The Role of Politeness in Sociolinguistics The Role of Politeness in Pragmatics
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” People can also emphasize the utterance by using familiar address terms honey, ma
te, pal, bud as in, “Here mate, I was keeping that seat for a friend of mine.
” Moreover, a direct satisfaction of others‟ desire for respect, sympathy, interest and so on is also the example of this strategy Holtgraves, 2002.
3 Negative politeness
According to Brown and Levinson 1987, negative politeness is an action directed to the hearer‟s negative face, in which they want to have freedom of their
own action p. 129. It is used to minimize imposition in the hearer. This strategy is also said as
„the heart of respect behavior‟ which fills the etiquette books Brown Levinson, 1987. The characteristics of this strategy are specific,
focused, being indirect and often said in long sentences. This strategy can use conventional indirect forms in the utterances as to
request someone to shut a door by saying, “Will you shut the door?” “Can you shut the door?
” “Are you able to shut the door?” “I want you to shut the door,” and so on Holtgraves, 2002. The other way to show negative politeness is by
usi ng hedges to avoid assuming anything related to the hearer‟s belief or desire.
The use of hedges can be shown in “if clause” for relevant condition as in “Close the window, if you can.
” Negative politeness can also appear when the speaker communicates implicitly that he or she does not want to impinge on the hearer. As
the example is in the utterance, “I know you’re busy but could you give me a hand?
” Begging for forgiveness can also be showed using this strategy. By apologizing, the speaker can communicate hisher wants not to impinge on the
hearer. As the example is in the utterance, “I’m sorry to bother you …” PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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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.