A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN DENZEL WASHINGTON’S THE GREAT DEBATERS MOVIE.

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A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN DENZEL

WASHINGTON’S THE GREAT DEBATERS MOVIE

A THESIS

Presented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Attainment of a Sarjana Sastra Degree in English Language and Literature

By: Nia Juliarti NIM 12211141024

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE STUDY PROGRAM ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND ARTS YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY

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v MOTTOS

“Do mybest, so that I can’t blame myself for anything.” (Magdalena Neuner)

“In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing; the next best thing you can do is the wrong thing; the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

(Theodore Roosevelt)

“Dream, believe, and make it happen for God’s sake.” (Agnez Mo)

“You must trust that your beliefs are unique; they are your own even though others may think them odd or unpopular.”

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DEDICATION

I dedicate this thesis to my beloved parents for their endless supports

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis could not be completed without any help of Allah SWT. Therefore, my deepest gratitude is devoted to Him, for wondrous blessing and guidance so that I can finally complete this thesis. I am also grateful since He gives me kind and warm-hearted people who highly contribute to the completion of this thesis whom I owe thankfulness, too.

Before all, I would like to sincerely thank my two supervisors, Titik Sudartinah, S.S., M.A., my first supervisor and Nandy Intan Kurnia, S.S., M.Hum., my second supervisor. Their valuable advice, corrections, and encouragement are very helpful for me to make my thesis meet its excellence. I also would like to send my thanks to Niken Anggraeni, S.S., M.A., my academic advisor and all lecturers of English Language and Literature Study Program for delivering me such worthwhile knowledge about English language and literature which hopefully can be useful for me now and so forth.

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The study was descriptive qualitative using pragmatic approach. It also used quantitative method to measure the occurrence of the data. The data were in the form of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences in the context of the main character’s dialogues. The instruments of the study were the researcher with the data sheet as the supporting instrument. The data were collected by following procedures such as watching the movie, downloading and checking the accuracy of the transcript, marking the utterances containing politeness strategies, and compiling them into the data sheet. The collected data were analyzed by following phases of qualitative research analysis. The triangulation technique was also used to obtain trustworthiness of the data.

The results are as follows. (1) All four politeness strategies as proposed by Brown and Levinson i.e. bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record are used by the main character, Melvin B. Tolson. Bald on record strategy turns out to be the dominant politeness strategy used by him. (2) Out of 48 sub strategies in those four politeness strategies, only 18 of them are used. In bald on-record, 6 sub strategies are used with task-oriented strategy as the most frequent used. It is used by him in giving instructions to the hearers. The other sub strategies are strategies to show urgency, entreaty, advice, and preemptive invitation related to face impingement. Then, positive politeness is realized by 7 sub strategies. They are noticing, exaggerating, and intensifying interest to the hearer, using in-group identity marker, presupposing common ground, seeking agreement, and including him and the hearer in the activity. Negative politeness is realized by 3 sub strategies that are being conventionally indirect, hedging, and giving deference and. Off record strategy is also realized by 3 sub strategies that are giving hints, overstating, and being vague. (3) The three sociological factors including rank of imposition, social distance, and relative power indeed affect the preference of politeness strategies performed by Melvin B. Tolson. Relative power comes as the dominant sociological factor which means that Melvin exercises his power especially as an English professor in Wiley College in performing politeness strategies, mainly bald on-record strategy.

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1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

As for the recognition of the research, in this chapter, background of the study, research focus, objectives of the study, and also significance of the study are highlighted and discussed.

A. Background of the Study

People, for many reasons, may use language in similar or different ways according to their own purposes or intentions. They also use various social strategies that are mainly for constructing cooperative interaction with others, so that they can successfully deliver their intention. One of those strategies is politeness. This strategy is used to maintain social equilibrium and friendly relations. Although language is highly varied in every society, the concept of politeness is actually similar in one and another. Yule (1996: 60) defines politeness as the way speakers intend to show awareness of others’ face or public self-images. Generally speaking, people tend to be polite, meaning they want to save other people’s face and acknowledge their presence. There are actually many

assumptions about how people speak can be considered as being polite. Some assume that the more formal people speak, the more polite they are. Whereas, politeness itself is not merely related to the way people being formal since being informal may also be considered as politeness.

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(1996: 3), it covers the study of speaker meaning, contextual meaning, invisible or implicit meaning, and the expression of relative distance. It means that pragmatics deals with how speakers use language in some ways which cannot be predicted from knowledge of linguistics alone, and in this case politeness is without exception. To be more exact, when talking about politeness, the concept of face must be understood first since it is the basic concept why people use politeness. In conversation, there are many ways to show politeness regarding to the awareness of face either by saying something or saying nothing, and those are considered as politeness strategies. The general categories of politeness strategies by saying something or by doing Face Threatening Acts (FTA) as proposed by Brown and Levinson (in Watts, 2003: 86) are positive politeness, negative politeness, bald on record, and off record strategies. Each of the strategies may be varied in terms of realization since people have their own ways to show their purpose and intentions.

