Politeness Strategies and The Realizations

2 Off Record According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:69, off record means the act of saying something by saying or doing something else. Further, they explain that off record can be in the form of metaphor, irony, rhetorical question and all kinds of hints that in dicate the speaker’s intention. Furthermore, there are two sub strategies which can be use as the realization of off record politeness strategies. They are inviting conversational implicature and being vague or ambiguous. First is inviting conversational implicature. It means the act of saying something which is indirectly related to a speaker’s intention Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978:213. Further, they add that a speaker can invite conversational implicature in two ways, by giving hints and giving associated clues. For example, there are students in a class, then one of them says “It’s cold in here”. When he says that, it can mean more than one meaning. It is possible that he only wants to convey that it is really cold in the class. However, it is also possible that he wants the addressee to respond by doing a certain act, such as closing the window, or switching off the air conditionioner. In this example, it can be seen that the speaker already gives the hint and an associated clue to convey his intention although he does not say it directly. Second is being vague or ambiguous. According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:225 it means stating something unclearly which sometimes contain multiple possible interpretations. Normally, in order to establish an efficient communication processs, participants will avoid obscurity and ambiguity of expressions. They explain further that participants tend convey their intention in a brief and in an order manner in order to makes communication process running. Thus, being vague or ambiguous means violating the need of being clear in communication. For example, when a speaker gets a headache and he tries to ask an aspirin to his friend by saying “oh damn, a headache...” rather than “oh damn, I get a headache, can you help me?” or “oh damn, I get a headache, get me your aspirin please”, this incomplete utterance leaves more rooms of interpretations for the addressee . Yet, the context of communication will help the addressee understand the speaker’s intention. Since both participants know that the addressee has an aspirin, the hearer will understand that the the speaker wants to ask an aspirin to reduce his headache. 3 Positive Politeness According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:70, possitive politeness is a strategy which is oriented to satisfy the hearer ’s positive face wants. It leads the speaker to seek a common goal or even friendship Yule, 1996:64. This strategy appears when a speaker tries to recognize the addressee’s positive face wants in order to soften the face threatening act. Brown and Levinson classify positive politeness strategy into two sub strategies. They are claiming for common ground and conveying that both participants are cooperators. Claiming for common ground is a strategy when a speaker performs an action which indicates that both participants in communication belong to the same social group and they share the same specific wants, goals, and values Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978:103. Further, they elaborate that one of the strategy to claim for common ground is attending or noticing the addressee’s interests or wants. For example, a speaker says to his staff in an office “Jim, you’re really good at solving computer problems, I wonder if you could just help me with a litle formating problem I’ve got” Watts, 2003:89. In the first utterance, the speaker recognizes the addressee’s positive face wants by praising his skill in solving computer problems. Yet, he shows his real intention in the second utterance by directly demanding the addreessee to help him. Other strategies to show the common ground are exaggerating interest, approval, and sympathy to the hearer, using in-group identity makers, seeking agreement, avoiding disagreement, and presupposing the common ground. According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:125, there is a condition when both speaker and addressee want to show that they are cooperators in communications. The realization of this strategies can be in the form of offering and promising utterances. For example, when a speaker says to his wife “I’ll take you out to dinner on Saturday. If you’ll cook the dinner this evening” Watts, 2003:90, the speaker wants to ask his wife to make a dinner this evening. Yet, in order to soften the face damage on his wife, he offers a promise to take her out to dinner on Saturday. Those two utterances show how the speaker conveys that both participants can get a mutual benefit in the interaction by being cooperative. Moreover, conveying that both participants are cooperators can be performed in five more strategies. They are presupposing the hearer wants, being optimistic, including the participants in the same activity, giving or asking for a reason, and giving gift to the hearer goods, sympathy, understanding, and cooperations. 4 Negative Politeness Negative politeness is a strategy that concerns on the addressee’s negative face wants. Thus, to perform this strategy a speaker has to realize the addressee ’s negative face wants and takes them into consideration Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978:70. The realization of negative politeness classified into four sub strategies. They are, being direct, not presuming or assuming, avoiding to coerce the addressee, and the last one is communicating the speaker’s want to not impinge on the addressee. First realization is being direct. According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:130, it is a combination between on record strategy and the need to minimize the negative impact on the addressee’s face. Thus, the result of this strategy can be seen when a speaker states his intentions indirectly on record which also known as conventionaly indirect strategy. For example, when a speaker wants to ask about a particular time to a stranger or someone who has a higher authority or status than him, he will perform a polite uttrerance such as “Could you tell me the time, please?” instead of “Tell me the time ” Watts, 2003:90. The first utterance lessens the negative impact on the addressee’s negative face because it does not directly damage the addressee’s face. However, the second utterance is clearer and direct. However, it can harm the addressee’s face . The second realization is not presuming or assuming. Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:144 say that a speaker can respect the addressee’s negative face wants by avoiding to presume or assume the addresse’s wants or desires. In other words, to performs this strategy means the speaker keeping a certain distance in communication with the addressee. The realization of this strategies can be in the form of questions and hedges. For example, a speaker states “I wonder wheteher if I could just sort of ask you a litt le question” Watts, 2003:90. The speaker wants to ask a question to the addressee, yet he is afraid to bother the addresse ’s negative face wants. Thus, in this utterance, the speaker shows his respect by not performing any effort to assume the addressee’s wants. The third realization is avoiding to coerce the addresse. Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:172 argue that a speaker may redress the face threatening act toward the hearer’s negative face by avoiding to coerce the addresse’s response on his utterance. The realizations of this strategies are in three forms. They are being pessimistic, minimizing the imposition, and giving the deference. Being pessimistic means a speaker expresses his doubt in the performance of his speech act. For example, a speaker says “If you had a litle time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like to talk about my paper” Watts, 2003:90. The utterance “If you had a litle time to spare for me” shows that the speaker hesitates whether the addresse wants to help him or not. The fourth realization is communicating the speakers ’s want to not impinge on the addressee. Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:187 explain that there are two ways that can be used by a speaker to covey his intention to not impinge the addresse’s negative face wants. They are apologizing and impersonalizing the speaker and addressee. A speaker can lessen the face threat by performing an apology or avoiding t o use the pronoun “I” and “You”. It is intended to show that the participants are not alone but they are only inclusive of a certain group. For example, a speaker says “Sorry to both er, but can I borrow your money?”. In this utterance, the speaker wants to borrow the money, yet, he starts his utterance by apologizing to show that he does not force the addressee to grant his request.

