THE IMPOLITENESS STRATEGIES USED BY TEACHER
AND STUDENTS IN CLASSROOM INTERACTION
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
ERSIKA PUSPITA DANI
Registration Number: 8136112015
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
STATE UNIVERSITY OF MEDAN
MEDAN
i ABSTRACT
Dani, E. P. Registration Number: 8136112015. The Impoliteness Strategies Used by Teacher and Students in Classroom Interaction. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program, Post Graduate School, State University of Medan. 2015.
ii ABSTRAK
Dani, E. P. NIM: 8136112015. Strategi Ketidaksantunan Yang Digunakan oleh Guru dan Murid di dalam Interaksi Kelas. Tesis. Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Sekolah Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan. 2015.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alamin. Praise and thank to the Almighty Allah
SWT, for the blessings and guidance to the writer so that the writing of this thesis
can finally be accomplished as it should be. This thesis is a scientific writing that
has to be completed in order to fulfill one of the academic requirements for the
degree of Magister Humaniora at the English Applied Linguistics Study Program;
Post Graduate School, State University of Medan. It has also shown the
responsibility and capability of the writer as an academician to be able to conduct
a research that would contribute to the development of scientific knowledge.
However, without the assistance of these following numbers of people
who have given valuable suggestions and useful influences on the writing of this
thesis, it would be much more difficult for the writer to finish her work. She is
then deeply indebted to these people and would like to express her sincere thanks.
The writer would like to deliver her grateful appreciation and gratitude to
her first adviser Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S. and her second adviser Dr. Eddy
Setia, M.Ed.,TESP. for their great care, patient guidance, excellent advices, and
precious time in guiding her in the process of completing this thesis.
Her gratefulness also goes to the Head and Secretary of the English
Applied Linguistics Study Program, Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd. and Dr. Sri
Minda Murni, M.S. for their kind support toward the prerequisites of the thesis
submission as well as the encouragement to work hard toward the thesis proposal.
Her sincere gratitude is also given to Prof. Dr. H. Abdul Sibuea, as the Director of
iv
Furthermore, the writer would like to thank Prof. Dr. Busmin Gurning, M.
Pd., Dr. I Wayan Dirgayasa Tangkas, M. Hum., and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.
Hum. for their constructive comments and suggestions in advancing the thesis
quality.
Her deepest gratitude and tremendous appreciations are presented to her
parents, Drs. Suliano and Dra. Sutiah for their never ending support, care and love
to encourage her to learn and pursue her education to the master degree. To all her
beloved families who always pour her with all their compassion; especially to her
sister, Latifah Hilmiy, Amd, to her beloved brother, Erick Bangun S. Ikom.
Last but not least, the writer would like to thank all of her beloved friends
in B4 Class, Applied Linguistics Study Program, Post Graduate School at State
University of Medan, Yeni Purtika Simanjuntak, Siti Marlina, Ika Swantika, Lisna
Rifka Diana Sirait, Muhammad Hasril Fakhrurozi, Mia Fitri Tinambunan, Maida,
Fitri Erawati, Adinda Zoraya Alvin, Muvidah as a chairman of B4, and the other
friends which did not mentioned yet. Thank you very much for their time to
discuss and exchange ideas while working on the thesis as well as their prayers,
encouragement and support.
Medan, August 2015 The Writer,
Ersika Puspita Dani
v
1.5 The Significance of the Study ... 9
CHAPTER II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE 2.1. Theoritical Framework ... 10
3.2 Population and Sample ... 44
3.3 The Data and Source of the Data ... 45
3.4 The Technique of Data Collection ... 45
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3.6 The Trustworthiness of the Study ... 46
3.6.1 Credibility ... 46
3.6.2 Confirmability ... 47
3.7 The Technique of Data Analysis ... 47
CHAPTER IV. DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 Data Analysis ... 49
4.1.1 Types of Impoliteness Strategies Used by Teacher and Students in ... 49
4.1.2 Pattern of Responses Used by Teacher and Students ... 69
4.1.3 Reason of Using Impoliteness ... 78
4.2 Findings ... 86
4.2.1 The Types of the Impoliteness Strategies Used by Teacher and Student in the Classroom Interaction ... 86
4.2.2 The Pattern of Responses Used by the Teacher and Student in the Classroom Interaction ... 89
4.2.3 The Reasons of Using Language Impoliteness Used by Teacher and Student in the Classroom Interaction ... 90
4.3 Discussions ... 91
CHAPTER V. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS 5.1 Conclusions ... 97
5.2 Suggestions ... 98
REFERENCES ... 99
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
viii
LIST OF FIGURE
Page
ix
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
Appendix I. The Transcription of the First Teacher and Students’
Utterances in the Classroom Interaction ... 103 Appendix II. The Transcription of the Second Teacher and Students’
Utterances in the Classroom Interaction ... 122 Appendix III. The Transcription of the Third Teacher and Students’
1
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study
Brown (2001: 165) stated that interaction is the heart of communication. In
this case, interaction has important role in communication in human life. It can be
seen that the interaction is a kind of action that occurs between two or more
objects that give effect between each other where they mutually share information
and establish social relations.
