17 conversation so that their utterances will be considered as polite. The context in
pragmatics may cause people to speak explicitly andor implicitly Yule, 1996. When people speak implicitly, they will talk about their intention indirectly.
According to Leech 1983, the more indirect the statement is, the more polite it will be.
Politeness becomes an important factor in pragmatics study because it may help people to find out why people are often so indirect in conveying their
meaning. It will also cover the reason why people give politeness a high rating in a certain situation.
c. Negative and Positive Face in Politeness
Face is stated as public self-image which everybody wants to claim for himself Brown Levinson, 1987. There are two kinds of face, namely negative
face and positive face.
1 Negative face
Brown and Levinson 1987 define negative face as the want of every member of society that his or her action be unimpeded by others p. 62. It is also
stated as the desire for autonomy Holtgraves, 2002. It can be simplified that every individual has their own want to be free from impediment or not to be
restricted by others. Hence, it focuses on freedom of action and freedom of imposition.
2 Positive face
Positive face is defined as the want of every member of society that his or her wants be desirable to at least some other members Brown Levinson, 1987.
18 It is stated as the desire for connection with others Holtgraves, 2002. It means
that every individual has their own wants and desires and they want their wants and desires to be accepted and appreciated by others.
d. Face Threatening Act FTA in Politeness
According to Brown and Levinson 1987, FTA is defined as the act which may threaten or run contrary to the face wants of the addressee andor the speaker.
The acts that may threaten or violate someone‟s face can be done by verbal or
non-verbal communication. FTA can threaten or violate negative or positive face. As the example is request may threaten the hearer‟s negative face because they
restrict autonomy. Besides, disagreement can threaten the hearer‟s positive face because they may minimize the solidarity between the speaker and the hearer.
e. Politeness Strategies
Brown and Levinson 1987 state that politeness strategies are kinds of strategies which formulate an expression which is less threatening for the hearer‟s
face in order to save their face p. 91. People may use politeness strategies to arrange the statement or utterances in order to show an awareness of the face
when face threatening acts FTA is likely to happen. There are four strategies of politeness based on Brown and Levinson 1987 which are classified as follows.
1 Bald on record
According to Brown and Levinson 1987, bald on record is used whenever the speaker wants to threaten hearer‟s face, by doing the FTA, in a maximum
efficiency more than he o r she wants to save hearer‟s face p. 95. Hence, bald on
