Positive Politeness Strategies Research Articles

Speech Level Shifts in Japanese Discourse: An Approach from Politeness Theory

“Speech level shift” is a phenomenon in which formal speech is used in casual conversations. This paper aims to clarify when and why this temporary shift occurs and considers whether its functions are unique to the Japanese language by employing the concept of “politeness theory”. According to this theory, a speaker has two choices of strategy for successful communication. The first, namely “positive politeness strategy” attempts to decrease their distance with the listener, while the second, “negative politeness strategy”, tries to maintain this distance. Using examples from a database of Japanese conversations, four functions of speech level shift based on politeness strategies were found. When the shift appears at the beginning or the end of a topic, its function is to reduce the suddenness of conversational transition, while in the case of communicating blame, criticism, or requests, the shift has the function of softening something hard to say. These two functions are based on negative politeness strategy. When the shift is used to emphasize something important in the conversation, its function is to make the speech clearer, while in the case of telling a joke, the shift can create an emotional connection through humor. These two functions are based on positive politeness strategy. In this way, speech level shifts in the Japanese language have four principal functions, which are explainable by theories developed internationally. This fact shows that there is a commonality between Japanese and other languages regarding the function of consideration for others.

Can Futsugo be Acceptable in Hotel Services? A Case Study of a Hotel in Bali

This article discusses futsugo (Japanese daily language). The aim of this research is to know whether Futsugo style can be used at hotel services. As we know that hotels are the main constituent of the hospitality industry which keep special attention to courtesy and services, so is it possible for the hotel staff to use it? Does it threaten guests' faces? The data analyzed is conversation instances between Japanese guests and hotel staff in Bali hotels. The sampling used is a random sampling technique. The sample used in the study is 10 hotels out of 73 five-star hotels in Bali. The conversation data is recorded with mobile phones by hotel staff. The total number of the hotel staff members as the subjects of this research is 15 participants. The data was conducted from May 2019 till August 2019. Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory is used to analyze conversations between Japanese guests and hotel staff in Bali from the stages of arrival, familiarization, and engagement until departure. Based on data analysis, it is known that generally hotel staff use negative politeness strategies alternately with positive politeness strategies depending on the context of the speech situation. From these four those stages, it is found that Futsugo utterances are at the engagement stage. Futsugo style was used by the staff during handling guest complaints. In one dialogue, Futsugo's utterance was found in the form of question sentences without question marks, but using the rising intonation and confirmation of the guest’s answer without the copula desu. According to the analysis of the conversation data, futsugo utterances are used by hotel staff and guests as a practical way of communicating. Futsugo's utterances which tend to be short are easier to catch by the ear, making it easier to handle guest complaints. If viewed from the perspective of politeness theory, this speech can still be accepted. It can be seen from the whole conversation where negative politeness strategies and positive politeness strategies are applied in one dialogue that the appearance of Futsugo's utterances is still considered acceptable and does not threaten guests' faces.

On Positive Politeness Strategies of Teacher Talk in English Classroom Teaching for Non-English Major Undergraduates

Politeness plays an important role in the communication. In English class，teaching and learning can be realized by the communication between teachers and students. Therefore, how to reflect the phenomena of politeness and how to choose appropriate politeness strategies is significant for English teaching. By reviewing theories and studies concerning politeness strategies in teacher talk, this study is conducted in the framework of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory. After observing, recording and interviewing 12 college English classroom teaching, the author of the study adopts qualitative analysis research method. From the data by observation, recording, the study revealed that 6 positive strategies such as “Notice and attend to H or hearer (his interests, wants, needs and goods)”, “Include both S and H in the activity” and “Give gifts to H (goods, sympathy, understanding and cooperation)” are employed in the college English classroom teaching. After transmitting recorded interview materials into written materials, the research found the reasons for college English teachers to employ positive politeness in English classroom teaching are: the dilemma of English learning, the change of teaching focus and the special characteristics of college students. As how positive politeness strategies help facilitate English classroom teaching, all the interviewed English teacher think that they help create harmonious atmosphere and encourage students’ learning motivation and confidence.

Лингвистическое хеджирование как средство реализации стратегий вежливости в разговорном диалоге

The paper presents the study of linguistic hedging in English spoken dialogue. It reviews the meaning of hedges and discusses their use within the framework of negative and positive politeness strategies. Politeness and hedging are interrelated linguistic phenomena that help maintain and regulate relationships between interlocutors and play an important role in harmonizing communication and achieving mutual understanding in various situations of interaction.

