TEACHER’S POLITENESS STRATEGIES
TO STUDENT’S COMPLIANCE
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
SITI AMINAH HASIBUAN
NIM: 8126112034
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POST GRADUATE SCHOOL
TEACHER’S POLITENESS STRATEGIES
TO STUDENT’S COMPLIANCE
A Thesis
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
SITI AMINAH HASIBUAN
NIM: 8126112034
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM
POST GRADUATE SCHOOL
ABSTRACT
SITI AMINAH. Teacher’s Politeness Strategies to Student’s Compliance. A Thesis. English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School of the State University of Medan. 2014.
ABSTRAK
SITI AMINAH. NIM : 8126112034. Teacher’s Politeness Strategies to Student’s Compliance . Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris, Program Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan 2014.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
A very deepest gratitude is primarily expressed to Allah SWT for all blessings and Mercy that have enabled the writer to finish writing this thesis. It is also impossible to be finished without guidance and the help of many people. Foremost, the writer would like to express her sincere gratitude to her advisers Prof. T. Silvana Sinar, M.A. Ph.D and Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S, for the continuous support, patience, motivation, and suggestions so that the writer could finish this thesis.
Then, the writer would like to thank Prof. Busmin Gurning, M.Pd as the Head of English Applied Linguistics Study Program and his secretary, Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S, and all the lecturers that have given me encouragement and a lot of experience and knowledge.
Also, the writer thanks to Prof. Amrin Saragih, M.A, Ph.D, Prof. Dr. Sumarsih, M.Pd and Dr. Rahmad Husein M. Ed as the examiners for the valuable suggestions that have shaped up this thesis.
And for all my classmates who always support me to finish this thesis. Thanks a lot for all favor that you gave to the writer. The writer wishes that our friendship will be everlasting. Best friend forever.
At the end the writer would like express appreciation to her husband-to be, Ilham Gandhi Lubis who always encourages the writer to finish this thesis as soon as possible.
Thank you for all love and attention that have been given to the writer. May
Allah SWT always blessed. Amin ya robbal ‘alamin.
Medan, September 2014 The writer,
i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
TABLE OF CONTENTS ……… i
ABSTRACT ……… iv
ABSTRAK ……… v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ……… vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATION ……… viii
LIST OF TABLES ……… ix
LIST OF FIGURE ……… x
LIST OF APPENDICES ………. xii
CHAPTER I : INTRODUCTION ……… 1
1.1. Background of the Study ………...… 1
1.2. Problem of the Study ……… 4
1.3. Objective of the Study ……… 4
1.4. Scope of the Study ……… 5
1.5.Significance of the Study ……… 5
CHAPTER II : REVIEW OF LITERATURE ……… 6
2.1. Pragmatics ……… 6
2.2. Politeness ……… 7
ii
2.4. Emotions as a Mediator ……… 12
2.5. Teacher’s Utterances ……… 11
2.6. Students’ Compliances ……… 14
2.7. The Pragmatics Stage of Learners ……….. 15
2.8. Previous Studies/Research ……… 16
2.9. Conceptual Framework ……… 18
3.5. Technique of Data Analysis ……… 22
3.6. Trustworthiness ……… 23
CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS…. 25 4.1. Data Analysis ………. 25
4.1.1. Types of Politeness Strategies used by the Teachers of One School in Medan ……….. 25
iii
Teachers to the Students ……….. 33
4.1.1.5. Politeness Strategies in Agreement Maxim Used by the Teachers to the Students ……….. 33
4.1.1.6. Politeness Strategies in Sympathy Maxim Used by the Teachers to the Students ………... 35
4.1.2. Type of Politeness Strategy Dominantly Used in Teachers’ Utterances………. 36
4.1.3. Students’ Compliance in Teachers’ Utterances by Using Politeness Strategy ………. 36
4.2. Research Findings ……… 38
4.3. Discussions ……….. 40
CHAPTER V: CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ……… 43
5.1. Conclusions ………. 43
5.2. Suggestions ………... 43
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 1 ………. 26
Table 2 ………. 27
Table 3 ………. 36
LIST OF FIGURE
Pages
i
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
Appendix I ……….. 48
Appendix II ……….. 54
Appendix III ……….. 61
LIST OF ABBREVATION
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Language is used for communication to convey one’s intention to each other
in social interactions. In conveying intention, people use strategies in their
communication as it is a part of the language user’s communicative competence.
