THE ESSENCE OF INDONESIAN BASA-BASI (PHATIC COMMUNICATION)

Abstract

Phatic communication (PC), one of study objects of etnophraseology, is the sine qua non of any human language worldwide. Among Indonesian people, the phatic communication is called basa-basi. Based upon the theoretical and methodological analysis, this paper attempts to argue the following characteristics in regard to the nature of universality of phatic communication: PC is a mode of action rather than a mode of thought; PC is dialogic; oriented in bipartitness of interlocutors; PC tends to be a routine conversation; PC performs as greetings, verbal politeness (courtesy), and sweet-nothings; PC sets information to be insignificant; and PC is subject to solidarity and harmonization principle. The universal characterizations of PC argued in this paper are intended to revisit the debates of Zegarac dan Clark (1999), and Ward dan Horn (1999). The essential semantic analysis used in the research employed Wierzbicka’s explication approach.