Off-record Strategies Research Articles

AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS-EDUCATOR’S POLITENESS STRATEGY TOWARD ONLINE COMMUNICATION IN EFL CONTEXT

The ease of online communication in the current era seems to still leave issue that really need to be considered. Politeness in communicating between educators and students in carrying out message activities is one of the essential issues to be discussed. The lack of politeness between teachers in communicating, the large possibility of free communication when carrying out online communication, and the low awareness of teachers in emphasizing the importance of politeness in communication are some of the main problems that need to be resolved. This study aims to analyze the use of politeness strategies in communication between educators and students in EFL and try to analyze deeper what types of strategies are used by teachers and students in communicating, the steps they take to online communication, and get to know deeper regarding to the importance of politeness in communication. This research uses library research method and case study method to analyze the data. In addition to obtaining data from previous research sources, the authors also obtained data from ELE Undiksha lecturers and students. The theory expressed by Brown and Levinson in 1987 is the theory that underlies the analysis of this data which is the analysis of politeness strategy in communicating. From the literature study and also the case study method used to analyze the findings, it was found that the politeness strategy was more widely used by students than teachers, this was related to social position and age. The strategies used are positive politeness and bald on-record which are mostly used by students. On the other hand, negative politeness and off-record strategies are mostly used by teachers. It was also found that students used politeness more than their teachers and from a cultural point of view, the social status that separates teachers and students in Indonesia demands being able to give respect to the educators.Keywords: Politeness strategies, online communication, EFL context

A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN “ALADDIN” MOVIE

This research is a descriptive study on the use of politeness strategy in movie. The researcher used a descriptive qualitative approach. This research focused on describing politeness strategies used by the main characters of Aladdin movie. The data were analyzed from conversation script in form of utterance. The researchers used analysis method by Miles and Huberman, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification. The research results showed that the types of politeness strategies used by the four main characters in the film Aladdin are the bald-on record strategy, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness strategies, and off-record strategies. Bald on record is the most widely used. It appeared 11 times (37%). It is followed by positive politeness which are uttered 7 times (23%) and off record which are also uttered 7 times (23%). The forth is negative politeness that uttered 5 times (17%). The researcher suggest to the English teachers to use Aladdin movie as teaching resource for politeness strategy. The researcher also suggested to the students could apply the politeness strategy in their life especially with the teachers and mates during learning process. For the further researcher, there are many aspects which can be analyzed about Pragmatics including politeness strategy. The reseracher suggests to the other researchers to analyze other aspects of Pragmatics in different works.

Politeness Strategies on Students’ Responses to Teacher’s Online Announcements

The shift of the usual operations in education from face-to-face to distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic has made the Google classroom one of the online learning modalities. The study aims to identify the politeness strategies employed in students' responses to the Bukidnon State University teachers' Google classroom announcement within three semesters. It also explores the significant difference between genders in employing politeness strategies. The study applied a mixed-method research design. The findings show that the students employ four politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson (1987): Positive, Negative, Bald-On-Record, and Off-Record Strategies. In addition, the male students frequently use negative politeness strategies, which contradicts Lakoff (1975) claims that women's language consists of hedges, apologies, and indirect requests, a negative politeness strategy. Thus, determining significant differences in politeness strategies among students needs other factors such as cultural differences, gender language, gender performativity, and teachers' announcement to which the students respond.

Hong Kong EFL Learners Politeness Strategy Use in Production and Perception of Requests and Refusals

Requests and refusals are well-acknowledged as challenging speech acts even when realized in native interactions owing to their intrinsic nature of being facethreatening. It is therefore conceivable that producing such social responses would be an arduous task for foreign language learners. Against this background, the present study set out with an aim to examine the politeness in the production of and perception of requests and refusals by six secondary-level EFL learners in Hong Kong under different degrees of social distance and social status, with prospective English teachers and native speakers as the control group. A discourse-completion task and a survey served as the instruments to elicit quantitative data. Results were analyzed with reference to Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, which proposes four types of politeness strategies, namely bald on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off-record strategy. Findings suggested that intermediate learners had an overuse of direct strategy to threaten both positive and negative face of interlocutors, while advanced learners were reported to be too conventionally indirect in general. Plausible explanation was the insufficient coverage of certain topics at schools. The paper hence demands educational adjustment in relevant aspects to improve learners’ pragmatic performance.

