30 of Bride Wars movie’s utterances were analyzed and interpreted descriptively to
learn about human behavior, primarily speaking politely.
B. Research Setting
The writer of this study spent nine months in analyzing the use of Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies in Bride Wars movie. The process included
compiling the politeness theories, analyzing the movie script, identifying the utterances related to speaking politeness, categorizing the main characters’
utterances based on Brown and Levinson’s 1987 politeness strategies, analyzing the politeness factors affecting the characters’ choice of politeness strategies
based on Brown and Levinson’s theory 1987, and writing up the report on the study.
C. Research Subject
The research subject of this study was Bride Wars movie produced by Gary Winick 2009. The writer made use of the movie script Retrieved from
http:www.springfieldspringfield.co.ukmovie_script.php?movie=bride-wars as well as the movie in order to understand the situations involved. Bride Wars
movie portrayed a story about friendship and rivalry. The two main characters of Bride Wars movie turned out to be rivals when they accidentally planned
weddings in the same venue and time. The writer was intrigued to figure out what Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies were used in the utterances of the two
31 main characters and what factors affecting the characters to employ the politeness
strategies. The writer only focused on the two main characters’ utterances related to
politeness strategies in Bride Wars movie. The first one was Olivia Lerner, a tough and successful lawyer. The second was Emma Allan, an inspiring teacher
who always wanted to please everyone, especially her mother. Hence, all utterances related to speaking politeness produced by those two main characters
were taken as the source of data for this study. This study employed purposive sampling as the method of sampling.
Babbie 1990: 97 as cited in Latham 2007 define purposive sampling as “selecting a sample on the basis of your own knowledge of the population, its
elements, and the nature of your research aims p. 9.” Therefore, it allows writer to select samples as the data source which fit the nature of the study. In this study,
the writer took a movie and a movie script entitled Bride Wars as the data source. The selection led the writer to draw conclusions about the study as it provided
necessary and sufficient information. The main focus of this study was the use of Brown and Levinson’s
politeness strategies in a movie. Therefore, selecting a movie containing a lot of politeness strategies was necessary to do. As Bride Wars movie tells us about
friendship and rivalry, utterances related to politeness strategies are commonly used in the dialogues, specifically Positive Politeness and Bald-On Record. As a
result, Bride Wars movie would be appropriate for the writer to gather all politeness strategies employed by the main characters as the source of data.
32 Besides, Bride Wars movie also portrays the situations involved when the main
characters employed the politeness strategies. The situations involved provide rich-information cases to find out factors affecting the choice of politeness
strategies. Further, purposive sampling is widely used in linguistics research especially dealing with politeness for its selection of rich-information cases
related to speaking politeness. In a nutshell, Bride Wars movie undoubtedly fits the nature of the study’s aims. It provides examples on the use of politeness
strategies and leads the writer to analyze the factors affecting the characters’ choice of politeness strategies.
D. Instruments and Data Gathering Techniques
There were two instruments used in the study: the researcher as human instrument and Bride Wars movie script as the document.
1. The Researcher as Human Instrument
The writer collected the data from the movie script in order to analyze the utterances produced by the two main characters. Other references from books,
journals, and internet sources concerning politeness strategies were also collected as well. Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen 2010 state, “Human investigator is the
primary instrument for the gathering and analyzing of data p. 424.” In addition, Lincoln and Guba 1985 as cited in Ary, Jacobs, and Sorensen 2010 emphasize,
“Only a human instrument is capable of capturing the complexity of the human PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
