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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
As for the recognition of the research, in this chapter, background of the study, research focus, objectives of the study, and also significance of the study
are highlighted and discussed.
A. Background of the Study
People, for many reasons, may use language in similar or different ways according to their own purposes or intentions. They also use various social
strategies that are mainly for constructing cooperative interaction with others, so that they can successfully deliver their intention. One of those strategies is
politeness. This strategy is used to maintain social equilibrium and friendly relations. Although language is highly varied in every society, the concept of
politeness is actually similar in one and another. Yule 1996: 60 defines politeness as the way speakers
intend to show awareness of others’ face or public self-images. Generally speaking, people tend to be polite, meaning they want to
save other people’s face and acknowledge their presence. There are actually many assumptions about how people speak can be considered as being polite. Some
assume that the more formal people speak, the more polite they are. Whereas, politeness itself is not merely related to the way people being formal since being
informal may also be considered as politeness. Politeness itself has largely received a lot of attention, even has been
debated in pragmatics and sociolinguistics. However, this study only focuses on pragmatic study. It
is the study of speakers’ intended meaning. According to Yule
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1996: 3, it covers the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning, invisible or implicit meaning, and the expression of relative distance. It means that pragmatics
deals with how speakers use language in some ways which cannot be predicted from knowledge of linguistics alone, and in this case politeness is without
exception. To be more exact, when talking about politeness, the concept of face must be understood first since it is the basic concept why people use politeness. In
conversation, there are many ways to show politeness regarding to the awareness of face either by saying something or saying nothing, and those are considered as
politeness strategies. The general categories of politeness strategies by saying something or by doing Face Threatening Acts FTA as proposed by Brown and
Levinson in Watts, 2003: 86 are positive politeness, negative politeness, bald on record, and off record strategies. Each of the strategies may be varied in terms of
realization since people have their own ways to show their purpose and intentions. Besides face, social aspects of the situation in interactions will much or
less influence speakers in using certain politeness strategies. Therefore, it is important to look at various factors related to these. Relative power P of the
speaker S to the hearer H, the rank of imposition R, and the social distance D or closeness between the speaker and the hearer are factors which cannot be
put aside in politeness strategies. These are called sociological factors which are involved in Face Threatening Acts FTA done by speakers. These factors are
crucial in determining politeness strategies used by speakers. The phenomenon of politeness occurs not only in the social interaction in
the real life but also in the movie. As already known, movie is a medium which
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encompasses the interaction between the characters. It also provides a story in which the characters are connected one another in a certain plot. Some stories in
the movie are fictitious and some are not. One of movies which have non fictitious story is The Great Debaters. It is a movie based on a true story of
Melvin B. Tolson who brings his underdog debate team of Wiley College to achieve victory in a national debate championship in America. This movie is
chosen as the object because of some reasons. First of all, the movie is a box office movie which has been nominated for
10 awards including Golden Globe Awards and has won some awards, i.e. African-American Film Critics Association AAFCA Awards, Christopher
Awards, BET Awards, Image Awards, Freedom of Expression Award in National Board of Review, USA, and Women Film Critics Circle Awards. Second, there is
a significant social background of the characters in which they are African Americans belonging to one particular group of Wiley College. Therefore, the
researcher assumes that politeness strategies can be found in this movie through its institutional setting and also through its inspirational story which tells about the
true story of the underdog debate team from this college struggling to be the elite debate team in America. Finally, the main character, Melvin B Tolson is very
influential as an English professor and has the most contribution to this team since he always encourages his students to show their bravery in debating. Besides his
academic activity, he also has a politics activity as a union organizer. Thus, he potentially produces some kinds of politeness strategies to make his cooperative
interactions to the other characters.
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B. Research Focus