Politeness in Parliamentary Discourse: An Analysis of the Hansard of the Parliament of Ghana

This study investigates politeness in parliamentary discourse in Ghana. Using politeness theory as framework and the parliamentary Hansard as source of data, the study examines the politeness strategies employed by parliamentary actors, the implications of the frequency of the usage of the politeness strategies, and how the Standing Orders of Parliament determine the choice of a politeness strategy. Findings of the study show that political actors in the Parliament of Ghana use the bald on-record, the positive, the negative and the off-record politeness strategies in varied proportions. The study further reveals that the negative politeness strategy is the most frequently used politeness strategy with the Speaker being the highest user of the negative and the bald on-record politeness strategies. Again, the study found out that the off-record politeness strategy is the least used strategy. The Majority Members in Parliament use the highest frequency of the positive politeness strategies while the Minority Members of Parliament employ more negative politeness strategies. The study concludes that parliamentary discourse in Ghana employs more of the direct explicit polite expressions than the indirect implicit expressions of politeness. The study recommends that researchers should pay critical attention to the politeness phenomenon in parliamentary discourse.

The Use of Non-Verbal Communication in Supporting the Realization of Brown & Levinson Politeness Strategies

One of the prominent issues in pragmatics is politeness. Politeness can manifest in two actions, verbal and non-verbal communication. This study aimed to analyze the lecturer's and the students' non-verbal communication (NVC) in supporting the realization of Brown & Levinson's politeness strategies in English classroom interaction at Universitas Muhammadiyah Purworejo. This study explains the lecturer’s and students’ NVC in supporting the realization of bald on record strategy, positive politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, off-record strategy, and don’t do the face-threatening act (FTA) strategy in English classroom interaction. In this study, the researchers applied qualitative research. The subjects were one English lecturer and students. The objects were the lecturer's and the students' utterances during the English learning process. The methods the researchers used to analyze the data were Brown & Levinson's (1987) politeness strategies theory and Novinger's (2001) NVC theory. The findings showed that politeness strategies were used by the lecturer and students with the total frequency of 559 times, namely bald on record, positive politeness (dominantly used), negative politeness, off-record, and don’t do the FTA (the least used). Besides, in supporting the realization of politeness strategy, the dominantly used methods of NVC were chronemics, kinesics, and vocalic. In conclusion, politeness strategies are crucial in maintaining the relationship and creating a comfortable environment in the EFL classroom. NVC can support performance that cannot be expressed in words.

SOCIAL DIMENSIONS ON POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF REFUSALS USED BY AMBONESE AND AMERICAN

The aims of this study were to identify the politeness strategies used by Ambonese and Americans in refusing requests, as well as the effects of social relationships. A descriptive qualitative approach was used in the study. The data of American conversations were collected from youtube.com and direct observation by recording conversations between interlocutors by 20 respondents of Ambonese in any situation. The data was analyzed and classified using six politeness systems by Yassi, and politeness strategies by Brown and Levinson. The results show that in interactions between strangers, Ambonese people tend to use a bald on record strategy, which is frequently combined with a negative politeness strategy, whereas Americans tend to use a negative politeness strategy, which includes expressing apology followed by a direct expression of refusal or using off-record strategy. In an intimate relationship, Ambonese people tend to use positive politeness strategies, whereas Americans tend to use off-record strategies and negative politeness strategies. In a hierarchal relationship, Ambonese tend to use negative politeness strategies by inferior to superior person, while Americans tend to use negative politeness strategies or off record strategies. Culturally, Ambonese people were influenced by local wisdom to maintain solidarity in responding and addressing, which is called Pela Gandong, whereas Americans were influenced by the freedom to express themselves.

The Use of Politeness Strategies by Indonesian Vs Malaysian Student Debaters in the 2018 World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC)

The aims of this study were to analyze the types of politeness strategies realized by student debaters and how the Indonesian Vs Malaysian student debaters used politeness strategies in the debate competition. The data of this research were taken from youTube that video series of debate competition “WSDC 2018 R2: Indonesia VS Malaysia.” The study used a descriptive qualitative method which was analyzed using the politeness strategies propossed by (Brown and Levinson, 1987). The subjects in this study were 6 student debaters (2 teams) from Malaysia and Indonesia who participated in the 2018 World Schools Debating Championship (WSDC). This study found that most of the student debaters used positive politeness strategies to deliver their arguments appropriately. There were four types of politeness strategies realized by the debaters. Sub-strategies of positive politeness were mostly used by Indonesian debaters. They used sub-strategies of positive politeness to keep the hearer's positive face, to safe opinions when delivering arguments clearly as the opposition team and make the preposition team agreed with their insight. Malaysians used off-record strategy dominantly. They used inviting implicatures to imply meanings.

