The Theme of Gossip in The Sitcom of Friends: APragmatic Approach

Gossip is a social habit that occurs when two or more people talkbehind someone’s back.The present study tackles the speech acts ofgossip in the sitcom of "Friends". It aims at identifying the strategies, thetypes of speech acts, and impoliteness strategies that are employed toperform gossip in the analyzed data. The study is directed to answer thefollowing questions: ) what are the types of speech acts employed inthese episodes to perform gossip. ) What are the strategies ofImpoliteness employed to perform gossip in the selected episode "? It ishypothesized that various speech acts and strategies of Impoliteness areused to perform gossip among people. To verify these hypotheses, thereaearchers adopted two models; Searle’s (۱۹۶۹) model of speech actand Culpeper’s (۱۹۹۶) model of impoliteness. The analysis reveals thatcriticizing and claiming are the most used speech acts in the analyzeddata. Also the characters in the episodes use impoliteness strategies tooffend the gossipee by inciting others to share their negative sentimentsabout him.

Keywords:

Gossip , Impoliteness , Sitcom of Friends , Speech Acts