the Impoliteness strategies in Matt Rife's Crowd Comedy

This study aims to examine the impoliteness strategies employed in the crowd work performances of American stand-up comedian Matt Rife. His shows are characterized by frequent use of roasting and mocking jokes directed at audience members, which can be categorized as impolite speech acts. Grounded in Jonathan Culpeper’s (2005) theory of impoliteness, this research seeks to identify the types of impoliteness strategies utilized by Rife and to describe the reasons for the audience’s acceptance of his harsh and sarcastic humor. This research applied a descriptive-qualitative approach, analyzing the transcript-collected data compiled across nine clip videos of his live comedic interactions. The researcher focused on finding six main types of impoliteness strategies, including bald on record, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, off-record impoliteness, sarcasm/mock politeness, and withhold politeness. After that, the researcher concluded the factors of audience appeal in response to the impoliteness-selected speech during the performance. The result of the study shows that Matt Rife frequently uses bald on record and positive impoliteness in delivering taboo and shock humor. Sarcasm/mock politeness and off-record impoliteness to address sensitive issues, and negative impoliteness in addressing the comedic roast of the audience's physical conditions. Interestingly, the strategy of withholding politeness was not present in any of the datasets, as his comedic style is audience-oriented. In the second problem of the study, the research successfully reveals that the factors of performance are generally well-received by the audience due to playful framing, timing, mutual understanding, interactional positioning, and context appropriateness.