POLITENESS USED BY ISLAMIC EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATION STAFF OF STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY NORTH SUMATRA.

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POLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY THE ISLAMIC

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT ADMINISTRATION

STAFF OF STATE ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY

NORTH SUMATRA

A Thesis

Submitted to the English Applied Linguistic Study Program in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Magister Humaniora

AKHRIF YAHSYA

Registration Number: 8136111004

ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTIC STUDY PROGRAM

POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL

STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN

2016

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ABSTRACT

AKHRIF YAHSYA. Reg. Number: 8136111004. Politeness Used by Islamic Education Department Administration Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra. Postgraduate School of the State University of Medan.

This research deals with politeness strategies used by administration staff of Islamic Education Department toward students. This study aims to find out what and how the using of politeness strategies used by Islamic Education Department Administration Staff and why they use it when interact with the students by using Brown and Levinson theory. This research is qualitative study. The data is gathered from administration staff who work in Islamic Education Department of State Islamic University North Sumatra. To get the data the researcher used sound recorder to find out the use of politeness strategies. From the analysis, the researcher found that there are four politeness strategies used by administration staff when they interact to the students. They are greeting, question, command, and request. The most of strategies used in the field are bald on record rather than positive and negative politeness strategy. They used these strategies to save the time, because there are so many students have to be served. The other reason is diversity age and avoiding the ambiguity. The staff sometimes uses positive and negative politeness strategies. They used positive politeness especially for recognized students to make closeness and friendly when they ask them to do something and they used negative politeness strategies to save face student awareness when the staff tried to judge students by doing mistake. The implication of this study is to increase the using of positive politeness strategies when administration staff talk to the students. This is because the positive politeness strategies can minimize Face Threatening Acts to endeavor a harmony in social interaction.

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ABSTRAK

Penelitian ini membahas mengenai strategi kesantunan yang digunakan oleh staf administrasi Jurusan Pendidikan Agama Islam saat melayani mahasiswa. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menemukan strategi apa saja dan bagaimana staf administrasi Jurusan Pendidikan Agama Islam menggunakan strategi kesantunan dan mengapa mereka menggunakan strategi kesantunan dengan cara tersebut ketika berinteraksi dengan mahasiswa berdasarkan teori Brown and Levinson. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian kualitatif. Data dalam penelitian ini didapat dari staf yang bekerja di Jurusan Pendidikan Agama Islam Universitas Islam Negeri Sumatera Utara. Untuk mendapatkan data tersebut, peneliti menggunakan perekam suara untuk mendapatkan data yang berkaitan dengan penggunaan strategi kesantunan. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, peneliti menemukan bahwa ada empat strategi kesantunan yang digunakan oleh staf administrasi ketika mereka berinteraksi dengan mahasiswa. Keempat strategi tersebut adalah, greeting, question, command, dan request. Strategi yang paling sering digunakan adalah kelompok bald on record dari pada positive dan negative politeness strategy. Staff menggunakan strategi bald on record dengan tujuan untuk menghemat waktu, karena terlalu banyak mahasiswa yang harus dilayani. Selain alasan tersebut, perbedaan usia serta keinginan untuk menghilangkan ketidakjelasan saat berkomunikasi juga menjadi alasan mengapa staff cenderung menggunakan strategi bald on record. Staf juga kadang-kadang menggunakan positive dan negative politeness strategy. Mereka menggunakan positive politeness strategy terutama kepada mahasiswa yang dikenal dan ingin membuat keakraban ketika mereka hendak menyuruh mahasiswa untuk melakukan sesuatu dan mereka menggunakan negative politeness strategy untuk menjaga kewibawaan mahasiswa ketika staff mencoba untuk menghukum mahasiswa karena telah melakukan kesalahan. Hasil dari penelitian ini diharapkan dapat meningkatkan penggunaan positive politeness strategy ketika staff administrasi berkomunikasi dengan mahasiswa. Hal ini penting karena positive politeness strategy dapat meminimalisir keterancaman mahasiswa saat berkomunikasi untuk membuat keharmonisan dalam interaksi social.

