37
5. Previous Studies
There are many studies dealing with the topic of politeness whether under pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, or other issues. Therefore, it is
worth to refer some of which so that the current study of the research can be more comprehensive. The results of the previous studies are very helpful for the
researcher in analyzing the data. The previous studies in question are as follows. First of all, it is an undergraduate thesis written in 2012 by Talitha
Yuniawati entitled A Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Features in Revolutionary Road. In this research, she tried to dig out the politeness strategies used by the
main characters, which are the female and the male ones, and the politeness principles underlying the preference of the strategies themselves. It was based on
Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategies and Leech’s theory of politeness principles. The result showed that both of the characters used four types
of politeness and used mostly the positive politeness. Meanwhile, the principle mostly used is approbation maxim. In addition, the result of the research
highlighted that there was no significant difference in the application of politeness principles between the male and female main character.
Another previous study is an undergraduate thesis written by Fajar Subekti Zulkarnain in 2016 entitled Politeness Strategies of Commands Used by Vanessa
Keller and Darius Hayes in the First Season of the Lottery Super Series. The research discussed politeness strategies, their realizations, and the factors
regarding to the use of politeness expression in one speech act form namely commands. The result showed that all politeness strategies with various
38
realizations are used by both of the characters in giving commands and the relative power is the large contributing factor to their politeness strategies.
These two researches are used as the comparison as well as the reference for the current study. The difference between these researches and the current
research lies in the object and the focus of the study. The current study is aimed to examine the types of politeness strategies, the realizations of each strategy, and
the affecting sociological factors in the utterances of the main character only.
B. Conceptual Framework
This research is under the field of pragmatics which discusses the phenomena of politeness along with their realizations and affecting sociological
factors. This study is based on Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness in Goody, 1978. The strategies studied here are those used by the main character of
The Great Debaters movie, Melvin B. Tolson, who represents as a teacher character. In this movie the utterances performed by Melvin B. Tolson are
analyzed in term of his politeness strategies which are divided into bald on-record strategies, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness strategies, and off-
record strategies. The researcher also analyzes how the strategies are realized by him. Finally, the affecting sociological factors in politeness as in Brown and
Levinson’s theory, i.e. rank of imposition, social distance, and relative power are the focus as well. Based on this conceptual framework, the researcher makes an
analytical construct as shown below.