Negative Politeness Politeness Strategies in Sydney White

91 Dialogue 16 Rachel : Would all the Kappa pledges join me over here for a moment? Sydney: OK. 16Disc A min 23 The conversation above happened in Kappa Phi Nu house at midnight. After Sydney successfully found a boy to be her date, she immediately went back to the house and met Rachel and the others sisters at the State Street Diner. After Sydney and Lenny sat down, Rachel congratulated all the girls because all of them successfully did good job for the first pledge task. Then, she asked all to enjoy their meal. Then, Rachel invited all the Kappa pledge to join her for a moment. She would announce the next pledge task. It was about the date-dash ditch. She would announce the unsuitable date at that night. The dialogue above showed that Rachel employed negative politeness strategy 1, be conventionally indirect. She used this strategy by saying “Would all Kappa pledge join me over here for a moment?” to ask all the Kappa sisters to come closer to her. She would announce something which was related to the next pledge task. Rachel used a normal intonation in order to soften the command to Kappa sisters. Besides, she avoided offending to them. Dialogue 17 Lenny : Pollen, wood... A few others. Uh, but it’s getting late. You’re probably tired. Sydney: Well, yeah. Public humiliation can be pretty tiring. 17Disc A min 44 Sydney decided to go after being humiliated in the party night in Kappa Phi Nu house. She packed all her things in a bag and went out of the house although the rains were falling heavily. Having no place to say, Sydney White 92 was sitting in the street next to the Vortex. At that time, Sydney was so disappointed because she could not satisfy her mother’s want to spend her college period in Kappa Phi Nu. She remembered what her mother said how enjoyable living in Kappa Phi Nu house. So that was why she cried. When Embele wanted to go out of the Vortex, he saw Sydney was sitting in front of the house. He told to his friend; Lenny and Spanky. Then, they came closer to Sydney. She realized that they did not want her sitting out near Vortex because some mistakes that she ever did to Lenny. However, Lenny offered her to stay in vortex. He welcomed her in the Vortex and introduced his friends; Gurkin, Embele, Spanky, Jeremy, Terrence, and George. After that, he told a place where she would be used as her bedroom. The place was so messy and dirty. There were so many dust that made her cough every time. Knowing that fact, Lenny called Sydney. He offered some medicines to her. The dialogue above showed that Lenny employed negative politeness strategy 3, be pessimistic. He said that to express his doubt in offering allergy medicines to Sydney because she seemed felt tired. Lenny said the utterance with low intonation. He directly expressed his pessimism to continue his speech with Sydney before leaving her.

4. Off record

Off record is likely to call as indirect strategy. Brown and Levinson 1987: p. 211 said that off-record or indirect strategy is done to let the speakers attribute unclear communication intention. It indicates that if the speakers want to avoid 93 their responsibility of doing FTAs, they can employ the strategy and let the addressees interpret and the intended message. The findings and discussion of off- record politeness strategy are below as follows. Dialogue 18 Sydney: Witch burn-Prince, huh? So you wanted to tear down the vortex. Tyler : Yeah, I did, but… 18Disc B min 26 The conversation happened in the party which was held by Beta Omega Rho fraternity. It was such a nightclub party. In the same place, there were also Rachel and her friends. She had bad plan to Sydney’s friends. She wanted to make them trapped with her plan. Then, she asked Katy, Christy and 5 others girls to flatter that 7 boys to go out from the place and found a hot tub out back. Sydney’s friends were trapped. As their best friends, Sydney, came closer to Rachel and abused her. Rachel told the truth that Terrence was disqualified from running the president for some reasons. Sydney did not approve her the statement and seemed angry. Then, Tyler came and asked Rachel to go out from the party. However, it made her to tell the others topics. One of the topics was the golden opportunity plan about the Witch-Prince Greek Life Center that Sydney did not know before about it. Rachel explained more about it. The plan was not only her plan but also Tyler’s plan also. Knowing that truth, Sydney was getting angry and pointing him. She blamed him that he wanted to tear down the vortex with Ra chel. She did not want to hear Tyler’s explanation anymore. She immediately left the party. 94 The dialogue above showed that Tyler employed off record strategy 15, be incomplete. Tyler did not finish her utterances. He seemed confuse about it. Dialogue 19 Professor Carlton : Ms. Witch burn, if you win another term as president, what will you do differently? Rachel : Why fix what isnt broken? This has been a great year for the university and I am proud to be breaking ground on the Greek Life Center very soon. 19Disc B min 40 The conversation happened in the morning at Southern Atlantic University. The presidential debate was about to begin. Professor Carlton as the moderator asked Sydney and Rachel as the candidates to report to the stage. However, Sydney did not come yet. Realizing that Sydney had not come to the stage, Tyler tried to look for her in the library. He gently tried to make Sydney woke up because she had to come to attend the presidential debate soon unless she would miss a big chance of being a student council president. Fortunately, she woke up and immediately went to the stage. The moderator began the presidential debate and for the first question was intended to Rachel. The dialogue above showed that Rachel employed off record strategy 10, use rhetorical question. Rhetorical question is a sentence in the grammatical form of a question which is not asked in order to request information or to invite to reply but to achieve a greater expressive force than a direct assertion. In Dialogue 19, Rachel did not need an answer from the Professor Carlton or audiences. Her saying was only for her opening in order to get attention from the audiences.