The speaker communicative competence deals with pragmatics (Glaser, 2009:50). Pragmatics determines our choices of wording and our interpretation of language in different situation. For example the awareness of how we modify conversation when addressing different types of listeners. A speech act such as, “ Mak
Vera,tolong bawakan ini ya!” (“Mak Vera, help me bring this, ok?” is more likely to be uttered to your close friend, while “Maaf, ibu mau kan bantu saya?” (“ excuse me, would you like to help me, ma’am?”), is uttered to a person that is older than you. Such speech acts called as knowledge of pragmatics. Pragmatics concern with some fields and politeness is one of them. Politeness strategies are very important to investigate as it is used by people in their social interactions and in the specific contexts, knowing what to say, how to say, when to say and how to be with other people. (Yule: 1996)
Politeness is a universal and best expressed as the practical application of
good manners or etiquette. Leech: 1993 defines it as “strategic conflict avoidance, which can be measured in terms of degree of effort and put into the avoidance of conflict, situation, maintenance and establishment of comity. The avoidance is represented as a conscious effort on part of the person to be polite.
certain society. Yadi (2012:88) proposed how politeness operates in communication to others.
According to Leech 1993, politeness involves minimizing the cost and maximizing the benefit to the speaker or the hearer. Theoretically, the politeness consists of six maxims that namely (a) tact maxim, (b) generosity maxim, (c) approbation maxim, (d) modesty maxim, (e) agreement maxim, and (f) sympathy maxim.
Tact maxim is meant that the speaker try to be tactful in communication by minimizing the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other and maximizing
the expressions of beliefs which imply benefit to others. For example: “Riska, bisakan bantu ibu hapus papan tulis?” (“Riska, could you help me erase the blackboard?”) means the speakers try to ask help by minimize cost to the hearer
and maximize benefit to the hearer. Generosity maxim is the way of politeness that we minimize the expression of benefit to self and maximize the expression to
self. For example: “Biar ibu aja yang angkat, Doni istirahat aja di bangku ya nak.” (“Let me bring this Doni, you just take rest on your seat”). Approbation maxim is
meant that the speakers minimize the expressions of beliefs which express dispraise of other and maximize the expressions of beliefs which express approval
to other. For example: “ Pintar kali ya murid-murid yang miss punya di kelas ini.”
(“What a smart students I have in this class”.) Modesty maxim is the way of
politeness that we minimize the expressions of praise of self and maximize the
expressions of dispraise of self. For example: “Bodoh kali ibu ya. Hahaha” (“How stupid I am”).
Agreement maxim is when we minimize the expression of disagreement between self and other and maximize the expression of the agreement between
self and others. For example: “Memang lah Jhon, memang benar, mereka semua
murid yang nakal di kelas ini”. (“Yes Jhon , that’s right. They are all naughty students in this class”. And the last is sympathy maxim. In this maxim, we try to
minimize antipathy between self and others and maximize sympathy between self and others. For example: “Ibu turut berduka atas wafatnya ayahmu ya Rebeka”.
own way of politeness in their communication and that is why the researcher chooses politeness as the point to be analyzed.
Classroom is a place of the interaction process which happens between a teacher and students. It must be effective and polite. If in the classroom interaction runs well, the knowledge that will be delivered by the teacher will be received by students well. Teacher professional role endows them with right to evaluate
students’ behaviors, constrain their freedom of actions, control resources and give critical feedback, which unavoidably poses threat to students’ positive and
negative face (Zhang, 2009:3). In addition, teacher is as the model in the class and the students will imitate the way the teacher teaches them. Therefore, in creating good interaction in the classroom, teachers and students should make the good interaction.
