Show Great Urgency, Efficiency and Task Orientation
in a higher status or in an angry mood when giving order.It is shown in Atticus‟ utterance when speaking to Mr. Bob Ewell, the victim‟s father. The
conversation in the court shows that Atticus has no desire to maintain Mr. Ewell‟s face. The conversation is as follows:
“I’ll repeat the question,” said Atticus. “Can you read and write?”
“I most positively can.” Datum 12BR2178
From the conversation above, Atticus is showing little or no desire to
maintain the hearer ‟s face. It can be seen from his sentence which sounds
rather impolite because he does not use any addressing words when talking to Mr. Ewell. Furthermore, the utterance shows a tone of an angry man. The
sentence “I‟ll repeat the question” shows that he has once or twice asked the same question but he does not get a satisfied answer. Now he becomes
emotionally in asking the same question for the third time and he demanded an answer.
His desire not to maintain the hearer ‟s face is also supported by his
position in the court. During the trial, a lawyer has higher position and status than the witness, suspect and a victim. In the utterance above, Atticus is asking
something to Mr. Ewell, the witness, so that he is in a higher position in the court and he does not need to maintain his face.
More conversation that shows little or no desire of being polite is shown in the following conversation between Atticus and Heck. Heck Mr.
Heck Tate is the sheriff of Maycomb County. He is the person in charge
ofinvestigating the crime. The conversation between Atticus and Heck is as follows.
“Just describe her injuries, Heck.”
“Well, she was beaten around the head. There was already bruises comin„ on her arms, and it happened about thirty minutes before—”
Datum 5BR2170. The conversation between Atticus and Heck
shows Atticus‟ desire of not being polite. Atticus talks toHeck, the local sheriff, and he is the one who
takes care of the case which Atticus is handling. In the conversation above, Atticus gives command to Heck to describe the injuries of the victims and not
to talk something else. It is probably Heck who is talking something else so that Atticus gets angry. Atticus has no desire to minimize the threat to the
hearer because he is in the higher position. He is the lawyer and Heck is the sheriff who becomes the witness of the criminal case in the court. One more
reason why Atticus does need to perform to minimize the threat is because the local sheriff is his own friend.
One more example of no desire of being polite is shown in the conversation between Atticus and Mayella, the victim of the crime. The
conversation is as follows.
“You the eldest?The oldest?”
“Yes.” Datum 14BR2185
The conversation is between Atticus and Mayella, the victim of the
crime. In the conversation, Atticus is using bald on record politeness strategy. He straightly asks
“you the eldest? The oldest” without mentioning the name
of the addressee or usingtitle like “Miss” or “Mrs”.Without using the title,
Atticus is showing no desire to maintain the victim‟s face in above utterance because in other utterance in the novel, he often uses
“Miss Mayella” to refer to the same person. By directly asking the question using the ill-structure
”You the eldest? The Oldest”,shows that Atticus has no desire to save someone‟s
face, in this case is Miss M ayella‟s. Moreover, Atticus‟ position is higher than
the victim during the trial.