Besides face, social aspects of the situation in interactions will much or less influence speakers in using certain politeness strategies. Therefore, it is important to look at various factors related to these. Relative power (P) of the speaker (S) to the hearer (H), the rank of imposition (R), and the social distance (D) or closeness between the speaker and the hearer are factors which cannot be put aside in politeness strategies. These are called sociological factors which are involved in Face Threatening Acts (FTA) done by speakers. These factors are crucial in determining politeness strategies used by speakers.

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encompasses the interaction between the characters. It also provides a story in which the characters are connected one another in a certain plot. Some stories in the movie are fictitious and some are not. One of movies which have non fictitious story is The Great Debaters. It is a movie based on a true story of Melvin B. Tolson who brings his underdog debate team of Wiley College to achieve victory in a national debate championship in America. This movie is chosen as the object because of some reasons.

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B. Research Focus

There have been various researches on politeness, but this topic is still open to be studied since gaps appear here and there. Therefore, the researcher is interested in analyzing politeness, especially in the movie based on communication happened between characters. The chosen movie is The Great Debaters. The main character in this movie is an English professor, Melvin B. Tolson. There are many problems that can arise from his utterances and can be analyzed using some approaches.

First, the movie can be analyzed using sociolinguistic approach. Sociolinguistics concerns on variation within language regarding to the society such as dialects and registers. In terms of these, the main character’s utterances can be studied since he is African American who works as an English professor in the small college of Negroes in Marshall, Texas.

The second approach that can be used is pragmatics. It is the study of language and meaning in context. In interpreting the main character’s utterances,

the aspects of meaning are necessary to be considered together with their circumstances. Therefore, it can be analyzed in terms of speech act and politeness. In speech act, the main character’s utterances may vary in the kinds of act forms

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between sociological factors and the expressions or utterances used in the conversation among the characters.

Since it is impossible for the researcher to analyze all of the problems, therefore she needs to limit them. The researcher focuses on pragmatic study especially on politeness strategies, the realizations of the strategies, and the sociological factors affecting the use of the strategies. To make it simpler and clearer, based on the limitation above, the researcher formulates the problems as follows.

1. What types of politeness strategies are performed by the main character in The Great Debaters?

2. What are the realizations of each politeness strategy performed by the main character in The Great Debaters?

3. What are the sociological factors affecting the preference of politeness strategies performed by the main character in The Great Debaters?

C. Objectives of the Study

Based on the research focus, this study is aimed at describing and analyzing the politeness strategies performed by the main character in The Great Debaters. The objectives of this study are:

1. to find out the types of politeness strategies performed by the main character in The Great Debaters,

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3. to reveal the sociological factors affecting the preference of politeness strategies performed by the main character in The Great Debaters.

D. Significance of the Study

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LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

In order to do this research, some theories are needed as a basic requirement. Therefore, in this chapter some theories related to the research topic such as pragmatics, scopes of pragmatics, theories on politeness including the types of strategies, the realization of strategies, the sociological factors, context, a brief summary of the chosen movie and previous studies are discussed.

A. Literature Review 1. Pragmatics

a. The Definition of Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a branch of linguistics which illuminates the meaning of speakers’ utterances. It is above the semantic field that is the study of object’s

meaning. Yule (1996: 3) simply says that pragmatics is the study of what speakers meant in his/her words. This means that pragmatics does not only cover the meaning of the language literally but also more than that aspect. However, Aitchison (2003: 104) says that Yule’s definition is just the definition of pragmatics in the narrow sense. He states that in the broadest sense, it deals with the general principles followed by people when they communicate with one another. This is in line with Mey’s definition of pragmatics that is a study of the

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Communication itself is a process of the meaning transference from the speaker to the hearer or listener. In this transference, it requires the shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer in order to the construction meaning of the speaker and the inference meaning of the hearer to meet the case. Additionally, both of the parties will conceive meaning regarding to some considerations to the context of the conversation. Context refers to the setting and situation of the conversation such as place, time, and circumstance. This context more or less determines the choices of utterances, gestures or body languages performed. Therefore, pragmatics cannot disregard the context since it involves the interpretation of what people mean in it and how it influences what people said.

b. The Scope of Pragmatics

As emphasizing on meaning and context, pragmatics covers some areas related to these. Some of which are deixis, speech acts, politeness, presupposition, and implicature.

1) Deixis

Deixis is a form of referring which is dependent on the speaker’s context or speaker’s circumstances (Yule, 1996: 9). It involves pointing and indicating

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deixis is to indicate location by using deictic expression such as here and there and temporal deixis is to indicate time by using deictic expression such as tomorrow and yesterday.

