). This feature of descriptive move that elaborates specific details of a topic in the text is considered as the part of the text that carries the ultimate purpose of the text (Heerschop et al., 2011). Language Functions in the Closure Move Closure move follows the descriptive move and aims to end the blog post (Pascual, 2018). This move often includes recommendations from the bloggers that would be helpful to the readers in planning their trips. An example of closure move in a travel blog post is shown in the following excerpt: “From its wild ruin bars to its relaxing spas, Budapest offers everything you can find in Western https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ http://journal.unnes.ac.id LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 324 Europe — but for a fraction of the price. Plus, it also sees a fraction of the crowds you’ll find in cities like London, Paris, and Prague.” –Blog Post 1 In this excerpt, the blogger closed the post by concluding that the country destination was worth the visit. The blogger also mentioned the reasons why the country was a good travel destination since it “offers everything you can find in Western Europe”. The blogger also mentioned some factors that made the visited place better than other cities, e.g., the cheap price (“— but for a fraction of the price.”) and the less crowd (“it also sees a fraction of the crowds you’ll find in cities like London, Paris, and Prague”). From the excerpt, it was evident that in the closure move, the bloggers tended to express an overall opinion and impression on visiting the country destination. From all 18 blog posts, there were a total of 94 language functions occurred in the closure move. The frequency of the occurrence of each language function in the closure move is shown in Table 6. Table 6 Language Function in Closure Move Language Function Frequency of Occurrence Referential 31 Emotive 40 Conative 13 Poetic 10 Metalinguistic 0 Phatic 0 Total 94 Table 6 shows that the language functions occurred most dominantly in the descriptive move were emotive and referential functions. These two language functions regularly appeared in the three major themes found in the closure move, as shown in Table 7. Table 7 Major Themes and Language Functions Occurred in Closure Move Major Themes Major Language Functions 1. Personal impression and imagery description of the destination and travel experiences emotive 2. Reasons why the destination is worth to be visited emotive 3. Recommendations and travel hacks referential As shown in Table 7, the closure move of the travel blog posts mainly consisted of emotive and referential functions to convey specific purposes, i.e., expressing the overall trip experiences (shown by the first theme), expressing opinions on the qualities of the destination (shown by the second theme), and offering recommendations of travel- related tips and hacks (shown by the third theme). In the data, the travel blog posts often ended with an overall impression about the travel destination and recommendations that potentially would boost the readers’ travel experiences. In this move, the emotive function was used to provide imagery of the traveling experiences in the destination, whether the bloggers had good impressions on the trip or not, and how they rated the overall trip. By using the emotive function, the bloggers described what they experienced using more sensory and emotional details, which would enhance the readers’ insights on certain places or activities in the travel destination, and eventually would persuade them to also visit the destination (Hsiao et al., 2013). On the other hand, the referential function was used mainly when the bloggers provided their https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021. p-ISSN 1858-0165 Available online at http://journal.unnes.ac.id e-ISSN 2460-853X 325 personal preferences, e.g., in booking the flights, accommodation, or tour agencies, and their tips about travel-related itineraries that readers might not know, e.g., how to activate a SIM card in a different country. In doing so, the bloggers tended to act like someone who knew a lot better than the readers (Togeby, 2014). In the closure move, the emotive and referential functions were followed by the conative and poetic functions in terms of their frequency (see Table 6). The conative function occurred mainly along with the referential function, where the bloggers tended to recommend and direct the readers to follow the tips and recommendations given, e.g., using the promotion code to book a certain flight, hotel, or tour in the travel destination. On the other hand, the poetic function was mainly occurred along with the emotive function, particularly in the parts of the blog posts where the bloggers expressed their opinions regarding the overall trip experiences and qualities of the destination. In sum, the bloggers tended to use mostly emotive and referential functions in the closure move to share their final thoughts about the trip (Pascual, 2018) and to persuade the readers to consider visiting the travel destination by sharing practical and useful tips. This was most likely due to the bloggers having a role as influencers as well in the blogosphere. Since their blogs are popular and have many regular readers, the bloggers may feel responsible to ensure that their blog posts would be impactful to their readers. This may also