Interaction in society is a condition which determines the harmonious
relationship among them (Soemarjan, 1999). It shows that the harmony in society
is a condition in which the social institutions truly serve and complement one
another. A harmony condition will give peace to every individual in the
community because there is no a conflict of norms and values in society.
Therefore, interaction should optimize the politeness strategies in order to create
harmonious relationship among them.
A good model of interaction could lead to the development of society
which is moving to a more advanced and modern one. Actually a good interaction
can be done through education and should be started from school, as ideally
school, spesifically classroom, is the setting where politeness is educated and
where the relationship between teachers and students, and students to students
should be well established. It must be effective and polite. If the class interaction
goes well, the knowledge that is given by the teachers will be received well by the
students. As Dagarin (2004: 128) stated that the function of the interaction in the
2
teaching learning process is to establish a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom
with friendly relationship of students and encourage the students to become
effective communicators especially in second language learning.
Then, Rivers (1987: 9) states that through the interaction, the students can
improve their language store as they listen to 'authentic linguistic material' or even
the output of their fellow students in discussions, joint problem solving tasks, or
dialogue. Through interaction, the students can use any language they have. It will
also help students have competent role in critical thinking and share their views
among the peers. Beside that, if the teacher interacts politely to her students, the
students will do the same thing as the teacher does. As students need to imitate the
teacher can and should serve as role models who teach character and moral virtues
in the classroom (Lumpkin, 2008: 46).
However, the fact does not occur that way. Nowdays there seems to be a
disruption in classroom interaction where impolite utterances are more likely to be
used. This phenomenon can be found in daily classroom interaction where
teachers perform impolite speech events. This is unfortunate due to the role of
teacher as a good model for the students.
Furthermore, Kuriake in Alia (2008) said that Indonesia has a lot of
teachers that still use the violence as the effective way to control students. It
showed that teacher produced impoliteness. This kind of impoliteness in the
classroom can be defined as negative attitudes in-context-behaviors which are
associated, along with the participants who give rise to them Culpeper (2011: 31).
3
Culpeper (1996) proposes, namely: bald on record impoliteness (strategy
performed as clearly and boldly as possible), positive impoliteness (a strategy
designed to damage the addressee’s positive face wants), negative impoliteness (a
strategy designed to damage the addressee’s negative face wants), sarcasm or
mock impoliteness (a strategy performed with the use of obviously insincere
strategies), and withhold politeness (the absence of politeness in situations where it
is expected).
These impoliteness strategies applied by the teachers in the classroom will
lead to the situation where they are attacking each other’s face. This will affect the
harmony of the classroom interaction. In responding to the impoliteness, Culpeper
(1996) mentions that there are four ways in responding the impoliteness, namely:
not responding, accepting responding, countering offensively, and countering
defensively.
Based on researcher's observation, some of teachers at MTS Negeri
Tanjung Morawa also utilized these impolite strategies to attack the students’
face. Some of teachers interacted impolitely with their students, even though they
should produce the formal one, impolite utterances as can be seen in the following
excerpt.
Context : The teacher was angry to his students because their students did not finish the task given by the teacher.
T : memanglah kelen, peer gak dikerjain. Taik kelen semua.
(menampar siswa menggunakan buku) (‘You. Tasks were not
done. You all piece of shit.’ (slapping the students by using the book))
S : udah dikerjain pak, tinggal 2 lagi yang belum siap. (‘We’ve done, Sir, but two more that are not finished yet’)
T : gak ada alasan (‘No reason’)
4
From the conversation above, teacher was teaching in class VIII-1 on
Tuesday, February 24, 2015 at 11.10 until 12.20 a.m. It can be seen that the
teacher produced impolite utterances when he spoke to his students. The teacher
was angry to his students because their students did not finish the task given by
the teacher. The teacher should not have said utterance ‘taik kelen semua’to his
students in the classroom because it was a taboo word. Then, he also ignored the
students when the students responded the teacher by producing the impolite
utterances ‘gak ada alasan’. All of the teacher’s utterances showed positive
impoliteness where it was designed to damage the students positive face wants.
