35 together anymore. In addition, the problem continues when the family has to
move to Houston for financial reason. In Houston, they have to learn to accept that many things changed unexpectedly. Their own parents finally meet their new
own spouse, and they have to accept that condition in their childhood. They have to spend their time with their father’s and mother’s new family. The problems do
not end in that state because they, especially Mason, also have to witness that their mother ends up her new marriage as a victim of violence. However, as time goes
by, Mason can accept that condition and reach his adolescent.
7. Previous Studies
Politeness strategies had been a common topic which is conducted by other researchers. However, there are only some researchers who interested in
analyzing politeness strategies of refusal expressions. One research that focus on analyzing the politeness strategies of refusal is a thesis conducted by
Charismawati 2014 entitled “Positive Politeness of Refusal in Three American Drama Movies.”
The research is aimed to describe how the ways of the characters in Legally Blonde, Yes Man, and Not That Just Into You movie deliver the positive
and negative politeness strategies in their refusal and to find out what is the most dominant strategy of positive and negative politeness strategies used by the
characters. The research discovered that the most dominant strategy used by the characters in expressing positive politeness strategies is “giving or asking for
reasons”. Meanwhile, strategy “being conventionally indirect” is the most
36 frequent strategy of negative politeness strategies which is often used by the
characters in the movie. The second previous study is an article in Sino-US English Teaching
journal, conducted by Zhao Peng-Liang and Gao Min entitled “Politeness
Strategies in Refusal.” The aim of this article is to discuss some politeness strategies in refusal based on Brown and Levinson’s theoretical framework.
However, this paper does not discuss all types of politeness strategy propose by Brown and Levinson, it only focuses on the positive politeness strategy and off
record strategy. This research discovers that face saving strategies are commonly delivered through positive politeness strategy rather than bald off record strategy.
Related to the two previous studies above, there are several differences between the two previous studies and the study conducted by the researcher.
While the previous studies only focus on positive and off record politeness strategies, this research is aimed to discover the kinds of positive and negative
politeness strategies. This research is also aimed to discover the factors influence the decision of the characters to choose certain types of politeness strategies.
Thus, it can be concluded that this research is different with the two previous studies.
B. Conceptual Framework
The researcher conducts the research under the issue of pragmatics since the researcher analyzes the language in use. This research is aimed to identify and
describe the kinds of positive and negative politeness strategies of refusals in
