Negative Politeness Strategies Found in
55 Ellen
: Listen, before I say goodbye to you, it is your 69
th
birthday in a few weeks.
Hillary : It is.
Ellen : And I can imagine, but tell you wish for your birthday.
Hillary : Well, I have several wishes, one of them obviously includes the
election, but I also, I really wish that I will be the president that are country needs right now, that‘s my deepest hope. [Applause] OR
Full transcript can be seen in Appendix B, p. 88
The president candidate, Hillary Clinton, was interviewed by Ellen about her progress in doing the campaign. Hillary told Ellen and the audience
about her campaign and some memorable moments during the campaign. When the talk show was approaching to finish, Ellen reminded Hillary that her birthday
was close. Then, Ellen asked Hillary to share her wishes in front of the audience. Dialogue 13
showed Hillary‘s wishes. She applied the off record strategy by giving hints to Ellen and the audience. By giving the hints, Hillary left the hearer
to search for an interpretation about her intention. She was in the condition of doing the campaign and she wished that she could be elected as a president. It was
clear that she gave the hint for Ellen and the audience to choose her in the election so that she would be a president. Thus, she used the off record strategy to avoid
the responsibility in doing the FTA towards Ellen and the audience. The use of overstating words in the off record strategy indicated that
the speaker wanted to exaggerate a point on a scale which was higher than the actual state. In this case, Hillary used the overstating words while doing her
campaign. The conversation between Hillary and Ellen that contained overstating words was shown in Dialogue 14. The overstating words or the off record strategy
was labeled as ‗OR‘.
56 Dialogue 14
Clip Title :
Hillary Clinton Catches Up with Ellen
Time : 01.16-01.32
Participants : Hillary Clinton and Ellen Hillary
: I‘m not asking people to vote for me because I‘m a woman, but I
think if you vote for somebody on the merits, one of my merits is I‘m a woman, and I think that makes a big difference in today‘s
world. OR Ellen
: Yes, yes. But I do, and I think that a l ot of women, we‘re so
conditioned for so long to be —to be less than.
Full transcript can be seen in Appendix B, p. 80
In the interview, Ellen was talking about the achievements that had been produced by Hillary. Ellen asked Hillary to give her opinion about women rights
and motivations for all women in the world. Since she was one of the president candidates in U.S., she used those opportunities to do the campaign. She showed
her privileges as a woman and her promises to the audience. She used the off record strategy to deliver her wants implicitly, so that the audience should
interpret what she really wanted. The actual fact was that she wanted the audience to choose her as the next president of U.S.