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the same occasion, in B’s behavior”. Sixthly, a rather bizarre aspect of politeness is that it manifests itself in repetitive behavior which is to a lesser or greater degree
ritualized. Seventhly, it is fairly central to politeness that it involves the passing of some kind of “transactional of value” between the speaker and the other party. And
at last, eighthly, politeness is about its tendency to preserve a “balance” of value between the participants A and B.
Despite of these eight characteristics of politeness, on the other hand, Brown and Levinson in Partington 2006 list three ‘sociological variables’ that speakers
employ in choosing the degree of politeness to use and in calculating the amount of the threat to their own face, namely: a the social distance of the speaker and
hearer, b the relative ‘power’ of the speaker and hearer, and c the absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture. These three variables go in line
with the level of the politeness applied. Therefore, the greater the social distance between the interlocutors, the more politeness is expected. Besides, the greater the
relative power perceived between the speaker and the hearer, the more politeness is recommended. And, finally, the greater the gap between the rank or the
imposition between the speaker and the hearer, subsequently, the more politeness have to be used.
And one important thing to be emphasized is that “politeness is cultural-spesific and the politeness norms are not u
niversal” Watts, 2003. Furthermore, Blum-Kulka et al 1989 emphasize that indirectness of
request does not always signify politeness. Eventhough direct strategies can be treated as impolite because they indicate a lack of concern
to addressee’s face, we cannot preserve that the most indirect request strategies applied means that the
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more polite the request likely to be. Thus, the researcher comes to the conclusion that requesting is not just a matter of politeness, but need to embrace the pragmatic
knowledge of the speakers as the modifications and the strategies in making requests.
7. Request and Request Strategies
Making request requires strategies and modifications to urge the hearer and to get hearer to do as the speaker wish. This part of theory review discusses about
the nature of the requests, strategies and modifications possibly used by the speaker in requests. To make them clear, each of the strategies will be discussed in details
along with the examples.
a. Request Definition
In general, Nikazm 2006:1 implies that request in everyday conversation refers to a type of social action in which the interactional goal of the speaker is to
get his or her co-participant to perform an action i.e., transferring something of value, for example an object, service or information that is for the benefit of the
speaker or a third party. Besides, Ellis 1994 defines request as an act on the part of speaker who attempts to get the hearer to perform or to stop some kind of action.
These explanations have been simplified by Rue and Zhang 2008:1 whom mention that a request is to ask someone to do or not to do something, or as an
expression of the need or desire for something. A more content definition suggested by Searle 1969 that,
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a request is a directive speech act whose illocutionary purpose is to get the hearer to do something in circumstances in which it is
obvious that heshe will perform the action in the normal course of events.
The same idea also stated by Trosborg 1995:187 who implies that request is an illocutionary act whereby a speaker requester conveys to hearer requestee that
heshe wants the requestee to perform an act which is for the benefit of the speaker. Conceptually, in request, there is a precondition which begins with ‘speaker
believe’ that the hearer or the addressee is able to do the act and it creates effect to ‘hearer believe’ that they need to perform some action regarding the speaker’s
attempt. In order to get the requests done by the addressee, the speaker usually manipulates appropriate linguistics forms to make request apt to the situations.
The requested action may be performed at the time of speaking or at some later point Gohl, 2000. Therefore, the action done by the addressee can be a direct
response to the request or it can be possibly later at some time as what the speaker attempt. Besides, in making request, to achieve the goals of demand, the speaker
needs to select appropriate utterances to make the request sound positive and feasibly make the addressee takes action to fulfil the need or intention of the
speaker. One thing to be underlined is that people may use variation of direct and indirect forms of words based on the situational condition and their pragmatic
competence. Salgado 2011:11 notes that a request can be realized by selecting one of the obligatory choices of indirectness level. This matter can be considered
as the strategy to get the request taken by the requestee. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
