According to Brown and Levinson (1987), the bald on record strategy uses a direct method to convey messages without any minimisation to the imposition. Brown and Levinson (1987) states that if the speaker wants to apply FTA (Face Threatening Acts) to the maximum extent to where satisfying the hearer’s face is no longer greater, the speaker will resort to the bald on record strategy.
It can been seen at the beginning of the dialogue, where Monica is having a group conversation with Joey, Chandler and Phoebe. The bald on record strategy can be seen implied right after Monica’s dialogue where Joey said ‘You’re going out with a guy, there’s gotta be something wrong with em.’ as well as Chandler continuing with ‘So does he have a hump? A hump and a hair piece?’ which we can clearly see that they are trying to convey their messages and trying to humiliate Monica in the conversation.
Other than that, in scene 3 where Ross says ‘hi’ in the beginning, Joey continued with a sentence ‘This guy says hello, I wanna kill myself.’ It can be implied where Ross sounds depressig, which is why it allowed Joey to reply with a quite offensive sentence.
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Positive Politeness and Negative Politeness
Based on Brown and Levinson (1987), positive politeness is an act where the speaker saves or maintains the hearer’s self image. This is where the speaker uses words that do not insult or affect the self image of the hearer.
For example, in scene 3, Monica decides to get Ross some coffee and Ross replies with a ‘thank you’. Positive politeness can be seen in this act where the main point of Monica was to get Ross some coffee and she uses the words that are not offensive or face-damaging. Other than that, the same situation can be seen almost at the end of scene 3 where the waiter said ‘Can I get you some coffee?’ followed by Monica’s reply. The purpose sentence that the waiter conveyed was in a very positive and polite way as it did not affect the hearer’s self image at all.
Whereas for negative politeness, when asking or trying to convey a message the speaker respects the hearer’s rights and privileges and at the same time, avoids intruding to the hearer’s personal space. For example, the usage of this strategy can be seen at scene 3 right before Ross gestures Joey to answer. Joey said ‘Alright Ross, look. You’re feeling a lot of pain right now. You’re angry. You’re hurtin’. Can I tell you what the answer is?’. This sentence gives off the vibe where even though Joey knows Ross is unhappy at that current situation, but Joey still tries to get his message through without really intruding and violating Ross’s personal space.
Off Record
As stated by Brown and Levinson (1987), the off record strategy uses a more indirect and non-coercive way to approach the hearer in a conversation. It is said to be one of the ways to avoid responsibility for any potential face-damaging communication. Other than that, it also tests the feelings of how well good the relationship is between the hearer and the speaker.
This strategy can be easily seen at the start of scene 3 where Monica asks Ross ‘You okay, sweetie?’. Ross then decides to continue by saying ‘I just feel like someone reached down my throat, grabbed my small intestine, pulled it out of my mouth and tied it around my neck.’ Monica then add on by explaining to the group ‘Carol moved her stuff out today.’, followed by an ‘ohh’ by everyone else. Monica who understands Ross, understood what he tried to convey and explained it to the others in a more clear way.
Don’t Do The FTA
This strategy avoids all offensive conversations, which also means the speaker is not able to communicate is his/her desired way (Brown and Levinson 1987). This strategy can be seen used in the dialogue at scene 3, where Phoebe tries to clear Ross’s aura by making some actions that caught his attention and irritated him as he continued with, ‘Just leave my aura alone, okay?’.
Other than that, this strategy can be seen as Ross gestures for Joey to answer in scene 3 where Joey continues with ‘Strip joint! Come on! You’re single! Have some hormones.’
Most of the strategies that related to the dialogue showed signs of negative FTA (Face Threatening Acts) as all of them were friends and the conversations that they had were held in a public setting. However, while analysing the dialogue with Bald On Record strategy, there was one small dialogue that had a positive FTA. Surprisingly, during that dialogue, the group of people sat closer to each other, so the FTA is only reduced and kept among the specific group of people.
