The Referential and Affective Function Scales
21 implemented to answer the two research questions: 1 How do the main
characters of the novel Eat Pray Love use the politeness strategies in their dialogues? and 2 Which factors affect the use of politeness strategies by the
main characters of the novel Eat Pray Love? The researcher applied document analysis in this research. Fraenkel and
Wallen 2009: 472 state, “Document analysis is a method which is used to study
human behaviour in an indirect way, through an analysis of their communications.
” According to Ary, et al. 2010: 457, document analysis is “a research method applied to written or visual materials for the purpose identifying
specif ied characteristics of the material.” In other words, document analysis
focuses on the analysis of phenomena in a document. The material or document can be in the form of novels, diaries, essays, songs, newspapers, advertisements,
textbooks, scripts, speeches, or any other types of document. The researcher analyzed the use of politeness strategies in a novel. The researcher selected a best-
selling novel entitled Eat Pray Love since it was a primary source. Ary, et al. 2010 state that a primary source is a document which is written by someone who
had firsthand experience with the phenomenon under study p. 443. It was written based on the writer’s true story. It also contained many politeness
phenomena – for example, giving compliments and using jokes.
As Holtgraves 2002 states, “Politeness is a technical term, a theoretical
construct invoked as a means of explaining the link between language use and the social context
” p. 38, the researcher associated document analysis with discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship
22 between language and the contexts in which it is used McCarthy, 2005. The
analysis of discourse can be in spoken or written form. Since the researcher studied the use of politeness strategies by the five main characters in the novel Eat
Pray Love 2010, the researcher studied the utterances that were in the dialogues by those five main characters.