In this case, the students also utilized the impoliteness by responding
‘udah dikerjain pak, tinggal 2 lagi yang belum siap’ which showed the defensive
counter strategies in which it was intended to show direct contradiction. However
this defensive moved heightened the emotion of the teacher that he proceeded by
saying gak ada alasan’. Then, the students did not respond the teacher, just silent
after listening the teacher spoke. Related to the context in which the teacher was
angry to the students because the students did not finish the task given by the
teacher, the teacher produced impolite utterances to showhis anger. This case was
produced to vent negative feelings.
As previously mentioned, this kind of behavior by the teacher can be
imitated by the students. It can be seen in this following case where the student
5
R : udahlah kau gendut, paok pulak, bisinglah (‘You’re fat, also
stupid, noisy’)
I : ihh
From the conversation above, Teacher was teaching in VIII-1 on Saturday,
Tuesday, February 28th, 2015 at 09.05 until 10.45 p.m. R applied the negative
impoliteness; condescend, scorn or ridicule, by saying udahlah ko kecil, jelek,
oon, gak pinter, mana adalah cewek yang mau sama kau’ and ‘udahlah kau
gendut, paok pulak, bisinglah’ when looking at I trying to disturb the girl outside.
As Culpeper stated, the utterances above showed that R showed negative behavior
and tried to damage the addressee’s negative face wants through condescend,
scorn or ridicule. The R’s reason why she produced the impolite utterances wasto
get the power in which it occurs when there is an imbalance of social structural
power. Besides that, after R had attacked I by applying impoliteness strategy, I
tried to respond R by using defensive strategies in showing his insincere
agreement and ignorance of the attack. The application of impoliteness in
classroom interaction can be worse if the teacher allows it to occur and supports
the production of impolite utterances as occured in this phenomenon in which the
6
The examples above show that impolite utterances often occur in
classroom interaction from all aspects such as teacher to student, student to
student, and student to teacher. This case could lead to disharmony among them.
Besides that, it could cause psychological trauma, or students will hold a grudge,
become more immune to punishment, and grow niche to vent anger and
aggression against other students who areconsidered weak.
The unconsciousness of teacher in producing impoliteness during
communication can affect to the students' mental and attitude. It can break down
their mental. Not to mention, there is a tendency that students would
unconsciously consider that this kind of behavior is acceptable and therefore try to
imitate. They tend to produce impolite utterances and it will lead to the decrease
of their value. In further process, it can cause to the less effective classroom
interaction and influence the students' achievement in communicative
competence.
Based on the phenomena above, it is interesting to investigate the use of
impoliteness strategies as this area of study still remains unknown. The previous
impoliteness researches mostly deal with the occurrence of impoliteness in
television programs as what Laitinen (2010) and Nasution (2014) conducted.
Laitinen M. (2010) focused on the use of impoliteness strategies in the American
TV- series House M. D which had the same culture context. He analyzed by using
Culpeper’s strategies of impoliteness. Then, he found out that there were some
impoliteness strategies which occurred in that case, they were bald on record,
7
politeness. Nevertheless, it would seem mock politeness was not found in this
study, while bald on record strategies and sarcasm were the impoliteness
strategies that House used most frequently. In addition, it was found that the most
of the patients completely ignored House’s impolite, sometimes extremely
insulting, remarks.
In line with Laitinen, Nasution (2014) applied the impoliteness model by
Culpeper’s strategies entitled “Language Impoliteness in Jakarta Lawyers Club
Talk Show”. In this case, Jakarta Lawyers Club had a similar community.
Nasution would like to figure out what impoliteness strategies, types of attacks
and responses occurred during the show. She analyzed the participants’ utterances
based on Culpeper’s theory (1996) of impoliteness strategies. She found out that
all impoliteness strategies occured in the show with bald on record impoliteness as
the most dominant strategy. Over four types of attacks, there were only two types
appeared, quality and social identity face with the former as the most dominant
one.
