c. Speech Act of Command
Speech act of command is a part of directive class of speech act. Since directive speech act has the basic function to make someone do some future
action for the speaker, therefore, command possesses the same function. According to Searle 1979:3, command and request have the same
illocutionary point or purpose. Both attempt to make someone do something. However, they differ in terms of their illocutionary force. When a speaker
performs a command, he assumes that the hearer has the duty to carry out the command.
In summary, a command can only be performed by someone who has
the duty or authority over the addressee Cruse, 2006:62. Moreover, it should
be performed in the right circumstances. There are certain expected or appropriate circumstances for the performance of speech act which are
technically known as felicity condition Yule, 1996:50. Since speech act of command may threat the hearer
’s face, the application of politeness strategies are therefore needed to redress the negative impact.
3. Face
According to Goffman 1967:5, face is a positive social value of a person that he claims for himself. It is an image of self that a person shows to
fulfill the social norms. Yule 1996:60 adds that the term face refers to the public self image which contains both emotional and social sense that
everyone wants to maintain.
In everyday interactions, people generally behave according to their expectation on how they want their public image to be accepted or
recognized. They behave in a certain way in order to show others how their self image or face looks like. This desire of showing image of self is known
as face wants. Additionally, the act of saying or doing something which represents threat to addressee’s face is known as face threatening act. On the
other hand, the act of doing or saying something in order to lessen the impact of a threat toward
a speaker’s face is known as face saving act. Further, Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:62, assume that every individual has
two types of face. They are negative face and positive face. According to Brown and Levinson in Goody 1978:61, negative face is
the basic claims of territories, personal preserves, and right to non-distraction. In contrast, positive face is the desire of being appreciated and approved by
interactants. Similarly, Yule 1996:62 argues that positive face is a need to be accepted by others as the same member of a certain social group.
4. Politeness
According to Lakoff in Watts 2003:50, politeness is defined as a set of values or rules in societies which is used to develop the social harmony in
communications. Similarly, Leech in Watts, 2003:50 states that politeness is a strategy to avoid any conflict in a process of communication. Basically
people tend to avoid threat to other face or they will choose to employ a certain strategy to minimize the impact because people face are vulnerable
Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978:68. Further, Watts 2003:86 adds that
politeness is a strategy to minimize face threatening into a very minimum. Moreover, Holmes 2006:711 argues that politeness is a matter of linguistic
choices that can be used by the speaker to convey his needs or wants. Thus, it
can be concluded that politeness is a linguistic strategy in communication which has two possible impacts on the hearer
’s face. First, it can be used to threa
t participant’s face want. Second, it can also be used to minimize the threat on participant’s face want. However, it is mostly used to establish and
maintain a good social relationship among participants.
a. Politeness Strategies and The Realizations
According to Brown and Levinson, there are four types of politeness strategies in interactions. They are bald on record, off record, positive
politeness, and negative politeness Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978:69. Politeness strategies are applied by a speaker when the circumstances in
communication force him to perform a face threatening act. In doing so, he can choose the strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson. First, he can go
on record baldly without any means of minimizing the negative impact on add
ressee’s face want. Second, he can go on record with redressive action by taking the add
ressee’s positive face wants which is known as positive politeness strategies. Third, a speaker can also perform negative politeness
strategies by going on record with redressive action to minimize the threat on the addressee’s negative face want. The last strategy is being off record, or
saying something by doing something else.
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