A Sociopragmatic Study of Intra-Gender Compliment Responses by Saudi College Students

This study examines compliment responses in Hejazi Arabic as used by Saudi college students. It focuses on the types of compliment responses used, the relationship of the speaker’s gender with his/her compliment behavior, and the sociocultural values attached to this behavior. Examples of compliment responses were elicited from King Abdulaziz University students using a number of compliment formulas that are generally considered to be very common in Hejazi Arabic. The compliment responses were analyzed in terms of their semantic, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic characteristics, based on Leech’s (1983) politeness maxims and the face-management approach of Brown and Levinson (1987). The analysis shows that the speakers, especially women, accept the compliment paid to them in the majority of the compliment responses collected, which can be accounted for by Leech’s Approbation, Tact and Agreement Maxims in which the interlocutors emphasize their closeness with each other. In accordance with face-politeness, the dominance of the acceptance compliment responses makes them as positive politeness strategies in which the compliment recipient negotiates or offers solidarity with the complimenter. In examining the concepts of complimenting in culture-specific contexts, this research provides further data to understand, illustrate and test the abovementioned politeness models. It also contributes to sociolinguistic theory by examining variation in the use of compliment responses in same-sex interactions. Keywords: compliments; compliment responses; gender; Hejazi Arabic; politeness maxims, positive politeness

What Indonesian Think of Japanese’s Compliment

A compliment is one of the positive politeness strategies that had a function to bring closer the relationship between the speaker and the receiver. However, the characteristics and rules of using compliments differ based on language. Nowadays, communication opportunities between Indonesians and the Japanese had been increasing. If there any differences regarding compliments in Indonesian and Japanese, then problems that make human relationships not well-formed potentially occur. Therefore, this study aims to find out what problems are experienced by Indonesian regarding compliments in communication with Japanese, then find out what kind of action needs to take to avoid these problems. To find out the things mentioned above, the researcher conducted interviews with five respondents and distributed questionnaires based on the interview result to 60 respondents. The results of the interview and questionnaires show that Indonesians sometimes feel that the Japanese often giving compliments, and those compliments are excessive. When receiving compliments, Indonesians sometimes feel confused because they feel the object of compliment is not worthy of it, and they do not know how to respond. Moreover, Indonesians rarely feel confused when they try to give compliments to Japanese, but often feel like a failure after that. Hens, these thoughts can contribute to communication breakdown. These problems can be attributed to compliment factors and strategies. Hens, it is necessary to provide understanding to both speakers of the language that different factors that support the emergence of compliment and the use of compliment strategies.

The Positive Politeness Analysis Used in Virgin-Meet the Author

This research used qualitative research method. The theory used is Brown & Levinson (1987) about 15 positive politeness strategies. The aim of this study was to find the positive politeness strategies in Virgin-Meet the Author. Virgin is a Youtube channel. This channel contains videos that can inspire others through the good videos that are in it. One of the inspirational episodes is the Meet the Author episode where the author can tell the audience the contents of the book she/he has made so that audience can understand the contents of the book. In collecting data, this study used observational method and non-participatory techniques. Pragmatic identity method used in this research to analyze the data. The result that the researcher found were strategy of using in group identity markers, avoiding disagreement, giving and asking for reasons, includes both speaker and hearer in activity and exaggerating strategy in Virgin-Meet the Author.

THE STRATEGIES OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE POLITENESS REFLECTED IN “THE LAST SONG” NOVEL BY NICHOLAS SPARKS

This research discussed the positive and negative politeness strategies in The Last Song novel by Nicholas Sparks (2009). The data were the utterances in The Last Song novel. This research was mainly aimed to find out the strategies of positive and negative politeness. The theory applied in this research was taken from the book entitled “Politeness Some Universals in Language Usage” proposed by Penelope Brown and Stephen C Levinson (1987). This research was the descriptive qualitative research. Method of collecting the data used observational method by using non-participatory technique. In analyzing the data, the researcher used the pragmatic identity method. The research result showed that the characters in The Last Song novel applied all the strategies of positive politeness and negative politeness except the eighth strategy of negative politeness; state the face threatening act because The Last Song novel was the romantic novel and there was no regulation, obligation, social rule from the country.

