Bald On Record Strategy
One type of the sub-strategy in positive politeness strategy is intensifying interest to hearer.
Extract 4
Molly : Ing, am I hideous? Ingrid : What?
Molly : As my best friend, it is your duty not to lie to me. Please tell
me, am I turning into a hideous hag?
Ingrid : You can have any guy here with the snap of a finger. Whats gotten into you?
Molly : Oh, my God.
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The dialogue in extract 4 happens in the night club. Molly is celebrating her 22
nd
birthday. The conversation happens between Molly and Ingrid. Molly is worried about her face. She wants to be more respected by Ingrid. She is intensifying interest
to the hearer to show her positive face threat to Ingrid. She says
as my best friend, it is your duty not to lie to me
. It shows that she would like to deliver her interest to the hearer. She wants to have a good answer from Ingrid by attempting positive
politeness strategy. Positive politeness is concerned with the person’s positive face which tends to
emphasize that both speakers want the same thing. Its illustration can be seen in extract 5.
Extract 5
Molly : What is with this music, anyway? Ray
: It happens to be Mozart.
Molly : It happens to be depressing. If were gonna have fun, we need to listen to music thats fun.
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The conversation takes place in Ray’s room. The conversation happens between Molly and Ray. Ray is listening to classical music in her room. On the other
hand, Molly feels so bored with this music. Then, Molly applies positive politeness strategy. She is applied the sub strategies of both speaker and hearer in the activity.
She wants to make the distance among them to be closer. She wants to change the music to be more fun because she wants to have something for fun together and
wants to get Ray to agree to do this, so she applies this strategy. The next example is shown in the dialogue in extract 6. This is the example of
using in-group identity markers in speech in positive politeness strategy.
Extract 6 Molly : Rise and shine, Ophelia. Hello, my little sugar pie. How you
doin?
Ray : Isnt it your day off?
Molly : Indeed it is. And its yours, too.
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This conversation happens in Ray’s room. Molly comes to Ray’s house to visit her and see her condition. Molly applies positive politeness in her utterance.
Molly tries to minimize the distance between Ray and her. She is using in-group identity markers in her speech by saying
my little sugar pie
to Ray. She would like to
show that she cares a lot about her.