Katakunci: Strategi Kesantunan, Jurusan Pendidikan Agama Islam, Staf Administrasi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and above all, I praise God, the almighty for providing me this opportunity and granting me the capability to proceed successfully. This thesis appears in its current form due to the assistance and guidance of several people. I would therefore like to offer my sincere thanks to all of them.

Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisors Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd and Dr. Didik Santoso, M.Pd for the continuous support to finish my master degree. Their guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my master degree study.

My sincere thanks also goes to my father Alm. Bachtiar Syafir, my mother Siti Zahara, brothers Surya Atmaja Putra and Muhammad Arifin and my sisters Ro Rosmawati, Afrida Hanum, S.Ag, Sri Banun,S.Ag, Sri Murni.

To all the office administration staff of Islamic Education Department Drs. Abd. Halim Nasution, M.Ag., Drs. H. Syamsu Nahar, M.Ag., Dra. Arlina, M.Pd., Mahariah, M.Ag., and Parida, S.Pd.I. who gave me the data to analyse. My Dean Prof. Dr. H. Syafaruddin, M.Pd who always asks me to finish my thesis at the time, my senior Dr. H. Candra Wijaya, M.Pd who always criticizes me in all my activities, Nasrul Syakur Chaniago, SS, M.Pd which I considered as my brother who always supports me. My friends Amiruddin, M.Pd, Muhammad Fadhli, M.Pd, Oda Kinata Barurea, M.Pd, they are all the alumnae of Education Administration of Unimed Postgraduate who always asks me to finish my study.

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Lia Khairiah Harahap and Yuliana Siburian, the staff which is taking their study in Unimed in postgraduate, they are my close friend. I pray for your success in your study.

My classmate, especially for all men, Harto Susanto, Hidayat and Andi Kurniansyah Sirait and all for the girls who precede me in finishing the thesis. I love you all.

Medan, June 2016 The writer,

Akhrif Yahsya

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ... i

ABSTRAK ... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT... iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS... v

LIST OF FIGURES ... vii

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of the Study ... 1

1.2 The Problem of the Study ... 6

1.3 The Objective of the Study ... 6

1.4 The Scope of the Study... 7

1.5 The Significance of the Study... 7

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1 The Politeness Strategies ... 8

2.1.1 Face Wants... 15

2.1.2 Positive Politeness ... 16

2.1.3 Negative Politeness... 20

2.2 Politeness in Communication ... 25

2.3 Conversation Analysis ... 28

2.4 The Administration Staffs of Islamic Education Department ... 35

2.5 The Previous Relevant Studies ... 37

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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 The Research Setting ... 42

3.2 The Data and the Sources of Data ... 42

3.3 The Instrument and Technique of Collecting Data... 43

3.4 Trustworthiness of the Study ... 43

3.5 The Technique of Analyzing Data... 44

CHAPTER IV RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 Data Analysis... 45

4.1.1 Types of Politeness Strategies Were Used by Administration Staff ... 46

4.1.1.1 Greeting ... 47

4.1.1.2 Question ... 49

4.1.1.3 Command... 51

4.1.1.4 Request... 53

4.1.2 The Way of Politeness Strategies Were Used by Administration Staff ... 54

4.1.3 The Reason for Administration Staff used The Politeness Strategies ... 57

4.2 Research Findings... 61

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CHAPTER V CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

5.1 Conclusion ... 67 5.2 Suggestion ... 68

REFERENCES... 69 APPENDIX 1 TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDING ON STAFF_’S

COMMUNICATION ... 72 APPENDIX 2 CODING THE DATA ... 85

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TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson

1987: 69) ... 11 Figure 2 How to Get a Pen from Someone Else (following Brown and

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Background of the Study

Politeness is the reaction of someone to show his behaviour in relation to communicate for other people, because politeness is the attitude which is can not be separated to the social phenomena. Politeness arises from social interaction. It can not stand individually. However, the act of politeness is holding by individually as what Reiter (2000:3) said that politeness is thus a form of social interaction, a form that mediates between the individual and the social. The polite or impolite act is performed by an individual whose choices for the instrumentality of such an act are based upon collective norms and whose motivation in performing the act is that of structuring social interaction.

