Background of Study INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1. Background of Study

One of the be st human‟s treasures which cannot be found in animals or other creatures is their languages skill Dardjowodjojo 189 . Human‟s languages skill can help them communicate and exchange information with others, verbally or not. Communication is a process where somebody or some people, group, organization, and society created and use information in order to be connected with the environment and others Stewart 4. The aim of communication is to share knowledge or experience through spoken language, written, movement, and broadcasting. The greatest benefit from communication according to Stewart and Brent is to build the social network and nothing more important than the relationship with the others, family ties, friendship, and colleague. Stewart 5 The process can be done through interpersonal communication. Interpersonal communication is the communication between one person and another or others. It is often referred to as face-to-face communication between two or more people. Both verbal and nonverbal communication and body language, play a part in how one person understands another. In verbal interpersonal communication, there are two types of messages being sent: a content message and a relational message. Trenholm and Jensen 360 1 2 Content messages are messages about the topic at hand and relational messages are messages about the relationship itself. This means that relational messages come across in how one says somet hing and it demonstrates a person‟s feelings, whether positive or negative, towards the individual they are talking to, indicating not only how they feel about the topic at hand, but also how they feel about their relationship with the other individual Trenholm and Jensen 360 Sometimes when people do a communication, they can be possibly uttering words that can hurt their interlocutor‟s feeling, so it is very important to keep the interlocutor‟s feeling while having a conversation in order to avoid a possible gap in the relationship with the others. Communication process can be done privately or watched by the public, for example, is the communication process in the talk show. The talk show is a television programming or radio programming genre in which one person or group of people discusses various topics put forth by a talk show host. Niven, Lichter and Amundson 118 Usually, guests consist of a group of people who are learned or who have great experience in relation to whatever issue is being discussed on the show for that episode. One of the most successful talk show is Ellen DeGeneres Show. It is an American television talk show hosted by comedian actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal, When Its On –The Ellen DeGeneres Show in the United States and Canada. The program combines comedy, celebrity, musical guests and human-interest stories. Other 3 non-celebrities have been featured in an attempt by DeGeneres to give them 15 minutes of fame. Guests in this role have included intelligent children, small business owners, etc. The program often features audience participation games where prizes are awarded. In Indonesia, Ellen DeGeneres Show is available in Life Time Asia Channel. The show has won 38 Daytime Emmy Awards, including four for Outstanding Talk Show 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and three for Outstanding Talk Show Entertainment 2010, 2011, 2013. DeGeneres herself has won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host four times 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. The show has also won Emmys for numerous writing and technical categories. It won the Genesis Award for Best Talk Show in 2010 and 2012. DeGeneres has won the Peoples Choice Award for Favorite Daytime TV Host 14 times. The show averages around 3.9 million viewers per episode, according to daytime television ratings, making it a highly viewed daytime show. Seidman Ellen DeGeneres, as the successful talk show host who has won many awards and got millions viewers for her talk show has a responsibility to take care of her talk show‟s value. Ellen has to maintain her utterance in order to save her dignity as a speaker and to respect the guest‟s feeling as an interlocutor. In the episode, February 12, 2016, the guest who attended the show is Mr. Barrack Obama, President of United Stated. Ellen not only has a responsible to save Mr. Obama‟s feeling, but also to save his dignity as President since their 4 communication was watched by millions of people. Beside Ellen, Mr. Obama also needs to maintain his utterance in order to save his dignity as President. It is attracted writer to do a research on this talk show, because writer identifies the application of politeness strategy in the dialogue of the talk show which the speaker must rationally assess the possible face-threatening nature or utterances that can hurt hearer‟s feeling which speaker is about to make and then decide either to avoid it entirely, or at least to soften or minimize it by choosing an appropriate linguistic strategies. Politeness Strategy is a theory by Brown and Levinson. In the spirit of Grice, Brown and Levinson posit a Model Person MP with the ability to rationalize from communicative goals to the optimal means of achieving those goals. In doing so, the MP has to assess the dangers of threatening other participants‟ and hence herhis own face and to choose the appropriate strategies in order to minimize any face threats that might be involved in carrying out the goal- directed activity. In contrast to Leech‟s model, therefore, Brown and Levinson‟s model can be seen as an attempt to formulate a theory of how individuals produce linguistic politeness, i.e. it is a production model. Watts 85 Face in Brown and Levinson‟s model is a theoretical construct which The MP, with the ability to rationalize from communicative goals to the optimal means of achieving those goals, seems to fit well with their redefinition of face, but it is questionable whether the phenomenon of politeness can be reduced to forms of rational means--goals behavior. They claim they have taken from the 5 work of Erving Goffman. Gunarwan 261 The MP in Br own and Levinson‟s model refers to the „speaker‟, and the only reason the addressee is brought into the picture is in order that the MP can assess which the most appropriate politeness strategy to use in the circumstances. No mention is made of the ways in which the addressee may react to the politeness strategy produced. Focus in Brown and Levinson‟s model is thus on the speaker, whereas in Leech‟s model it is on the hearer. Watts 85 Based on that background, the writer is attracted to do a research to find out the politeness strategy that is implied in the dialogue of the talk show. Research is a series of activities that are arranged in a systematic and procedural to find the truth, to prove theories or assumptions that have been discovered, or solve a problem Farkhan 2. To analyze and assess the strategies used on Ellen DeGeneres talk show, the writer uses Politeness Strategy Theory by Brown and Levinson.

2. Focus of the Study