Go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting
straightly asks “whose field” which means “Whose field do you usually work at” The great efficiency is needed because Atticus does not expect any other
answer except the owner ‟s name of the field. The efficiency of Atticus
utterance is showed by the short question “Whose field?” More example of the realization of Bald on Record strategy is when
Atticus is showing great direct response in his utterance. It can be seen in the following conversation between Atticus and Mayella, the victim of the crime.
Atticus said,
“Is this the man who raped you?”
“It most certainly is.” Datum 17BR1188
The conversation above takes place in the court. Atticus is showing
urgency of knowing whether the man he is pointing out is the man who rapes the hearer or not.
The urgency of Atticus‟ questions is laid on the bolded sentence above. The urgency is that Atticus wants to know exactly and
instantly that the man he points to is the man who raped the victim few days before.
Atticus as a lawyer wants to make sure that “this man” is the rapist and not somebody else, so that the trial process can be continued directly. In the
conversation, Atticus as the speaker shows bald on record strategy, because he does not need to minimize the threat to the hearer. It is shown by directly
saying that a certain man in the courtroom is the one who raped her. Atticus does not replace the word “rape” to other words like “violate”
or “abuse” and he does not care if his choice of word hurt the hearer.He is the
lawyer, the person who is in charge of questioning the witnesses and the victim in front of the judge and the law.
One more example of bald on record politeness strategy realization is when Atticus shows task orientation. In the conversation during the t rial
between Atticus and Mr. Tate, Atticus is showing that he urges for a task aimed for Mr Tate. He wants Mr. Tate to explain something.
“How do you know?”
Mr. Tate grinned. “Sorry, that‟s what they said. Anyway, she was pretty bruised up when I got there
, and she had a black eye comin„.” Datum 6BR1170
The question “How do you know” contains task orientation, that is asking Mr. Tate to explain clearly about something that he knows about the bruises on
the victim‟s face. Atticus does not expect a short answer. What he expects from the task orientated question in data above is a task to explain in detail, like who
causes the bruises, the reasons, time, date, etc. The facts are important in a trial and that is why Atticus is using this type of politeness strategy realization. In the
conversation, Atticus is using bald on record politeness strategy because he does not need to minimize the threat.