“Wikipedia does NOT tolerate your babbling!”: Impoliteness-induced conflict (resolution) in a polylogal collaborative online community of practice

Impoliteness (and responding to it) is salient in various emerging cooperative, polylogal online communities of practice. Investigating Wikipedians' negotiations quantitatively and qualitatively, the researchers analyzed discussions in 120 highly controversial Wikipedia talk pages across four general topical categories to explore impoliteness strategies, their responses, and participation patterns characterizing conflict creation, escalation, and resolution in Wikipedians' polylogues. Both macro-analysis (i.e. number of participants, conflicts, turns across conflicts, and discoursal roles) and micro-analysis (impoliteness strategies and responses to them) along with pertinent frameworks (e.g. taxonomies of impoliteness strategies, defensive strategies, and participant response options and patterns) were utilized in analyzing the data. Findings emphasized the existence of impoliteness phenomena, the prevalence of on-record impoliteness strategies rather than off-record strategies, dominance of the defensive strategy of offering an explanation, as well as a tendency among all the participants (i.e. initiators, recipients, and witnesses) to resolve conflicts. The findings are discussed in light of the asynchronous, task-oriented, interaction-focused, polylogal, natively digital and highly-policed nature of the platform's communications. Offering a revised model of online conflict (resolution) interaction patterns, this research sheds new light on the communicative behaviors, norms and strategies of Wikipedians, as a distinct online community of practice with implications for technology-mediated incivility.

Exploring Local Wisdom in Buginese Ethnics: Language Politeness Phenomena of Tau Soppeng

The objectives of this research are to explore and to reveals the form and the characteristics of linguistic politeness, politeness strategies, and the realization of local wisdom found among Soppeng people (to Soppeng) one particular Buginese ethnics. This research applied ethnolinguistics viewed from pragmatics, semiotics, and politeness theories. To capture the data, this study used purposive sampling and snowball among native in Soppeng regency which agrees to be a part of this study. The method used is the method of listening with free engaged, recording, documentation, elicitation technique, and interview. The results of this research show the characteristics and the forms of linguistic politeness through some morphemes marked (such as prefixes ta), suffix pronouns (ta, ki, ni), some honorific vocabularies (such as pung, andi, daeng), some lexemes (iye, tabe, taddampengenga), some maxims of politeness principles; generosity, approbation, modesty, and sympathy, and four strategies of linguistic politeness i.e., bald on record, positive, negative, off-record strategy. In addition, this study also found the realization and the implication of local wisdom as a primary value such as ethics and language politeness, self-image, courage, solidarity, and cooperation.

Tindak Tutur Joko Anwar yang Mengancam dan Strategi Kesantunan Tidak Langsung terhadap Livi Zheng dalam Acara Q&A: Belaga “Hollywood” di Metro TV

This study aims to investigate the speech acts used by Joko Anwar who threatened live Zheng and politeness strategies in the Q&A program: BELAGA“HOLLYWOOD”. A descriptive method with document analysis is used in this study. The results of this study are found five forms of speech acts namely assertive, directive, commissive, expressive and declarative threatening Livi Zheng. Assertive speech acts in the form of complaining are more often used by Joko Anwar when threatening the face or self-image of Livi Zheng. To reduce the threat, indirect politeness strategies or off-record strategies are used by Joko Anwar. Speech with sarcastic messages or criticisms is conveyed with indirectly meaning, this politeness strategy is chosen so that communication can still be carried out without breaking the cooperative relationship between the speaker and the speech partner. This study shows that although there are threats in the speech delivered, with the indirect politeness strategy is also used to maintain the face or self-image in public.

Maximized and Minimized Off-Record Politeness Strategies in Hacani’s Short Stories

The current paper tried to answer the question: How are Hacani’s short stories texts maximized and minimized to save face? It is imperative to study the maximized (i.e. hyperbole) and minimized (i.e. understatement) off-record strategies among Northern Kurmanji EFL university students. Therefore, the current study tackled the use and availability of these strategies as manifested in written discourse. The researcher followed the methodological procedures of Content Analysis (CA) by Berelson and Krippendorff, as well as Brown and Levinson’s Model of Politeness. Tackling maximized (hyperbole) and minimized (understatement) off-record politeness strategies, the results manifested that from the total of 41 instances, 70.7% of samples have been hyperbolically maximized while only 29.3% of the discourse have been minimized. It was reflected that many social affairs presented in Hacani’s short stories have been treated by revealing and inspiring new ideas. Hence, concentrating on specific ideas, hyperbole, as an off-record strategy, simply saved the face of readers. In contrast, understatement was less commonly used in order to reduce the degree of severity of certain situations, leaving room for a more favorable interpretation of distasteful topics. It was helpful to consult Excel and SPSS software to test statistical differences between hyperbole and understatement. Finally, it is recommended that other off-record strategies are used to analyze literary texts between Kurdish dialects or between Kurdish and English languages.