b. Factor Influencing the Choice of Politeness Strategies

The circumstances where a communication occurs also influence the participants to perform politeness strategies. Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:74 recognize three fundamental sociological variables in relation to the relative weight of different face threatening acts. These three sociological variables are, the social distance among participants, the relative power that the addressee has over the speaker, and the ranking of imposition expressed in the utterance. Holmes 2006:713, explains that each of sociological variable components influence to the degree of seriousness of the face threatening act . Thus, the assesment of appropriate strategy or degree of politeness is needed to express the speaker’s intended message. Holmes 2009: 713, gives the example as illustrated bellow. Context : Son to Mother in the family’s living room Son S : um mum, do you think um I could just possibly borrow your car? Mother H : FROWNS Son S : um just for a litle while Mother H : um well FROWNS Son S : it’s just that I need to get this book to Elen tonight The context of the conversation is that there is a boy who wants to borrow his mother’s car. Further, Holmes 2009: 713 explains that in this family relationship the social distance among the participants is low since their frequency of communication is relatively high. However, in their relationship as a family, the mother has a higher power compared to the speaker. Moreover, he asks a big favor to bor row his mother’s car which means the ranking of imposition is high. Based on this circumstances, he is therefore select a more linguistically polite way of asking. In making his request, S includes negative politeness strategies. He avoids to assume H ’s wants by performing hedges or mitigating devices hesitation maker “um”, modal verb “could”, particle “possibly”, and minimizers “just” and “a litle”. Morover, S also performs positive politeness strategies by using group identity mar ker “mum” and providing the reason for a request. If the context changes, for example, if it is the mother who wants to borrow a car from his son then the form of the utterance will be different. The mother will likely perform a command with bald on record strategy rather than negative or positive politeness. It is because the addressee has a relatively lower power compared to the speaker

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