Politeness Strategies of Students in Communication By Whatsapps

This research was about politeness strategies of students in communication by whatsapp to lecturer. This research aimed to describe positive politeness strategies and negative politeness strategies that students used in communication by whatsapp.
 It was descriptive research design and qualitative and quantitative approach. The data of this research was whatsapp texts of English Department Students STKIP Muhammadiyah Muara Bungo. This research used purposive technique sampling. The The method of collecting data used observational method. The technique of collecting data used Non Participant Observation Technique (NPO), recording technique, and note taking technique. In analyzing data, the writer used referential method. For data presentation, the writer used informal method
 The researcher found Politeness strategy that students used in communication to the lecturer by whatsapp used two strategies. These are positive politeness strategy and negative politeness strategy. The biggest percentage of positive politeness strategy that students used was address form. It was 57.2%. The smallest percentage of positive politeness strategy that students used was joke. It was 0.1%. The biggest percentage of negative politeness strategy that students used was give deference. It was 30.2%. The smallest percentage of negative politeness strategy that students used was hedges on illocutionary force. It was 1.2%.

STRATEGI KESANTUNAN BERBAHASA DALAM TALK SHOW Q&A DAN RELEVANSINYA TERHADAP PEMBELAJARAN BAHASA INDONESIA TINGKAT SMP

The purpose of this study to describe the politeness strategies of Brown and Levinson in the Q&A talk show and describe the relevance of politeness-language strategies towards learning Indonesian at the Middle School level. The theory used to solve the problem in this study is the theory of Brown and Levinson. While the approach used is descriptive qualitative approach with data collection techniques namely documentation techniques. The results of this study indicate that the forms of Brown and Levinson's politeness strategy that occurred in the Q & A talk show in August 2018 consisted of Brown and Levinson's first politeness strategy, namely without strategies found that included speech without strategy. The second strategy of brown politeness and Levinson's positive politeness strategy is found to pay attention to the opponent's speech, exaggerate attention, agreement, and sympathy, intensify the opponent's attention by dramatizing facts, intensify using group identity markers, request approval with general topics or repeat part or all, avoiding disagreement by pretending to agree, using jokes, expressing understanding of the wishes of speakers, giving offers or promises, showing optimism, involving speakers in activities, giving questions asking for approval, giving gifts. Where negative politeness strategies are found to be pessimistic, minimize coercion, and apologize. Finally, the Off Record strategy was found which was included in the strategy. The relevance of the results of the study can be applied in learning Indonesian in junior high school class IX 3.9-4.10.

REPRESENTASI KESANTUNAN DALAM NOVEL ANNE OF GREEN GABLES: KAJIAN PRAGMATIK

<span>This article aims to find and explain the politeness strategies found in the novel Anne of Green Gables. Politeness strategy applied in prohibiting becomes the topic of this study. This study uses Brown and Levinson's politeness strategy consisting of bald on record, off record, positive, and negative strategies. This study is qualitative descriptive. The source data of the study is the Anne of Green Gables novel and the data is characters’ speeches in the novel that accommodates the prohibiting politeness. The data is classified according to Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies, they are bald on record, off record, positive, and negative strategies. The results show that the direct politeness strategy (bald on record) is the most commonly found, then the positive politeness strategy, the indirect politeness strategy and also the negative politeness strategy. It shows that between characters often use direct prohibiting to convey their wants and it also makes the receiver understands it easier. Moreover, using a positive politeness strategy show a close relationship between the speaker and the receiver.</span>

A Pragmatic Study of Congratulation Responses in Iraqi Arabic

The present study is a pragmatic study of congratulation responses in Iraqi Arabic. It aims at finding out the main and sub- responses strategies in the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses, figuring out the more frequent types of positive politeness strategies used in the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses and investigating the influence of gender in expressing the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses concerning the questions above. The researcher hypothesizes that there are different responses strategies used in the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses. In the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses, there are positive politeness strategies more frequently used than others, and the congratulation responder's gender affects his / her Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses. By using a discourse completion test(DCT), the researcher verifies these hypotheses to be conducted on 60 students(males/females) at Mosul University/ College of Basic Education/Department of English as a sample for the research. The test consists of ten happy situations, and the participants have to imagine the situations that his/her friend is congratulating him/her and to write their responses in Arabic. Finally, the data have to be analyzed in terms of the taxonomy proposed by Elwood (2004) and then by the positive politeness strategies stated by Brown and Levinson (1987). Based on the results of the current study, it has been found that there are different responses strategies used in the Iraqi Arabic congratulation responses, there are positive politeness strategies more frequently used than others, and finally, males and females employ somewhat similar congratulation responses strategies but with varying frequencies and realizations.