be influenced by potential sponsorships that they may receive from business companies to market or endorse certain travel destinations or travel-related products or services (Ting et al., 2014). Language Function in the Invitational Move The invitational move is usually found in the very last part of travel blog posts. Yet, many travel blog posts end simply with a closure move and without an invitational move. In this move, the bloggers tend to encourage the readers to engage in further discussion about the topic being discussed in the post (Pascual, 2018). An example of an invitational move in a travel blog post is shown in the following excerpt: “Want More Information on Georgia? Be sure to visit our robust destination guide on Georgia for even more planning tips!” –Blog Post 3 From all 18 blog posts, there were a total of 13 language functions occurred in the invitational move. Compared to other moves, in this study, the invitational move had the least number of language functions. This was probably because the invitational move did not occur in all 18 blog posts, and in the travel blog posts where it occurred, the move was the shortest among the other moves in the whole blog post. The numbers of occurrence of each language function in the invitational move are shown in Table 8. Table 8. Language function in invitational move Language Function Frequency of Occurrence Referential 4 Emotive 3 Conative 6 Poetic 0 Metalinguistic 0 Phatic 0 Total 13 Table 8 shows that the language functions occurred most dominantly in the invitational move were conative and referential functions. These two language functions appeared the most in the three major themes found in the invitational move, as shown in Table 9. Table 9 https://doaj.org/ http://scholar.google.co.id/citations?user=47-YDUAAAAAJ%26hl=en http://id.portalgaruda.org/? http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/ https://academic.microsoft.com/ http://journal.unnes.ac.id LANGUAGE CIRCLE: Journal of Language and Literature, 15(2) April 2021 326 Major themes and language functions occurred in invitational move Major Themes Major Language Functions 1. Invitation for readers to visit other links related to the travel destination conative and referential 2. Encouragement for readers to save the blog post for future need conative and referential 3. Invitation for readers to write down comments in the blogs conative and referential As shown in Table 9, the invitational move of the travel blog posts mainly consisted of conative and referential functions to direct the readers to do further activities that would better enhance their knowledge and understanding of particular travel-related inquiries. The conative function was used by the bloggers for inviting and directing the readers to read more travel-related posts within the bloggers’ own blogs (in a way, promoting the bloggers’ other posts to the readers), to save the posts for future travel references, or to write some travel-related comments for other readers to reply. On the other hand, the referential function mainly was used to give information about the bloggers’ other posts that had a similar or relevant topic with the particular post or to provide extra information on how the readers could access other pages in the blogs using a hyperlink. In sum, in the invitational move, the readers were encouraged to discuss more the topic of the blog post. Often, the sentences in this move included exclamations, which were common to be found in the use of the conative function. In addition, the comments that the readers wrote in the blogs are beneficial not only to create a community of travel blog readers but also to increase the post’s recognition to a wider audience (Stefanone & Jang, 2007). CONCLUSION From the analysis of 18 travel blog posts in this study, there were in total 808 language functions that occurred diversely in the four parts of travel blog post structure: the situational move, descriptive move, closure move, and invitational move. The referential function occurred most consistently in all those four moves, while the emotive function occurred most dominantly in the first three moves (excluding the invitational move). Thus, it can be concluded that popular travel blogs were an online platform mainly used to provide travel-related information and express feelings and emotions of the bloggers’ personal travel experiences to the readers. Compared to traditional blogs that initially were used solely as a personal journal or diary, recent blogs had a role as a source of information in addition to a personal journal. In this case, travel blogs provide travel-related information that is both objective (due to the dominant use of referential function) and subjective (due to the dominant use of emotional function). As a result, reading travel blog posts can be enjoyable and interesting as it provides readers with not only factual information, but also personal insights and experience-sharing from the bloggers (Chen et al., 2014) that potentially could influence the readers to also experience what is written in the blog posts. As travel blogs contain both objective and subjective information using the personal language of the bloggers, the discourse in travel blogs may be different from the discourse displayed in other travel-related commerce, advertisements, or official websites. 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