From this explanation is shown that politeness happened in social situation. That is why when someone is talking, the judgment then appeared is from the other people, not from his self because politeness is the phenomena of social function, so the tendency of politeness must be consider as behaviour should people think before they act. This is appropriate from what Sri Minda (2013: 3) said, because of linguistic politeness is formed from social setting, the realisation is acceptable in particularly to current practice people. Practice people are bureaucracy people, academics people, neighbourhood people, housewifery, the society people like regular social gathering, etc. because of the politeness

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taking in particular people, the perception of politeness also can be different based on the practice situation.

From the explanation above, it can be generalized that the using of politeness will be different depending on the situation or particular culture of people to view of politeness as the expression should be spoken. We can not judge someone as impolite when they talked something is not acceptable for one culture because the differences of determining the politeness is vary for one particular culture to another. That is why the labelling of using politeness can be difficult because we need to know the background of the people who use it as the expression in communication.

Students as a part of academic people educated in formal setting education are not only given the cognitive learning but also given the attitude how they should interact and communicate with each other. They are expected through by their knowledge can be representative for other people in doing or talking something. The politeness that they have is depended on the situation that they received from their experiences. That is why the communication with whom they speak is affected to their way in communication. Besides their parents, the environment is also influenced the way for their communication, whether they are polite or impolite.

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politeness can be link to make the stability communication. Markus (2011) said the display of respect or deference in student teacher relationships is one example of awareness of face, based on the fact that a person who is a teacher will automatically have some authority and therefore social distance to a student. The student on the other hand, places the teacher in a certain position which demands some amount of authority. He said also that being politeness in social settings or displaying appropriate in different ways depending on our cultural backgrounds or the culture we happen to be in at the time may function as a concept of politeness. People who are modest, respectful, tactful etc., are often referred to as those who display politeness. We can display these characteristics in everyday situations, however, when we conduct a conversation or participate in different interactions; there are other more specific types of politeness involved.

Today, the value of politeness has been changed as while as the changed of the time. This is happened in the academic people where the students shift the way they speak to their lecture or teacher. As what the lecture of IAIN said that

“Mahasiswa sekarang bicaranya nggak kayak kami dulu. Dulu waktu kami mau ngomong sama dosen takut kali, sehingga kata-kata nya pun harus benar-benar dipilih, nggak asal ngomong”

(Today the students when they are talking is different from we are as the student. In the past time we were afraid to talk to our lecture, so then the choice of word is quite selected, not randomly). (22ndApril, 2015)

One of the characteristic of Indonesian people is to be careful for whom they speak with. This is what Moffatt said (2012: 7) “To avoid being the cause of shame, Indonesian can be very careful with how they speak and interact”.

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Furthermore, Silvia and Zuzanna said that Indonesians are indirect communicators. This means they do not always say what they mean. It is up to the listener to read between the lines or pay attention to gesture and body language to get the real massage. Unfortunately, many students now in Indonesian country do not use indirect speech act to speak with the others. They sometime use direct speech act like what one of my student said to me “Pak jangan lupa ya, kita besok masuk jam setengah sembilan”. (Don’t forget sir, we will have class at 8.30 for tomorrow). This statement is categorized as direct speech act which is not suitable for Indonesia culture.

From this reality we can not conclude that the sources of mistaken are from the students itself, we have to consider the another aspects of the environment with whom they speak to find the deep reason why the shift of attitude is changed for the students, especially the way they speak which is showing the politeness or not. For this chance the writer wants to investigate and analyse what strategies is used for the staffs’administration to communicate to the students. Are staffs’ administration used the politeness strategies to communicate for their students?

This research is important to be conducted to know how far the Islamic Education Department Staffs of State Islamic University North Sumatra use politeness strategies in formal education setting while they are talking to serve the

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research to investigate the role of parents to form the politeness of students, so the study of politeness find the deep answer to the problems of politeness that has been weak.

Why the study of politeness is important to be conducted? It is because the attitude of politeness has been changed. Many people now, not only students but the leaders of Indonesian country do not use the politeness strategies to speak which is not acceptable to hear. In TV we watched many of our leaders especially in DPR meeting as what Sri Minda (2013) showed in her research said the impolite statement. The writer is expected that this study can grow the spirit of politeness which has been weak for individualist that accentuate his or her self without respecting for another face by saying something is not acceptable for society.