Linguistic and Cultural Specifics of Gratitude in Arabic Business Communication in English

The relevance of the study is due to the interest of linguistics in the problems of the functioning of the English language in various genres of business communication from the point of view of cultural linguistics. The results of a comparative study of the verbal formulation of the valuemarked communicative situation of gratitude in the corpus of English-speaking Arabic (Learner Business Letter Corpus (LBCL)) and English-American business correspondence (Business Letter Corpus (BLC)) are presented in the article. It was found that the linguistic means of expressing gratitude in the BLC corpus demonstrate great lexical and grammatical variability, preference is given to implicit performatives. It is noted that a limited set of lexical and grammatical constructions is used in the corpus of the Arabic English-language business communication, and explicite performatives dominate. It is shown that in both corpuses, gratitude is used to formalize a request or demand; in Arabic English communication, flattery acts as a variation of the speech act rethinking of gratitude. It was revealed that when expressing a proactive gratitude implying a request in the Arabic linguistic culture, strategies of positive politeness are used, demonstrating the unity of interests of the communication participants, in contrast to theAnglo-American linguistic culture, which relies on the strategy of negative politeness, softening impositivity.

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.

PRAISE, COMPLIMENT AND FLATTERY AS MEANS OF REALIZATION OF INTIMATE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

The article reports on the functioning of utterances of praise, compliment and flattery as tactics realizing intimate communication strategy. Positive evaluative utterances of praise, compliment and flattery have been differentiated according to the object and theme of evaluation. The linguistic status and pragmatic peculiarities of intimate communication strategy as a positive politeness strategy have been discussed. The material under analysis is represented by 1,500 contexts of positive evaluation taken by continuous sampling from English fiction. It has been established that intentions of the addressers of positive evaluation are not limited by a desire to express their positive evaluative opinion on the object and create a positive emotive mood, but they are also characterized by a wish to regulate the addressee’s behaviour, to create a contact or a good relationship with them, to manipulate them, to keep to a communication ritual, etc. Besides, positive evaluative utterances can be used to realize the strategies of positive and negative politeness. Intimate communication strategy has been classified as a strategy of positive politeness, as well as such strategies as contactestablishing strategy and the strategy of saving the addressee’s face. Intimate communication strategy, also known as the tactics of solidarity, or the tactics of belonging to the same group, accentuates community of world view, interests and aspirations of interlocutors. As the analysis of the investigated data shows, it is positive evaluative utterances that help to demonstrate solidarity with the interlocutor and to create “the language of a small society”, the marker of a specific language, opposed to the language of other societies. A positively charged communicant relies on positive evaluation of a certain object as a means of creating a certain communication mode, intimate, trustworthy, friendly. In this way interlocutors are connected into a certain community, exchanging significant for both of them feelings and experiences. The analysis of the data brings us near the position that the taken strategy is most commonly used by the addressers of compliments.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND TACTICS OF THE PARTICIPANTS IN SMALL TALK

The article focuses on the study of communication strategies and tactics used by participants of small talk. The material under analysis is the English-language literary discourse. The linguistic analysis of the selected data has been based on the application of the pragmatic linguistic method, cognitive method, the component analysis. The article analyses linguistic definitions of small talk and describes possible types of relationships between participants of small talk. It has been established that it is not the communicative, but the pragmatic function of the language that is foregrounded in the genre of small talk. Based on the analysis of our own factual material, it has been proved that adhering to Politeness Principle is the main communicative intention of the participants of small talk. The article offers our own classification of communication strategies and tactics that realize positive and negative politeness in small talk. The following strategies of positive politeness have been forwarded: 1) the contact-establishing strategy (realized by the tactics of showing interest in the interlocutor and a positive evaluation), 2) the strategy of group identity (realized by the tactics of intimization (secrecy), social advantage and negative evaluation of other people (gossip)). The strategies of negative politeness include: 1) the strategy of utterance mitigation (realized by the tactics of making a statement less categorical and mitigating negative assessment), 2) the strategy of advancing the status of the addressee (realized by the tactics of compliment and flattery), 3) the face saving strategy (realized by the tactics of subject change and evasion of a question). All the outlined strategies and tactics have been supported by the factual data taken from modern English literary discourse.

