Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: Teachers' Politeness Strategy in Critizing Classroom Presentation

TEACHERS’ POLITENESS STRATEGY IN CRITICIZING
CLASSROOM PRESENTATION
Elvira Victorina
Abstract
The act of criticizing students’ performance have higher tendency to threat students’
faces. Though criticism is aimed at giving positive input, the way it is delivered may give
different result. The present study investigates teacher’s politeness strategy in giving
certain criticism and its reason to perform it by observing and interviewing six
participants. The results were analyzed based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of
politeness strategy and Nguyen’s (2008) classification of criticism strategies. The result
indicates that teachers mostly tend to state the problem when criticizing student’s
performance and use bald on record politeness strategy. The main reason is because the
teachers mostly focus on the form of criticism rather than student’s face or other reason.
The result of the study can be used to help teachers and student-teachers develop their
awareness to save their student’s face by choosing the most appropriate politeness
strategy when criticizing students.
Key words: Criticism, Face, Politeness strategies

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