The data that I found as a preliminary data to conduct the research is the conversation which is taken between student and his lecturer via telephone:

Student : Pak, bapak dimana? (Sir, where are you now?) Lecturer : Ini siapa?

(Who is calling?)

Student : Saya mahasiswa Bapak, mau bimbingan skripsi.

(I’m your student wanted to ask your advice for my skripsi) Lecturer : (mematikan handphone)

(turning off the cellular)

(2ndMarch, 2015)

In the dialog above, the ignoring response of lecture is the impact of the student utterance to do not respect of calling for someone who has not same level. The student is supposing that his utterance is acceptable for him to speak with his

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friend or his family which is insulting the lecture who do not know that the caller is his student. The students should be careful to speak especially via telephone like introduce his self before he says what he meant is and then the conflict can be avoided.

This situation is also happen in office communication while the students always give the poor attitude when they speak to his staffs. However, the staffs always respond the positive attitude to the students as they know their function as customer service for the students. In this reason the researcher wants to investigate the politeness strategies used by administration staffs toward his students in academic communication which is taken place in Islamic Education Department of UIN SU by the title: “Politeness Strategies Used by Islamic Education Department Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra”

1.2 The Problems of the Study

The problems of the study are formulated as in the following.

1. What kinds of politeness strategies are used by the Islamic Education Department Staffs of State Islamic University North Sumatra?

2. How are the politeness strategies pragmatically used by the Islamic Education Department Staffs of State Islamic University North Sumatra? 3. Why do the Islamic Education Department Staffs of State Islamic

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1.3 The Objectives of the Study

In relation to the problems of the study, the objectives of the study are. 1. To describe kinds of politeness strategies are used by the Islamic

Education Department Staffs of State Islamic University North Sumatra, 2. To investigate realisations of politeness strategies are used by the Islamic

Education Department Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra, and

3. To reason for the reasons of the politeness strategies use by the Islamic Education Department Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra.

1.4 The Scope of the Study

This study attempts to investigate the politeness strategies used by the Islamic Education Department Staff of State Islamic University North Sumatra, especially the utterance of communication uttered by the Islamic Education Department staffs toward the students in academic people of Tarbiyah and Education Faculty UIN SU. The main aspects to be observed are the politeness strategies of administration staffs in uttering request or announcement to the students.

1.5 The Significance of the Study

Findings of this study are excepted to be significantly relevant to the theoretical and practical aspects. Theoretically, the research findings are expected

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to develop the theories of linguistic politeness strategies. Practically, this study will be significantly for the staffs and students in Islamic Education Department of Tarbiyah and Education Faculty UIN North Sumatra for using politeness in communication especially in academic purpose so that the communication will not offend for each other.

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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

5.1 Conclusion

After analysing the data, in this section the writer concluded.

1. There were four politeness strategies used in communication which is taken place in Islamic Education Department of Islamic State University, they are: greeting, question, command, and request.

2. Using these strategies, the administration staffs of Islamic Education Department dominantly used bald on record strategy rather than positive and negative politeness strategy as their way to communicate with students. They combined the strategy depending on the situation, but sometimes they do not do FTA.

3. The reason for the staffs dominantly used bald on record strategy is to save the time, because there are so many students to be serve, then the staffs responded students to the point so they can serve for other students. The other reason is diversity age. It means that staffs more senior than students. For Indonesia culture, it is acceptable for the senior uses the direct responded without any small talk. This strategy also is used by staff to avoid the ambiguity. However, they also used positive strategy for recognized students to make closeness and friendliness and used negative politeness to save students face.

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5.2 Suggestion

In relation to the conclusion, there are suggestions that the writer want to present in this section as follows.

1. The administration staffs of Islamic Education of State Islamic University to consider the importance of politeness strategies and establish it in interaction to students. The using of politeness strategies can avoid Face Threatening Act (FTA) that makes students comfortable and enjoyable to finish their study in State Islamic University.

2. It is suggested to the next front-line of staffs to be have the politeness strategies in their communication skill in order to give the best server for someone who need it.

3. Further research to enrich the field of politeness strategies in the other context.

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67 5.1 Conclusion