A Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Strategies Applied in the Use of Humorous Phatic Utterances

*Correspondence Address: dedi.febrianto@poltekapp.ac.id Abstract: As opposed to informational purposes, phatic utterances hold a bigger role in human communication that is to keep social relations among people. Though people hardly ever notice the importance of phatic utterances, these are the utterances that indispensable in their daily basis communication used to avoid the sense of impoliteness, especially when meeting people they are familiar with. In uttering phatic, people use a variety of ways including raising humour. The humourous phatic utterances are interesting to be analyzed in order to investigate the implementation of politeness strategies used along with the production of phatic utterances. To the researcher best knowledge, the link between humorous phatic utterances and politeness strategies have not become the concern of previous researches. Therefore, this research was conducted to describe phatic utterances conveyed by the characters of a widely known situation comedy (sitcom) Friends and also to find out the politeness strategies applied when uttering the phatic utterances. The researcher used solidarity and deference of politeness strategies as proposed by Yule (1996) to analyze each phatic utterance found. The design of this research was descriptive qualitative. The data were documented from the sitcom episode 2124. The data were analyzed by describing the context used and giving the explanation of each datum that was included in phatic utterances. After conducting the analysis, it is found that there are 37 phatic utterances used in the sitcom. Politeness strategies are always applied in any phatic utterances found and the most frequently used politeness strategy is solidarity strategy.