However, based on researcher’s observation of teacher’s utterances and
students’ compliances to them in one elementary school in Medan, are not as
expected. Some of teachers use impolite utterances to their students and the
impolite utterances affect to students’ compliances. Being polite in classroom interaction is very important to create effective teaching learning process. It can be shown by using some strategies of politeness.
Based on this phenomenon of teacher’s speech acts to students’ compliance in
the context of politeness, it is believed that teacher’s politeness has an indirect effect on student compliance intention so as to enhance desired outcomes in the classroom. As it is found in some researches that speaker’s politeness relates to
the hearer’s compliance. According to Zhang : 2009, teacher’s high politeness
were found to be more likely to elicit positive emotions such as happiness and lead to compliance and vice versa to the low politeness that evoked negative emotions and caused resistance.
In this research, the effects of elementary school teacher’s politeness on
as learners. They are sensory motor stage (from birth to two years of age), pre-operational stage (from two to seven year of age), concrete pre-operational stage (from seven to eleven year of age) and formal operational stage (from seven year onwards).
There are different competences of language for each stage. The
understanding of the students in elementary school to the teacher’s politeness
cannot be the same as the student understands in under-graduate level (Batable and Dart, 2007:6-10). That’s why researcher is interested in analyzing the effect
of teacher’s polite utterances on students’ compliance in elementary school level. This is my reason to choose teacher’s politeness to students’ compliance in
elementary school, to see whether there is an effect of teacher’s politeness to students’ compliance in politeness context.
1.2 Problem of the Study
The problems of the study are formulated as the following:
1. What are types of politeness strategy used in teacher’s utterances to the students?
2. What type of politeness strategy is dominantly used in teacher’s utterances to the students?
3. How teacher’s politeness utterances affect to students’ compliance?
1.3 Objective of the Study
This research is aimed at examining the effect of teacher’s politeness
strategies on students’ compliance intention.. The objectives of the study are
elaborated as the following:
1. To find out the types of politeness strategies used in teacher’s utterances to the students.
2. To find out the dominant types of politeness strategies in the teacher’s utterances to the students.
1.4 Scope of the Study
The teacher’s utterances cover various strategies of politeness. These strategies contribute different students’ compliance intention to the teachers’ utterances. Therefore, this study is focused to investigate the teacher’s politeness strategies in utterances to the students in the classroom and the effects of teacher’s
politeness utterances on students’ compliance in the elementary school level. The
researcher will use politeness strategies theory proposed by Geoff Leech:1993.
1.5 Significance of the Study
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
After analyzing the data, the conclusions were stated as follows:
1. The teachers of class II-A and II-B of one school in Medan used four of six types of politeness strategies in directive and expressive speech act to communicate with the students at school. They were tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim and agreement maxim.
2. The dominant type of politeness strategy used by the teachers of class II-A and II-B was tact maxim as the teachers were easier and felt more appropriate in using this type in directive speech acts as mostly focused on by the researcher. 3. The students of class II-A and II-B of one school in Medan didn’t comply with
all the teachers’ utterances although they were already in polite way. They
gave their compliances to some teachers’ utterances or commands but in other way they ignored the some else teacher’s utterances to them. This was because
of the influence of positive emotions and also strongly affected by their limited of pragmatic competence.
5.2 Suggestions
Based on the conclusions above, this research has some suggestions to the readers especially teachers and parents who have important role in teaching children as follows:
1. It is suggested to parent to teach their children politeness strategy in order to make them acquire and understand it so as to help them in learning and communicating with people at school and anywhere. Although, their competence capacities have increased as they grow up. But they should be taught many things include politeness strategies since they are children.
suggested to the teachers to always use the strategies in teaching the students especially with the age of early students of Elementary School as they can motivate the students to always be polite.
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