Politeness Used by Islamic Education Department Administration Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra. Postgraduate School of the State University of Medan

The objectives of this study is to find out what and how the using of politeness strategies used by Islamic Education Department Administration Staff and why they use it when interact with the students by using Brown and Levinson theory. This research is qualitative study. The data is gathered from administration staff who work in Islamic Education Department of State Islamic University North Sumatra. To get the data the researcher used sound recorder to find out the use of politeness strategies. From the analysis, the researcher found that there are four politeness strategies used by administration staff when they interact to the students. They are greeting, question, command, and request. The most of strategies used in the field are bald on record rather than positive and negative politeness strategy. They used these strategies to save the time, because there are so many students have to be served. The other reason is diversity age and avoiding the ambiguity. The staff sometimes uses positive and negative politeness strategies. They used positive politeness especially for recognized students to make closeness and friendly when they ask them to do something and they used negative politeness strategies to save face student awareness when the staff tried to judge students by doing mistake. The implication of this study is to increase the using of positive politeness strategies when administration staff talk to the students. This is because the positive politeness strategies can minimize Face Threatening Acts to endeavor a harmony in social interaction.

POLITENESS STRATEGIES REFLECTED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN “BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA” MOVIE

This research aims to identify politeness strategies reflected by the main character in “Bridge to Terabithia” movie. Qualitative method is used by the researcher to analyze the data. The data are the utterances of the main character that include politeness strategies. In analyzing the data, the researcher uses theory by Brown and Levinson (1987) about politeness strategies. The results of this research show that there are four types of politeness strategies which used by the main character in this movie. The most type that used is bald on record strategy and positive politeness strategy. The factors in using politeness strategies by the main character in this movie are payoffs in each strategy and circumstances (sociological variables). The researcher hopes that this research could give the contribution toward the next researchers. Moreover, some recommendations are given to the next researchers who will do the same research on politeness strategies either in the movie or in other forms. Key Words: Politeness strategies, Bridge to Terabithia

Strategies of Face-Threatening and Preserving in the Averral (Khabar) of Al-Asma'ei with the Son of Ḥātim and a Woman of Ibn Harmah’s Daughters in the Light of the Politeness Theory

This research analyzes the selected text for the pragmatic study in the light of the concept of Face, which its model developed by Brown and Levinson in 1978 in the context of the theoretical principles of politeness. It is taken from two angles; one is concerned with the speaker and the strategies he has chosen to select the positive and negative faces targeted by his threats and then the strategies that he has diversified his successive threats on. The research then moves on to analyze the strategies of the addressee that he creates in order to repel or mitigate those threats or their damage to the speaker's face. Keeping the addressees in line with the speaker has emerged in his strategies by threatening him with some similar strategies or mitigating it in their attempts to preserve their faces, which made the interactive speech maneuver a conflict maneuver in which the speaker lost it to the outspoken man in his defense of the two aspects of his face and returned the attack on both aspects of the speaker's face, while addressing the female, who has successive positive politeness strategies through, he exchanged her with strategies to mitigate threats and remedy the risks to accomplish his quest to make her a victim for irony, he had passed through the strategy of negative politeness (praising).

Strategy Politeness of Werkudara in Wayang purwa

Wayang purwa is a noble culture of Javanese people which is the pride of the Indonesian people and is recognized internationally as a masterpiece. The nobleness of the puppet culture is inseparable from the strong characterization of each character in the puppet. One of the strongest characters in wayang purwa is Werkudara. This research focused on the analysis of Werkudara politeness strategies in wayang purwa in order to explore the characterizations played by Werkudara characters. This research used the politeness theory of Brown & Levinson to deepen the results of the politeness strategy analysis. This study also used descriptive qualitative methods to explain the phenomenon of speech acts of Werkudara in explaining the politeness strategies used. This research data was Werkudara's speech taken from the data source, namely the recording of Ki Nartosabdo's purwa puppet show with Dewa Ruci's play. The results of this study concluded that Werkudara was more dominant in using negative politeness in speaking. The negative politeness strategies used include giving deference; being pessimistic, and using indirect expressions. Furthermore, positive politeness strategies are used by Werkudara, including the use of group identity markers; avoiding disagreement; offering promises, and exaggeration.