INTRODUCTION
It is absolutely undeniable that language holds an important role in human"s communication. It is not merely used as an equipment to deliver messages, ideas, knowledge and feelings to others. It can also be used to establish, maintain, and develop people"s relationship if it deals with how they use it in their daily life. These ways can be analyzed under pragmatics point of view. It is because of the fact that pragmatics, as stated by Yule (1996), can talk about people"s intended meaning, their assumptions, their purposes or goals, and the kinds of action that they are performing when they speak.
As a topic in linguistics, pragmatics explains the aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain sense of words or structures, as explained by semantics.
Yule (1985) defined pragmatics as the study of language from the users" point of view especially the choices they make and the effects of the use of language have on the other participants in an act of communication.
Another linguist, Levinson (1983) pointed out that pragmatics is the study of the relations between language and context that is encoded in the structure of a language. Thus, pragmatics is a science discussing the meaning of language by regarding the relationship between language and context. It has something to do with the interpretation of what people mean in a particular context and how such a context makes clear what utterances have been uttered (Lyons, 1995). The following excerpt explains this language phenomenon briefly. The utterance "We're back!" uttered by Janice to her friend, Chandler, when she is just coming back from having fun together with her date, Joey. By considering the context used, this utterance pragmatically is not inquiry to inform Chandler (as the hearer) that she and Joey are back since Chandler can directly see them. Instead, this utterance talks more about the speaker"s (Janice) intended meaning that is to greet or open the conversation with Chandler. Besides, this utterance is also aimed to maintain the relationship between them, since it would be very strange and impolite if they do not say something like this when meeting each other.
The utterance that is intended to keep the social relationship such as "We're back!" in the above conversation, in pragmatics, is included in the phatic utterance. By this utterance, it is not so much about what one says, but the fact that one says it at all, that matters. For instance; the utterances "Hi"," Hello", "Good Morning", "How are you?", "It"s cold, isn"t it?" in pragmatics are considered as the awareness of others" presence. The aims of saying such utterances pragmatically are not to know others" condition or to get others" opinion about the weather, but instead to establish, maintain, and develop their relationship. Such phenomenon in pragmatics is known as "Phatic Communion" (Malinowski in Sentf, 1995). In other words, it can be said that phatic utterances can be analyzed under pragmatics point of view since pragmatics can explore how a listener makes influence about what is said in order to arrive at an interpretation of what is communicated (Leech, 1981).
Phatic Communion as one of the linguistics terms where its function is to perform a social task, as opposed to convey information, was firstly coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in the early 1900s. The terms phatic communions are generally referred to utterances that are said as means for keeping a social relationship. These utterances are the part of the conversation which people rarely take seriously. It is one of the language functions of keeping communication lines open and keeping a social relationship in good repair or maintaining social bonds (Leech, 1981). Moreover, it is supported by a research done by Maíz-Arévalo (2017) which concluded that students consider phatic utterances as an important way to build a relationship and establish collaboration. Also, Burnard (2003) confirmed that phatic utterances can be therapeutic given by nurse to patients with mental health problems. These prove that phatic utterances are necessary for human communication.
Phatic utterances are certainly not used to convey meaning but to fulfill a social function. It also can be used to create ties of union among the speakers (Jumanto, 2014). For example "What"s up" or "Hey, have a nice day!" are needed to be uttered to get over the strange unpleasant tension which people feel when facing each other silence.
Besides, these sorts of utterances are used typically at the beginning and end of exchanges, and to repair a conversation when it collapses. Such as "Good Morning", "How are you", "Nice day we"re having" and so on. According to a work done by Laver (Stockwell, 2007), phatic utterances are emotionally uncontroversial and expect a positive response. So, the normative response to "Nice weather we"re having" would be "Hmm, lovely isn"t it?". It would be very strange to reply to "Rubbish. Any fool can see it"s going to rain. What are you, an idiot?". Therefore, we may not take phatic utterances as meaningless utterances, instead, they are very meaningful and useful for keeping intimacy and making a strong sense of community (Miller, 2008).
According to Leech (1981) phatic communion might be in the form of polite questions such as "How are you?" or "What"s wrong with your legs?" and so on. It means, people have to be polite to give or respond toward each other"s phatic utterance. Schneider (1987) concluded that silence as a response of phatic utterance would be considered impolite and embarrassing. That is to say, if a man does not say "Hi" or "How are you" when bumping into a woman he is familiar with on the street or other circumstances, although it might simply be interpreted as tiredness of the man"s part, it could also be interpreted as a lack of concern for the woman, which could give rise to perception of impoliteness. This is in line with the research of Al-Qinai (2011) that stated a failure in translating the function of a given phatic utterance may cause many small even big communication problems on a daily basis. In other words, phatic communion deals with politeness, because when people utter a phatic utterance, at the same time, they automatically also use politeness strategies (Sentf, 1995). In further, Jumanto (2014) confirmed that phatic communion is used for expressing politeness in order to maintain the relationship among the speakers. Thus, as one of the language phenomena, phatic communion is really needed to be analyzed continuously. Since it fills our daily basis and we hardly ever notice it. Moreover, Leech (1981) mentioned that phatic communion is important (perhaps far more important than we realize) for maintaining the equilibrium of society.
Politeness is another term under pragmatics. According to Cutting (2002), politeness refers to the choices that are made in language use, the linguistics expression that gives people space and shows a friendly attitude to them. For this reason, phatic utterances deal with politeness, as mentioned by Holmes (2013) that phatic utterances express solidarity and empathy. It means these two terms consider about the feeling of others which can be analyzed under pragmatics point of view.
As mentioned previously, phatic utterances deal with politeness. However, when we talk about politeness, we do not only concern about someone"s presence, but also we have to pay much attention to someone"s "face". The concept of "face" refers to the emotional and social sense of self that everyone has and expects everyone else to (Yule, 1996). In addition, Brown and Levinson in Bowe et al. (Bowe, Martin, & Manns, 2007) stated that politeness system deals with "Face Threatening Act" (FTA). They also suggested that the assessment of the seriousness of FTA involves social distance (D), relative power (P) and absolute ranking (R) in many and perhaps all cultures. Furthermore, Yule (1996) said that politeness, in an interaction, can then be defined as the means employed to show awareness of another"s person face, by looking at their negative face or their positive face wants.
Yule (1996) further explained that the negative face is the wants of someone to be unimpeded by others. It is also someone"s need to be independent, to have freedom of action, and not to be imposed by others. Regarding its facesaving acts (the act to save someone"s face), a person"s negative face tends to emphasize the importance of other"s concerns, and even include an apology for the interruption. This is also called negative politeness. On the other hand, he also confirmed that positive face is the wants of someone to be appreciated, connected and approved even liked by others. One"s positive face tends to emphasize that both speakers want the same thing which also named as positive politeness (Yule, 1996). Moreover, Yule (1996) pointed out that the tendency of using positive politeness forms, emphasizing closeness between speaker and hearer, can be seen as a solidarity strategy. This is where the positive face or positive politeness takes place. This strategy includes a piece of personal information, use of nicknames, sometimes abusive terms and shared slang expressions as well. Also, this strategy is applied in the use of phatic utterances as the way to show closeness between the speaker and hearer (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Then, Yule (1996) also mentioned another strategy of politeness called deference strategy. It is the tendency to use negative face or negative politeness forms and emphasizing the hearer"s right to freedom. The language associated with a deference strategy typically expressed via questions which emphasizes the hearer"s independence. This strategy is also applied in uttering phatic utterance used to avoid interpersonal conflicts between the speaker and hearer (Arndt & Janney, 1985).
By considering the background above, this research tries to describe phatic utterances used in one of the widely known situation comedies called Friends. This sitcom (situation comedy) was taken as the object of the research since it can reflect and perform what human experiences in their daily life. In addition, this sitcom contains many language varieties since the characters of the sitcom talk a lot and seldom to pause their conversation which eases the researcher to get the data. It means the kind of phatic utterances analyzed in this research is phatic utterances used for humorous purposes. Besides, this research is also aimed to analyze the politeness strategies used by the characters when they uttered phatic utterances. The politeness strategies described in this research are solidarity and deference strategies as proposed by Yule (1996) since Yule"s theory of politeness strategies is applicable to analyze the use of phatic utterances. In short, the aims of the research are to: 1. Describe phatic utterances employed by the characters of sitcom Friends. 2. Find out the politeness strategies applied by the characters when uttering phatic utterances.