LECTURERS’ POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN EFL CLASSROOM WITH MULTICULTURAL BACKGROUND

The choice of words used by the lecturer such as politeness strategies in the classroom interaction is very important, not only for controlling the classroom but also for the process of acquiring the language itself. This study aimed to investigate lecturer’s politeness strategies in criticizing teaching performance of students with multicultural backgrounds in a microteaching class. This qualitative study was conducted with the students from multicultural backgrounds. The subject of this study was a lecturer who taught Microteaching. The findings of this study showed that there were four most frequent criticism strategies used by the lecturer: demand for change, indicating standard, advice about change and other hint. In addition, the highest proportion of politeness strategies applied by the lecturer was occupied by positive politeness, off-record strategy, bald on record, and negative politeness. It implied that the lecturer mostly applied positive politeness in criticizing the students, in order to save the students’ face, get closer and give more positive feedback to help students develop their teaching performance. The facts also proved that students’ multicultural background did not affect too much lecturer’s decision in applying politeness strategies, yet it needed to be very careful in delivering them. Keywords: politeness strategies, criticism, multicultural backgrounds

REFLECTIONS ON DIRECT AND INDIRECT STRATEGIES OF POLITENESS IN G. B. SHAW’S PYGMALION: A SATIRE ON CONVENTIONALITIES OF POLITENESS

This study aims at investigating male and female strategies of directness and indirectness manifest in the speech of the characters in the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. In the light of politeness theory by Brown and Levinson (1978), the realizations of direct and indirect strategies of politeness are associated with two types of strategies of face threatening acts (FTAs) proposed by Brown and Levinson (1978), namely bald-on-record and off-record strategies. In this study, the off-record strategy, which is the main focus of the study, is examined in relation to various sub-strategies of indirectness which are described in terms of the Gricean conversational maxims (i.e. Quantity, Quality, Relevance and Manner). These sub-strategies include the use of metaphors, irony, rhetorical questions, understatements and overstatements. A statistical survey is conducted on the frequencies of two politeness indicators, namely the bald-on-record strategies and tentativeness devices employed by the characters from different social classes in the play. The methodology of qualitative analysis employed in this study is based on Brown & Levinson’s theoretical framework of politeness with the main focus on the two components of communication: gender and social classes. In the play, the gap between the high and low classes in the late 19th century British society is manifest in such differences of language use as phonetics, lexis, grammar, and pragmatics.

Gender and Power in Shaw's Arms and the Man & Man and Superman: A Pragma-Cognitive Approach

This research tends to prove that approaches which suggest the relevance of gender as being the only important variable in analyzing the linguistic differences in cross-sexual interactions should be urgently reconsidered. On the other hand, there are other variables that should be taken into account as they affect the participants' linguistic choices. These variables are: power, age, solidarity and most importantly, one's cognition. The research tends to investigate how relevant gender, power and the use of bold-on-record directives and expressives are relevant to each other. It also explores the relation between power and cognition. This is done through analyzing the frequency and phraseology of the directives and expressives used by the main male and female characters in Arms and the man along with Man and Superman, in addition to analyzing the characters' mental processes.The qualitative analysis is used in the analysis of this study to analyze the way the directives and expressives are phrased by both the male and female characters in addition to analyzing the mental processes stimulated by the characters.It has been shown that the assumption that politeness is highly relevant to gender is not always applicable. The argument that females are more polite has been refuted. Additionally, it has been proven that power and gender are not always related to the participants' politeness. This can be pertained to the fact that characters, whether males or females, use more on-record strategies than off-record ones where power is irrelevantly applicable. On the contrary, the less powerful characters almost use the same amount or even more on-record utterances, whereas the more powerful characters show a tendency towards using off-record strategies. Other variables prove themselves to be equally important as they play a considerable role in influencing the characters' linguistic choices in terms of their adherence or overlooking of adopting politeness strategies, amongst of which is one's cognition. Also, solidarity, social distance and age are influential variables that should be taken into account

Politeness Strategies and Address Terms in Igbo and Igala Kinship Cultures

The work aims at investigating politeness strategies in Igbo and Igala cultures with a view to finding out how these two cultures handle the various strategies, honorifics and address terms in kinship relationships. The theoretical bases of the work are Brown and Levinson’s face-saving view of politeness which draws heavily from Goffman’s concept of face and interaction order. Our findings show that the two cultures under review are conscious of affronts to positive and negative face, favours indirectness and off-record strategies more than bald-on-record strategies. The two cultures also employ culture-specific honorifics and address terms especially in relating with parents, spouses, elder relations, siblings and peers. It is evident from the findings that contrary to what the present day so –called “civilization” may de-culturize people into especially in the use of first names, these two cultures still uphold the inbuilt cultural respect in observing politeness strategies, honorifics and address terms.

