11 and she likes others to admire them. She is gratified when people
say ‗What a lovely cat; I want to touch it. How do you take care of its fur?‖, implying that they
want just what she has wanted and achieved Brown Levinson, 1987.
b. Face Threatening Act
When a speaker produces an utterance that violates hearer‘s positive or
negative face, he does the Face Threatening Act FTA. It is intuitively the case that the speaker‘s utterances threaten the hearer‘s face. The utterances will
threaten the hearer‘s face when there is a difference between the speaker and hearer
‘s wants or desire. In other words, the speaker and hearer‘s wants run contrary. Brown and Levinson 1987 state that FTA is a threat used by a speaker
that consists of mitigating statement and verbal repair or politeness p. 66. The speaker may threaten the hearer‘s face, for example by asking for help which
threatens hearer‘s negative face since the speaker is potentially imposing on the
hearer or just simply by giving compliments which threatens hearer‘s positive face
since the speaker satisfying the hearer. Furthermore, FTA can be done within verbal and non-verbal communication. However, the focus of this study is to
analyze FTAs which are produced verbally. People need to be aware of the utterance that they produced. They must be
careful in choosing the words to be uttered to maintain the hearer‘s face. Any
misunderstanding will happen if the speaker‘s utterance threatens the hearer‘s
face. Besides, the misunderstanding will damage their interpersonal communication. Therefore, B
rown and Levinson‘s 1987 politeness strategies PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
12 serve four notions
to save both speaker and hearer‘s face. The four notions will be described in the following section.
5. Politeness Strategies
Based on Brown and Levinson 1987, politeness strategies are strategies which concern
saving hearer‘s face by producing an expression that is less threatening for the hearer‘s face. There are four main strategies which are
presented by Brown and Levinson 1987, namely bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record. The following points show deeper
explanation of each politeness strategy.
a. Bald on Record
Brown and Levinson 1987 state that bald on record is the maximum efficiency in communication. The speaker uses bald on record when he does the
FTA with maximum efficiency more than his wants to satisfy the hearer‘s face.
On the other hand, there are two different classes of bald on-record depending on the cases and motives of the speakers to do the FTA with maximum efficiency,
namely non-minimization of the face threat and the usage of FTA-oriented bald on record.
1 Non Minimization of the Face Threat
The first class of bald on record deals with the condition where the face threat is irrelevant. This class is the class where the FTA is ignored and not
minimized. The communication difficulties of this class exert pressure to speak with maximum efficiency. The class where the FTA is ignored includes the case
of great urgency or desperation, the case where the speaker‘s willingness to satisfy