METHOD
In order to achieve the researcher"s objectives, this research was designed in the form of descriptive qualitative research. It is because the data analyzed in this research were in the form of conversation. The data need a kind of research that can determine and report them as the way they are. According to Silverman (2000), the method used by qualitative research exemplifies a common belief that they can provide a deeper understanding of social phenomenon than would be obtained from purely quantitative data. It means that the data found in this research were described naturally and were not manipulated. Besides, since this research used descriptive analysis, the data were not analyzed in terms of number or statistics, but they were described systematically, factually, and accurately which were more than mere numbers or frequencies.
The source of the data in this research was taken from the conversation of the situation comedy Friends. Basically, there are ten seasons of the sitcom. However, due to the lack of accessibility to the complete seasons, the researcher limited the source of data only into the sixth season episode 21-24 to be analyzed. The researcher found out that these episodes could provide phatic utterances and politeness strategies used generally in the whole seasons of the sitcom. Hence, the data analyzed in this research were the data that have already existed; they were in the form of the conversation and the script of the sitcom. Nevertheless, the researcher only documented the data that were involved in the use of phatic utterances in the sitcom Friends.
The researcher documented the data started by watching the sitcom. It was watched through its compact disc (CD) for several times in order to get deep understanding toward the whole story generally and each utterance especially. The next step was retrieving the script of the sitcom from the internet and then rechecked it by comparing the conversation of the sitcom to the script retrieved. Having the script rechecked, the researcher looked for phatic utterances by watching the sitcom and marking the script. While watching the sitcom, the researcher took notes of action or gestures and the context used which could be useful in determining phatic utterances and politeness strategies to be analyzed. At last, the researcher sorted and tabulated the data gathered.
The data analysis of this research was firstly done by identifying the data included in phatic utterances by considering the context used. The contexts were described well in order to state the circumstances where phatic utterances occurred. After that, the researcher conducted the explanation of the data; explaining why the data were included in the term of phatic utterances. Thirdly, the researcher described the politeness strategies used whenever phatic utterances uttered; whether the phatic utterance uttered under solidarity or deference strategy of politeness by giving explanation comprehensively. The data analysis was ended by drawing the conclusion toward the research done.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Having gathered and identified the data, the researcher found 37 phatic utterances which deal with politeness strategies used by the characters of the sitcom. The following is the findings"list. Based on the findings above, the researcher selected only 9 representative data to be discussed in this article due to the limited space provided. The discussions are as follows.

Datum 1 -2 Excerpt 1 Joey: (entering) Hey guys! (1) Chandler: Hey!! Rachel: (ecstatic) Oh my God! It's Joey Tribbiani of Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E.! (2) (Everyone claps and cheers, Joey mimics looking about with a gun.)
This conversation occurs at Central Perk where the Friends like to hang out. Phoebe, Chandler, and Monica are there and are talking about horoscope that is being read by Rachel to each of them. In the middle of their conversation, Joey enters. He just gets back from the first day of his new job on TV program named Mac and Cheese. He utters "Hey guys!" as he comes inside the cafe in order to greet his friends. This utterance is included in phatic utterance since it shows Joey"s willingness to involve with his friends" conversation. As stated by Zegarac and Clark (1999), the interpretation of an utterance is phatic if it implies a proposition referring to the speaker"s desire to speak with the hearer. Thus, the utterance "Hey guys!" has no meaning but to keep the relationship among the Friends.

