Excerpt 79 describes that Mello and Socrates talked about a man around. The man knew it, but he looked as if he did not listen to Mello and Socrates’ conversation.
In addition, excerpt 79 shows the same as excerpt 80. Aan and Mello started to make gossip about the gi
rl in the class. The girl also ignored Aan and Mello’s conversation.
After all of the above, it is clear that men like to talk about one’s life in front of person they are gossiping. The finding shows that they mostly discussed one’s
appearance or habits. It is quite different from the theory showing that men’s talk
is about things and activities Holmes, 1992:331. Moreover, the idea of Tannen 1990
:96 about women’s topic is suitable for men’s topic, that is, talking about one’s lives. In other words, men might also talk about one’s private lives. The
analysis also indicates that the male students attempted to choose certain people to gossip, of course, their good friends.
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CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
This chapter consists of two parts, namely conclusions and suggestions. The first part presents several conclusions found in the discussions and the findings.
The second part gives several suggestions to the future researchers related to phatic communication.
A. Conclusions
This present study discusses English phatic communication among the graduate students, in the graduate program in English language studies of Sanata
Dharma University. The participants involved in this present study were the graduate students in batch 2015. The present researcher had ten graduate students
and divided them into six couples: two couples of male students, two couples of female students, and two couples of a male and a female student.
As mentioned in the first chapter, this present study attempts to answer three research questions. Accordingly, the answers to those questions can be divided
into three parts. The first part presents communicative functions of phatic communication. The second part discusses the functions of phatic communication.
The last part reveals the ways each couple of the graduate students used language differently related to the communicative functions or functions of phatic
communication. The first finding shows that the graduate students performed communicative
functions of phatic communication variously. The present researcher assumes that the graduate students had their own context, partner, and topic. Thus, the
expressions of phatic communication produced by each couple must be different. The communicative functions appeared in their conversation are greeting, parting,
mentioning names or titles, apologizing to open conversation, avoiding the silence when talking, changing the topic of conversation, expressing listening noises,
agreeing on something, apologizing, expressing wishes, thanking, giving compliments, saying bad words, mocking, joking, pacifying, encouraging, and
sympathizing. From the first finding, avoiding the silence when talking was mostly found in conversation. It shows that they tried hard to sustain conversation
by giving appropriate response. The second finding reveals the functions of phatic communication. The
analysis shows that the functions of phatic communication are also various. The graduate students created conversation to show all functions of phatic
communication. Those functions are avoiding the silence, starting a conversation, making chit-chat, making gossip, keeping talking, expressing solidarity, creating
harmony, creating comfort, expressing empathy, expressing friendship, and expressing respect. The finding shows that the graduate students mostly used
phatic expressions to keep talking. In this case, they also tried to keep the conversation going well.
The last finding shows that the graduate students used language differently. It can be seen from the topic, swear word or taboo language, and gossip. Firstly,
the graduate students created a number of topics discussing about activities, assignments, subjects, place for sports, plans, likes and dislikes, previous and new
class situation, motivation for choosing certain subject area, game, origin, teaching experience, job, and miscellaneous topics. Secondly, the findings have
proved to be true that male students more often expressed swear word or taboo language, while female students did not produce it in conversation. Lastly, the
present researcher found that the male students made gossip, but they did not talk about their friends behind their back. In this case, the males liked to be
straightforward. It is also assumed that the male students might be close to each other and therefore they were comfortable if they created gossip in conversation.
In brief, this present study shows that although the graduate students conversed by using code switching occasionally, they still have sufficient English
proficiency. In addition, they were able to apply English phatic communication. They almost performed all of phatic expressions and achieved all functions of
phatic communication. However, they still have several differences in using language. The differences can be in a form of topic discussion, swear word, and
gossip.
B. Suggestions
This present study might have its shortcomings. Hence, the present researcher suggests several recommendations addressed to English learners and to
future researchers. First, it is suggested that English learners, especially in English language studies of Sanata Dharma University, master and apply English phatic
communication expressions either inside or outside the class. Since the graduate program in English language studies deals with English and therefore the students
had better use English as their daily communication and apply English phatic communication in campus.
Second, future researchers can conduct the study of phatic communication using different objects of the study. The other researchers might invite more than
