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4 Off record
Off record is stated as the prototype of indirect communication Holtgraves, 2002. It is a communicative act in which the speaker‟s utterances
contain more than one particular intention. Therefore, the hearer needs to interpret speaker‟s utterances in order to know what the main intention is Brown
Levinson, 1987. The indirectness of this strategy allows the speaker to do the FTA without taking responsibility for doing it and leave it to the hearer to decide
how to interpret it. Off record can be shown in the form of sarcastic irony as in “That’s brilliant,” where actually it is not. Another way to show this strategy is in
the form of rhetorical question as in, “Did someone leave the light on?” when the speaker expects the light to be off.
Politeness is one of the main issues in language use that has to be considered when we talk to others. It is a behavior which can create positive
environment in the conversation. In showing our politeness, we must pay attention to the hearer‟s face or self-image so that we may not threaten their face. The act of
threatening hearer‟s face as well as speaker‟s face may influence the conversation and the degree of politeness. In order to control the degree of politeness in the
conversation, some strategies of politeness can be applied by both the speaker and the hearer.
3. Written communication
Communication is a way for a speaker to influence the hearers by making him or them perceive, understand, feel or do some particular things Linell,
2002. The speaker and the hearer will understand the messages which are given, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
22 received and exchanged by doing communication. Besides, McQuail and Windahl
1993 describe communication as any of „an action on others, an interaction with others and a reaction to
others‟ p. 5. Communication can be held in two different ways, namely in spoken and written way. Written communication is the
way people give, receive or exchange the messages by using discrete symbols, letters and words for instance Linell, 2002. In doing written communication,
people may use some media. The media can be in the form of emails, text messages, letters, faxes, reports, memos and even advertisements.
4. Review of Related Studies
This section contains some previous studies which are closely related to the focus of this research which is illocutionary acts in relation to politeness
strategies as shown in written messages. There are three related studies which have been done by Nabilah Fairuz Al-Bantany 2013, Katrina Pariera 2006 and
Elmianvari and Kheirabadi 2013.
a. Nabilah Fairuz Al-Bantany 2013
Al-Bantany 2013 conducted a research entitled “The use of commissive
speech acts and its politeness implication: A case of Banten gubernatorial candidate debate”. The purpose of this research was to examine the use of
commissive speech acts in the debate and the realization of politeness in the use of speech acts. This study was a qualitative study which processed the data gathered
by downloading the debate. The data were analyzed using the theory of speech acts by Searle 1969 and the theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson 1987.
The result of this research showed that commissive speech acts appeared in the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