Additionally, the utterance "Oh my God! It's Joey Tribbiani of Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E.!" uttered by Rachel when
she sees Joey comes into the café, is also a kind of phatic utterances. It has empty meaning because everybody has already known that Joey stars in new TV cable program named Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E. It means there is no need to inform the hearers about such news. Therefore, Rachel"s aim in saying such utterance is not to inform the hearers that Joey stars in Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E, but to show her awareness toward Joey"s presence and to invite Joey to the conversation.
Joey uses solidarity strategy through the phatic utterance "Hey guys!" when bumping into his friends. It is because he would like to show his friendliness when meeting people he is close with. Since they are friends, of course, they do not have any social distance that needs to be considered before opening the conversation. Rachel also uses solidarity strategy of politeness in uttering "Oh my

God! It's Joey Tribbiani of Mac and C.H.E.E.S.E.!".
It is for the reason that Rachel wants to express her closeness toward one of her best friends, Joey, as he enters the room. Even though the utterance sounds like mocking up Joey, this utterance then functions as one way that Rachel does to invite Joey to their conversation. Besides, Joey also does not show any rights to be unimpeded which means he welcomes anybody to talk to him.

Datum 4 Excerpt 2
The Producer: Joey Tribbiani, this is… Joey: Oh wow! He"s so lifelike! (Starts touching the guy"s cheeks) Unbelievable! (He starts tugging on the guy"s ears) The Producer: This is Wayne, the man who created and operates C.H.E.E.S.E. Joey: (slaps Wayne on his cheek) How do you do there, Wayne? (Backs away.) The Producer: I"ll let you two guys get acquainted, huh? (Walks away.) The above conversation takes place at Pier 59 studios, the set of the participants of this conversation are Joey and his producer. The producer is showing Joey around the set and the Robot. When the producer points to a guy, Joey thinks that the guy is the Robot. To repair the conversation, Joey utters "How do you do there, Wayne?" which is included in a phatic utterance. It is obvious that Joey"s utterance does not intend to know about Wayne"s condition. It happens because Joey is embarrassed by thinking that Wayne is the robot. Joey considers that Wayne might be mad at him, so to avoid this, Joey fixes the conversation by uttering such utterance. Hence, the utterance has empty meaning.
The politeness strategy delivered by Joey when uttering the phatic utterance is deference. Joey repairs the conversation in order to save his own face. The conversation indicates that Wayne"s face showing anger because he is regarded as the robot. Besides, Joey and Wayne have never known each other before which implies there is a clear social distance relationship between them. So, Joey forces himself to say the utterance in order to build the relationship and to repair the conversation even though Wayne gives a sign of unfriendliness.

Datum 7-8 Excerpt 3
Rachel: Hi, I'm sorry I'm late but I am ready, ready to talk you up! (7) When does Liz"s father get here? Paul: I"m already here.

Rachel: Oh! Ross is so great! (8)
The conversation above takes place at Central Perk where Monica, Chandler, and Phoebe are talking Ross up to Paul. They try to compliment Ross in front of Paul in order to make him like Ross since Ross is dating his daughter. Suddenly, Rachel runs into the café and utters "Hi, I'm sorry I'm late but I am ready, ready to talk you up!" to greet her friends. This utterance is a phatic utterance. By saying this utterance, Rachel does not mean to inform their friends that she is late since everybody can see her coming late. Nevertheless, this utterance is functioned as Rachel"s way to open the conversation with her friends in order to avoid the awkward situation that might happen if she does not say anything towards her late coming.
Another phatic utterance in the conversation above is "Oh! Ross is so great!". It is uttered by Rachel to Paul when she gets embarrassed by saying that she is ready to talk Ross up in front of him. She clearly does not notice that Paul is already there. It can be said that the utterance is not really to say that Ross is a great guy, but to repair the conversation. Rachel spontaneously says the utterance in order to save her face of getting embarrassed.
When uttering those two phatic utterances in the conversation above Rachel uses deference strategy. The utterance "Hi, I'm sorry I'm late but I am ready, ready to talk you up!", as stated above, is uttered when her friends are having a conversation with Paul. In this kind of situation, people usually do not like to be disturbed by others. Therefore, by saying such utterance she hopes that her friends will not get mad at her late coming. Besides, the utterance contains an apology for the imposition which signals that Rachel uses deference strategy.
Additionally, deference strategy of politeness also occurs when Rachel utters the phatic utterance "Oh! Ross is so great". She feels embarrassed by Paul and is afraid of Ross because she does not know that Paul is already there. To save her face, she utters such utterance which has obviously empty meaning. Further, she uses this strategy as Paul might know that Ross consciously invites all his friends to talk him up from what is said by her. It is also due to the fact that Rachel and Paul have never known each other before. It makes Rachel really have to repair the conversation in order to avoid him from being angry at Ross. In the conversation above, there are three phatic utterances. First, it is in "Hey, it's good to see you." uttered by Monica when she surprisingly met Richard at the restaurant. This utterance is uttered not inquiry to say that Monica is happy meeting Richard, but instead to greet him in order to show her awareness toward the existence of someone that she knew well. In addition, this is uttered to open the conversation among them. Second, it is in "You don't have a mustache which is good." uttered by Chandler to Richard"s girlfriend, Lisa. It is one example of humorous phatic utterances. It is not to say that Lisa does not have any good mustache, (since in fact, a woman does not have any mustache), but it is uttered purely to break the ice between Chandler and Lisa. However, when saying such utterance, Chandler also rises the humor in order to make Lisa does comfortable to involve in the conversation. It is also uttered in order to build a social relationship since Chandler and Lisa have not met each other previously. The last, it is uttered by Monica to Richard as in "It's good to see you." The purpose of Monica saying this utterance is to be polite to leave Richard since she is about to get back to her table.

