Abstract:The research is aimed to describe kinds of political metaphors and their metaphorical meanings. Furthermore, the persuasive effect of political metaphors in mass media toward the readers is also analyzed based on certain parameters. The pragmatic equivalent method and the referential equivalent method are applied to analyze the data. The kinds of political metaphors include metaphors with nature as a parable, metaphors with plants as a parable, metaphors with terms from various fields, metaphors with common things as a parable, metaphors with particular verbs, and metaphors with particular adjectives. The readers could comprehend political metaphors well although their interest in political news is low. Apparently, the persuasive effect of political metaphors on the public is high. It becomes a trigger for people to take action to create a better political atmosphere.

Phatic communication is a discourse mechanism used primarily to establish and maintain social bonds. It operates differently across societies as well as genders within the same society. Thus, failure to understand such differences might result in misunderstanding and communication breakdowns. This paper discusses the phatic communication of the Javanese, the largest ethnic group in Indonesia. We focus primarily on the Javanese women who represent the majority of the Javanese population. Understanding the unique characteristics of their phatic communication would certainly play an important role in the cross-cultural network. The sociopragmatic approach is used for the analytical procedure to scrutinize the characteristics of Javanese women's phatic communication and the data are collected by taking field notes, conducting in-depth interviews, and distributing Discourse Completion Tasks (DCT) questionnaire. The findings show that Javanese women use phatic communication for initiating a conversation, intensifying camaraderie, pleasing others, expressing happiness, and consoling others. The main function is to sustain social rapport. Some phatic talk topics that may be regarded in certain cultures as intrusive and humiliating, such as those which concern one's private life, are not considered so among Javanese women. To Javanese women, phatic communication is crucial in maintaining and promoting solidarity. Understanding phatic communication among Javanese women would contribute to successful cross-cultural communication in building social networks and business affairs, definitely.

Javanese women perform peculiar strategies in conducting phatic talks in internet-mediated communication (IMC). The Javanese cultural norm boundaries influence the strategies of phatic speech act and their politeness strategies in IMC. Therefore, the types of phatic talks and the politeness strategies attached to each type of phatic talk are interesting to explore. The source of data for this qualitative research was the five WhatsApp Group (WAG). The data were 252 phatic talks taken from the IMC virtual texts of Javanese women. The respondents were 66 Javanese women aged between 20-50 who are members of the WAGs. The observation method is applied to collect the data. The virtual texts with the virtual tokens that occurred were transcribed for textual analysis. The Cyberpragmatics approach along with the Javanese politeness maxims was implemented for data analysis. The types of phatic talks found in IMC are classified into greetings, congratulations, compliments, condolences, supports, and jokes. Politeness strategies performed by Javanese women in IMC have specific characteristics based on the traditional Javanese politeness maxims of Kurmat (Respect), Tepa Selira (Tolerance), Andhap Asor (Humility), Empan Papan (Self-Awareness), and Grapyak (Friendliness). The IMC phatic talks among Javanese women are the strategy to maintain a social bond. To this extent, the phatic talks are not only a strategy of ice-breaking but also an expression of personality identification of Javanese women who ought to be friendly and caring in all circumstances. Therefore, the phatic talks in IMC might not only a means for social networking but also a strategy to preserve the cultural identity of Javanese women.

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