Politeness Strategies Performed by EFL Learners’ with English Native Speakers in Medical Students

The purpose of the research was to find out what politeness strategies used by EFL learners when they are having a conversation with English native speakers and the factors for selecting these particular strategies. The research applied a descriptive qualitative research. The participants were 28 non-English major (medical students) students in the first semester. The instrument of the research was data from videos presenting students’ conversation with english native speakers. They were analyzed by using Brown and Levinson categories of politeness. The result shows that the learners use three among four politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson namely positive, negative, and off-record strategies. The positive politeness strategies become the most widely used ones.

Politeness strategies and the representation of women in the Holy Qur’an

Abstract The goal of this study is to examine the strategies of politeness used in the Qur’an, the holy book of Muslims, to address and represent women. Women have been represented negatively in many different types of texts through face-threatening acts that sustain masculine power and hegemony. This study attempts to investigate the image of women in the most sacred book of Muslims. Two aspects are examined herein: the representation of women in relation to sensitive issues like sex and marriage, and the forms of address and reference to women. A qualitative approach is used to provide interpretations of the hidden meanings in the selected excerpts, adopting Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness and Leech’s maxims of politeness as the guides for the analysis. The analysis has revealed that women all through Qur’an have been addressed and referred to decently and politely. Unlike most of the other topics where bald-on-record strategies are used, the use of off-record strategies and positive and negative face strategies of politeness have been found to be dominant in discussion of issues relevant to women. These strategies have been used to avoid unpleasant communication in spiritual issues, and also to avoid misrepresentation of women, demeaning of their persons, causing any embarrassment, and thereby saving the face of both women and recipients. However, bald-on-record strategies are sometimes used in topics related to legal matters concerning familial and social unity and solidarity. The analysis has demonstrated the means by which language is used in the Glorious Qur’an to courteously address women. Concerning interpersonal maxims, the approbation, modesty, sympathy, tact, and agreement maxims have shown to be evident in addressing and referring to women. This study will contribute to the field of pragmatics and will lead to cross-religious and cross-cultural understanding during a period where Islam and its teachings are being widely questioned and examined.

KESANTUNAN BERBAHASA PENGGUNA MEDIA SOSIAL INSTAGRAM: KAJIAN SOSIOPRAGMATIK

In establishing social interaction, the consideration of face concept is able to show the system of linguistic politeness and the reflection of participants’ attitudes. The consideration of face concept is not only present in face-to-face interaction but also in the context of online interaction. This study uses social media platform Instagram, namely “infogresik”, as the main data source. The data collection was taken from the comments between the Instagram operator and other Instagram users. This study uses the qualitative approach to obtain descriptive explanation on the percentage of selecting particular strategies. Politeness theory and social variable by Brown and Levinson (1987) become the main reference in the data analisis process. The result of the data analysis showed that the participants used positive politeness with the percentage of 81.3%, the negative politeness strategy of 10.2%, the off-record strategy and bald on-record strategy of 7.6% and 3.4% respectively. Furthermore, the influence of social distance variables and the level of speech act mostly influence to the selection of face-saving stratgey for the Instagram users.

The Host’s Politeness Strategies in Ellen Degeneres Reality Talk Show

Language has a significant role in communication. As social being, almost everyday people use language to communicate with others such as communication over the telephone or a direct conversation. In conversation there was a certain rule wich has to be learned to avoid misunderstanding. It was called politeness. Talk Show was television program that amuse poeple because of the conversation and joke in it. In this study the writer focused on Ellen Show inform the USAfor the following reasons. First, it was one favorite Talk Show in USA. Second, there are few people talking about politeness. Politeness can make relationship better with the other. Hence, the writer examined it in the talk show. The last, related to the data, the writer found the contribution of impoliteness used by the host to ELT.There were two data collection methods used in this research: the video of the talkshow and the transcription of the interview. Based on the analysis, the reseacher found kind of politeness strategies used by the host. There are four types of politeness strategies employed by Ellen Degeneres in the Ellen Show when having conversations with the guest star. They are bald-on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record strategy. The politeness strategies contribute to make the realitationship between people closer and make all learn how to appreciate others.