Datum 31-33
When saying the phatic utterance to Richard, "Hey, it's good to see you!", Monica used the Solidarity strategy. It is because Richard did not show any right to have no distraction. Additionally, Monica wanted to show her closeness to him. As well as Chandler when saying the phatic utterance, "You don't have a mustache which is good.", to Lisa, he also used the Solidarity strategy. Chandler obviously wanted to show his friendliness to Lisa. Lisa also seems whole-heartedly to involve in the conversation since she is obviously waiting to be invited to the conversation. The third phatic utterance is "It's good to see you." uttered by Monica to Richard. She also used the Solidarity strategy. She wanted to be polite when leaving Richard.

Datum 34 Excerpt 5
Monica: So I hide in the shower and the next thing you know they"re going at it right on the bathroom floor. This conversation occurs in a restaurant. Monica and Chandler are having dinner. Chandler plans to make a surprise to Monica. Unfortunately, Richard (Monica"s Ex-boyfriend) comes in the restaurant with his new girlfriend. Chandler"s plan is screwed up since Richard and his girlfriend decide to sit together with them. Then, they have a conversation talking about how their life has been moving on. An awkward silence ensues when they are running out of words. Richard then utters "It's so great seeing you guys again." in order to live up the conversation when it is about to collapse. Richard"s intention in saying that he is happy meeting the people is less important. The most crucial part from his statement is to maintain the conversation. Thus, this utterance is included in phatic utterance.
The politeness strategy conveyed by Richard when uttering the phatic utterance, "It's so great seeing you guys again" is solidarity strategy. He wants to show his friendliness by repairing the conversation when it turns to be awkward. In addition, the interlocutors do not show any right to be free. Perhaps, they run out of words. Then, they all are waiting for anyone of them to continue the conversation. Thus, when Richard says something, they all welcome it very well.

CONCLUSION
Phatic utterances used in the situation comedy Friends are the reflection to what happens in real life. It is because situation comedy reflects what human really experience in real life but things are described humorously. In other words, phatic utterances discussed in this research are mostly used for humorous purposes.
Based on the research done, it is found that there are 37 phatic utterances found in the sitcom Friends episode 21-24. Besides, solidarity and deference strategies of politeness are also found in the use of phatic utterances. Therefore, Yule"s theory about politeness strategies is applicable to the use of phatic utterances in the sitcom Friends. Solidarity strategy is a politeness strategy which is most frequently used in the sitcom. It means the characters of the sitcom mostly respect the persons whom they are talking to. Meanwhile, deference strategy is only used a few times. It is used when the characters meet somebody that they are not close in contact with. Hence, the deference strategy is only applied when the characters force themselves to speak to strangers in order to obtain their intention by keeping their awareness to strangers" faces. In other words, phatic utterances used for humorous purposes are mainly conveyed along with the Solidarity of politeness strategy. This also means that when people are making jokes, they still respect each other. They do not hurt their interlocutors" feeling for merely the sake of raising humor.