The second scale is Indirectness Scale. In Lady Spencer’s utterance, she directly shows her disagreement to Georgiana’s utterance without considering
what will happen next. By doing this, Lady Spencer’s utterance is considered as impolite.
The next scale is Optionality Scale. In this utterance, Lady Spencer does not give option to Georgiana of what she must do. Implicitly, she only states her
disagrement of Georgiana’s judgement to Bess. This scale affects Lady Spencer’s impoliteness indirectly because she gives a reason why she disagrees with
Georgiana’s statement. From the whole scales, Lady Spencer is considered as impolite in both her
manner and her utterance. However, as she is Georgiana’s mother, it can be concluded that Lady Spencer has stated politely because of her age, which is older
than Georgiana.
f. Sympathy Maxim
The last principle to discuss is Symphaty Maxim. The rank of occurrence is very low. Agreement Maxim is qualified in one of the data with certain context
of situation applied in the maxim. The explanation of this principle is given as
follows.
Extract 28 Int. Devonshire House, Blue Room – Day, Scene 29B
Georgiana
: Did William receive you?
Lady Spencer :
Yes. Georgiana
: Was he upset that it wasn’t a son? He just glanced
at her briefly and left. I’ve hardly seem him since. 1
st
Lady Spencer :
It’s been a difficult time fore His Grace, my dear. Many eyes are upon him, not all of them kind.2
nd
DC16SC29BINT
The politeness principle applied in the second turns in this extract is Symphaty Maxim. The dispreferred second turn which becomes the categorization
of the politeness principle is a non-answer. Similar to Tact Maxim and Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim
happens in two approaches: positive politeness approach and negative politeness approach. However, it does not discuss about cost and benefit anymore. It is about
antipathy and sympathy. The criteria of sympathy maxim minimize antipathy between self and other and correspondingly maximize sympathy between self and
other. To analyze Lady Spencer’s utterance, there are scales which also determine the categorization of PP.
The first scale is Cost Benefit Scale. Cost-Benefit Scale measures how the speaker minimizes or maximizes the cost and the benefit to the hearer. However,
in this case, Sympathy Maxim discusses about antipathy and sympathy; the functions of cost and benefit are changed into antipathy and sympathy. Lady
Spencer maximizes the sympathy between self and other. It is clear that she uses a compliment for Duke Devonshire to show her sympathy by saying “It’s been
difficult time for His Grace”. This compliment is in the form of non-answer which functions to shift the Georgiana question. Georgiana utterance’s is considered as
polite. Indirectness Scale is the other one to measure the level of politeness. In
Lady Spencer’s utterance, she indirectly answers Georgiana’s complaint which is in the form of question. He prefers to give an assessment for Duke to answer
Georgiana’s complaint. By doing this, Lady Spencer utterance is considered as polite.
The last scale is Social Distance Scale. Although Lady Spencer’s status is higher than Georgiana, she still uses proper and polite words to speak with her
daughter, Georgiana. This is enough to consider Lady Spencer’s dispreferred second turns as polite utterance.
