54
he asks his students of the debate team whether they know who Antaeus was or not.
Melvin B. Tolson : Anyone know who Antaeus was?
Henry Lowe : Sure. He was a gigantic wrestler in Greek
Mythology. His mother was, uh, Gaea, the goddess of Earth, and, uh, I mean, he was
unbeatable because anytime someone threw him down to the Earth, it would make him stronger.
Melvin B. Tolson :
That’s correct. It would make him stronger. Defeat would make him stronger.
Datum number 30 In the dialogue above, Henry Lowe answers Melvin’s question. He
describes Antaeus in brief. Melvin agrees wit h Henry’s answer, indicating that he
concerns to his positive face or the need to be approved. In other words, he approves Henry’s positive face by the means of approving his answer. To show
his approval, Melvin performs positive politeness strategy by saying that’s correct
and also repeats parts of Henry’s words, it would make him stronger. The words actually represent the message that Melvin wants his students to be stronger no
matter how hard the condition they suffer.
c. Negative Politeness Strategy
Negative politeness strategy is used by Melvin B. Tolson about 8 times in the movie in which all of them are only addressed to his students of Wiley
College. Negative politeness itself is a type of politeness in which the speaker tries not to impose or impinge hearer’s freedom of action or utterance. It means
that Melvin does not want to impose their wants to be unimpeded upon. Since Melvin is an English Professor in Wiley College, he more or less does FTAs to
his students by the nature of his professional role. Those FTAs pose threat to their
55
negative faces. Therefore, by performing negative politeness strategy, he can minimize the face threat, and the aim to maintain his students’ negative face can
be achieved at the same time. One example of this strategy is in the dialogue between Melvin B. Tolson
and Dunbar Reed taking place at Melvin’s house as the place of the debate team tryout.
Melvin B. Tolson : You shall argue the affirmative, Mr. Reed. Go.
Dunbar Reed :
Well, I’d begin with a quote from the poet Cleghorn. “The golf links lie so near the mill that
almost every day, the laboring children can look out and… and…”
Datum number 10 Dunbar Reed is the first student to do the tryout. After, he stands into the hot spot,
Melvin asks him to argue the affirmative by the proposition that has been already given. Affirmative in debate means that
he is for something. By the idea ‘Child labor should be regulated by the federal government’ given by Melvin, Dunbar
Reed has to argue to support it. By this time, Melvin goes indirectly in saying the command. He chooses to use assertion for the task instead of using imperative
form. It indicates that he asserts the propositional content condition that the hearer will do the task. Furthermore, He also puts a modal verb or the possibility
operator shall in his words. By uttering this indirect speech act, Melvin can save Dunbar’s negative face.
The next example is from the utterance of Melvin addressed to his students when he announces the result of the tryout that is the students chosen as the part
of Wiley Forensics Society this year. There are only four students who are chosen.
56
They are Hamilton Burgess and Henry Lowe as the main debaters and Samantha Booke and James Farmer Jr. as the alternates. The dialogue itself is as follows.
Melvin B. Tolson : Well, write your own dictionary. And mark
this as a new beginning whether you make the team or not.
The Wiley College Forensics Society of 1935-1936 is as follows: The debaters
… will be Mr. Hamilton Burgess from last year’s team…
Hamilton Burgess : instantly standing Yea
Datum number 21 The dialogue takes place in the lecture hall. The utterance performed by
Melvin above clearly poses threat to the negative face of his students since it employs FTA of command. However, Melvin tries to hedge the command
addressed to his students by using the hedge word well, with a purpose that he can avoid making assumption that the students are willing to do the task. The task
itself is that whether or not they make being the part of the debate team, they are asked to write it in their book and mark it as a new beginning for them. It means
that Melvin does not want his students to take it as a failure even if they cannot make it. What Melvin performs in this utterance is negative politeness strategy
since he tries to redress the students’ negative face.
d. Off-record Strategy
