The excerpt of the conversation describes that Hayu shared her feeling about something disturbing her mind. Then, Star gave response by using the expression
of sympathizing, It must be difficult. It can be stated that Star could understand her feeling and
feel being in Hayu’s position. In addition, Star’s response is to emphasize that she cares much about Hayu.
18. Apologizing to Open Conversation
The expression of apologizing to open conversation is clearly described that one apologizes to open contact with others. The finding shows that the frequency
of apologizing to open conversation is 1 or 0.1. It shows that only the couple of a male and a female student used this expression. The excerpt of the conversation
is illustrated as follows. Excerpt 34
Context : Al and Esti were outside the classroom waiting for a
lecture. Esti
: Pardon me Ehm…my name is Esti. And what’s your
name? Al
: Ehm…My name is Al. Ehm… = are you… = Ap61-2 In the excerpt of the conversation, it is shown that Pardon me was
expressed at the beginning of conversation. The interpretation of the conversation shows that they might be outside the classroom and they were waiting for the
class. After that, Esti tried to communicate by apologizing. It was expressed to say sorry if she disturbed him. In this case, this expression is used to open
conversation. In conversation, it is important for people to perform communicative
functions instead of being silent. They can produce the expression of greeting, parting, mentioning names or titles, commenting on something obvious,
interrupting, apologizing to open conversation, avoiding the silence when talking, changing the topic of conversation, expressing listening noises, agreeing on
something, congratulating, apologizing, expressing wishes, thanking, giving compliments, criticizing indirectly, saying bad words, mocking, joking, pacifying
, encouraging, and sympathizing Jumanto, 2014:11-13. Those expressions might at least help people to interact with each other. From the analysis, the finding
shows that actually not all phatic expressions were produced in the graduate students’ conversation. It is because they created different contexts and therefore
several expressions were not appropriately applied.
B. Functions of Phatic Communication
The functions of phatic communication produced by the graduate students in English Language Studies of Sanata Dharma University in batch 2015 were
basically from the utterances and the expressions of phatic communication. Based on the previous analysis of the phatic expressions, it shows that the graduate
students produced expressions variously. Therefore, the functions of phatic communication might also be various. To know the frequency and percentage of
phatic functions, the distribution table is provided as follows.
Table 4.2 Distribution of Phatic Communication Functions
No. Function of Phatic
Communication Frequency
Percentage 1
Keeping talking 823
76.4 2
Making chit-chat or relatively unfocused conversation
99 9.2
3 Creating harmony
51 4.7
4 Making gossip
29 2.7
