Bald On-record Strategy Discussion

50 strategy. The explanation along with the data examples of each strategy is as follows.

a. Bald On-record Strategy

Melvin uses this strategy more frequently than the other politeness strategy in communicating with other characters. He uses it 14 times in total. This strategy employed in his utterances is addressed mainly to his students in which it is performed 12 times. Meanwhile, the other 2 utterances are addressed to sharecroppers and his wife, Ruth Tolson. By using this bald on-record strategy, Melvin’s intention to be clear, direct, and effective can be transferred or delivered successfully. The direct utterances addressed to his students are mostly used for giving instructions or constraints on students’ freedom of action. As a professor in Wiley College who has the right to do so, he has the intention to encourage the students to study the lesson or else and lead them forward. Therefore, his reason for choosing this strategy is because he wants his communication to be efficient as possible, so that the students are obedient to what he says. This kind of intention also goes to the white sharecroppers and Ruth Tolson. In this case, he does not concern on maintaining or satisfying their faces. An example of bald on-record strategy performed by Melvin B. Tolson is shown in the conversation with Dunbar Reed below. Dunbar Reed : Mr. Tolson, what about the debaters from last year? Melvin B. Tolson : Don’t ask a question you already know the answer to. Get up here. You’ll be first. Get right here. Hot spot. Datum number 9 51 The dialogue happens in the house of Melvin where the tryout for the debate team of Wiley College, well known as Wiley Forensic Society, is held. Melvin begins the tryout after all the students has entered the class. He firstly points out to the hot spot where the students will enter to give a try the tryout. He draws the hot spot of the debate area in the floor using a white chalky. As he explains the rule, suddenly one of his students from last year named Dunbar Reed asks a question he does not want to hear. Dunbar Reed asks about the debaters from last year. Melvin who also is in charge of the last year debate team does not want to answer it. Instead he commands Dunbar not to ask that kind of question anymore. Melvin does want to discuss about it because he merely does not want to or because the achievement of the last year debate team was unsatisfying and Dunbar actually knows it. He just wants his students to focus on this year debate team only. Then, he asks Dunbar to be the first student standing in the hot spot and trying the debate tryout. In giving these two commands, he goes baldly on record. It means that he does not want to satisfy Dunbar’s face in this situation. Another example of bald on-record strategy occurs in the dialogue between Melvin B. Tolson and Henry Lowe on the way to Prairie View. Melvin B. Tolson : What are you doing? Henry Lowe : I’m gonna cut him down. Melvin B. Tolson : Get back in the car. Shut the door. Nobody move. Just get down. Get down, get down. Get down, too. You get down, too. Datum number 31 Melvin and the debate team consisting of Henry Lowe, Samantha Booke and James Farmer Jr. are going to Prairie View because they will have a debate 52 competition against Howard University team. It is one of the best Negro colleges in America. This far, they have beaten down one best Negro college in America, Paul Quinn University, thus, they are determined to beat the other one. Prairie View is quite far from Marshall, therefore they get there by car driven by Melvin. It almost takes a day to go there. They depart from Marshall at the afternoon, and they arrive there at night. O n the way when they almost get there, they find whites’ savagery at the wayside. They see a Negro man hung upon a fire by them. With an angry but scared face, Henry wants to get off to cut the man down. However, Melvin urges him to not do that. He asks him to get down in order to not be seen because if the whites see them, they will have the same fate like the man. He also asks Samantha Booke and James Farmer Jr. who just woke up to get down. In such urgent situation, maximum efficiency of the communication is really needed because there is not much time. Therefore, Melvin performs bald on-record strategy in his utterance.

b. Positive Politeness Strategy