Based on the researches that have been studied by Laitinen (2010) and
Nasution (2014), it can be seen that there are five impoliteness strategies
developed by Culpeper found in those studies. Although five of the impoliteness
strategies had been studied, American TV series House MD had different cultural
contexts with Indonesian television shows and Jakarta Laywers Club Talk Show
had the similar community, while the class has unequal community even though
the same culture context. Therefore, it is expected that the realization of typical
8
Therefore, this area of the study is an intriguing academic inquiry and it
will focus on the impoliteness strategies in classroom interaction used by the
teacher and students in order to find out what types of impoliteness strategies,
what pattern of responses used during the communication in the classroom, and
why they occur.
1.2 The Problems of the Study
Based on the background of the study above, the researcher formulates the
problems as in the following:
1. What are the types of impoliteness strategy used by teacher and students in
classroom interaction?
2. What are the pattern of responses used by teacher and students in
classroom interaction?
3. Why are the impoliteness strategies used by teacher and students in
classroom interaction realized the way they are?
1.3 The Scope of the Study
This study investigates impoliteness strategies used by teacher and
students in classroom interaction. The focus is on types of impoliteness strategies,
namely bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness,
sarcasm or mock politeness, and withholds politeness. Further, investigation is on
what the pattern of responses used by teacher and students in classroom
interaction, and why the impoliteness strategies are used by teacher and students
9
1.4 The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study are to find out the answer of the research
problems. To be more specific the objectives of the study are:
1. To find out the types of impoliteness strategies used by teacher and
students in classroom interaction
2. To find out the pattern of responses used by the teacher and students in
classroom interaction
3. To explain the reason why the impoliteness strategies used by teacher and
students are realized the way they are.
1.5 The Significance of the Study
Findings of the study are expected to give some relevant contribution both
a) Theoretically, this study is considered to enrich the theories of pragmatics
and sociolinguistics, specifically to give a better understanding and new
insight on how impoliteness strategies are related to the aspects of
pragmatic study and it is usefully considered to provide the information of
what type of impoliteness strategies, what pattern of responses used by
teacher and students in classroom interaction, and why teacher and
students use impoliteness strategy in classroom interaction.
b) Practically, the findings of the study are considered to contribute
information about impoliteness language in classroom interaction for
students, lecturers, researchers, and also the government. Then, the
findings of the study can be a guidance for those who are interested to gain
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CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
This study focused on the language impoliteness used by teacher and
student in classroom interaction. It was aimed to find out the types of impoliteness
strategies used by teacher and student in classroom interaction, to describe how
the process of responding the impoliteness used by teacher and students in the
classroom interaction, and to explain the reason why the impoliteness startegies
used by teacher and student are realized the way they are. After analyzing the
data, conclusions are drwan as the following.
1) There were 5 types of impoliteness strategy used by teacher and student in
the classroom interaction, namely 1) bald on record impoliteness, 2)
positive impoliteness, 3) negative impoliteness, 4) sarcasm or mock
politeness, and 5) withhold politeness. Sarcasm or mock politeness was the
most dominant strategies used by teacher and student in the classroom
interaction and the least strategies was withhold politeness. There was a
new indicator which showed that the using of pronoun “I and You” could
not be categorized as an indicator in applying the negative impoliteness
becauce it was common case in Indonesia culture, especially in North
Sumatera.
2) The pattern of responses used by teacher and student in the classroom
interaction were mostly the same exceprt for the slight differences in the
variation of response patterns. In responding the impoliteness, both teacher
98
and student lead to the same patterns, namely 1) single or multiple attacks
with no response, 2) single or multiple attacks and accepting the
impoliteness, 3) OFF-DEF pairings and 4) OFF-OFF pairings.
3) The use of impoliteness strategies in the classroom interaction used by
teacher and student shared several same reasons, namely 1) to mock the
others, 2) to vent negative feelings, 3) to show power, 4) to show
disagreement. There were some new reasons of using the language
impoliteness in the classroom interaction, namely: to show disagreement,
to clarify something clearly, to show dissatisfaction, and to give advice.
The most frequent reason of using impoliteness by teacher and student in
the classroom interaction was to mock the others and the least frequent
reason wasto give advice.
5.2 Suggestions
Based on the conclusions stated above, this study has some suggestions to
the readers as provided in the following items.
1) To the other researchers, it is suggested that this study could be further
expanded, elaborated and explored in other field in order to contribute the
development of impoliteness theories such as the use of impoliteness in
other application or literary works.
2) To all the readers, it is suggested to use the study as references for
99
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