2) Speech Acts

Speech act is firstly developed by John Austin and then expanded by John Searle (Holgratves, 2008: 9). It is action performed in saying something (Austin in Cutting, 2002: 16). When people talk with others, they solely do not use words for no reason or intention since they perform actions as well. According to Mey (2001: 93), speech act is produced in actual situations of language use and by people having something in their mind. Thus, speech act is an act executed via language with a certain intention. Cutting (2002: 16) adds that speech act can be analyzed in three different levels. Three of which respectively are locutionary act, illocutionary force, and perlocutionary effect. Locutionary act is the level of act focusing on what form of words uttered, while illocutionary force is what a speaker intends to have recognized and perlocutionary effect is the effects of utterance on the recipient.

3) Politeness

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politely, but rather act politely in various levels according to the language or particularly the utterances performed.

4) Presupposition

According to Yule (1996: 25), presupposition is speaker’s assumption about something which he/she believes to be the case prior in making utterances. It means that he/she presupposes something before uttering. Thus, presupposition is all on the speaker and its validity can be wrong. However, according to Caffi (in Mey, 2001: 186), presupposition concerns on the common or shared knowledge about the utterance whether they are true or false. Furthermore, Yule (1996: 27-29) classifies presupposition into six which he calls as potential presupposition. First, it is presupposition of existence called as existential presupposition. Second, it is factive presupposition which means presupposing information as a fact. Third, it is non-factive presupposition in which the presupposition itself is assumed not to be true. Fourth, it is lexical presupposition in which the use of one form does not only have its asserted meaning but also its non-asserted meaning. Fifth, it is structural presupposition in which part of certain sentence structure is assumed to be true. Finally, it is counterfactual presupposition in which what is presupposed is contrary to facts.

5) Implicature

According to Mey (2001: 25), implicature is actually originated from the verb ‘to imply’. It refers to the meaning that there is something which is folded

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Furthermore, Horn (2006: 3) states that implicature means what is meant in speakers’ utterance is apart from what is actually said. He also adds that there are

two types of implicature, namely conversational implicature and conventional implicature. According to Huang (2011: 407, 412), conversational implicature is the implied meaning which is firmly unsaid, while conventional implicature is a non-truth-conditional meaning which only attached to particular lexical items used.

2. Theories on Politeness

Some theories on politeness have been proposed by some scholars such as Penelope Brown and Steven Levinson, Geoffrey Leech, Robin Lakoff, Shoshena Blum Kulka, and many others. They present their own concepts and rules of politeness. Out of all, the most influential one is of Brown and Levinson’s. In their theory, politeness involves how people make use of their words while concerning to another face (in Holtgraves, 2008: 38). In addition, they state that it is a universal characteristic that speakers should respect others’ face or

self-images (in Cutting, 2008: 43). Yule (1996: 60) supports the idea by stating that politeness is a means used to show the awareness in recognizing other face, so that people try to save or threat it. As a result, it can be said that the concept of politeness cannot be separated from the concept of face itself.

a. Face

The concept of face used by Brown and Levinson is originally based on Goffman’s notion. In his book on face-to-face behavior entitled Interaction Ritual,

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himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact”. Brown and Levinson (in Goody, 1978: 61) add that the term face can be defined as something invested within human being which can be lost and maintained during the interaction. In maintaining this face, it needs cooperation from the two parties, the addresses and the one who is addressed.

Goffman (1967: 6) explains further that actually face or the self-image is closely attached to the feeling. Sometimes they feel good when their images are sustained or they feel bad or hurt when their images are imposed. In politeness theory, there are two types of face, namely positive face and negative face. Positive face is the image that people have which is expected to be appreciated, accepted and approved by others, while negative face is an image which is expected to be respected and not to be imposed by others. In other words, positive and negative face does not refer to the good and bad, but rather to the need and desire of people themselves regarding to their self-images or called as face wants. Since the face wants are changeable dependent on the flow of events or situation, therefore face is a non permanent identity.

In their interaction, while saying something people consciously or unconsciously threat faces of others which is called as Face Threatening Act (FTA). Alternatively, according to Yule (1996: 61), they can lessen the possible threat by saving their face which is called as Face Saving Act (FSA).

b. Politeness Strategy and the Realizations

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(in Goody, 1978: 68) give two choices in doing this strategy, that are by avoiding to do FTA or still by doing FTA but with employing certain strategies that can minimize the threat itself. They add four ways of possible strategies for doing FTA i.e. on record without redressive action (bald on-record), on record with redressive action such as positive politeness and negative politeness, and off record.

1) Bald On-record Strategy

Using bald on-record strategy means that the speaker chooses to talk in a direct, clear, unambiguous, and effective way. Brown and Levinson (in Goody, 1978: 95) states that the reason why speakers use this strategy is because they assume that doing effective communication is much more important than satisfying hearer’s face. Hence the speaker says thing as it is. In the other words,

using bald on-record strategy means what is actually said clearly shows what the intention is.

There are two kinds of bald on-record usage introduced by them. They are non-minimization and minimization of face threat. Non-minimization of face threat can be realized by focusing on emergency that include various levels of urgency. On the other hand, minimization of face threat can be realized using FTA-oriented bald-on-record usage. In short the realization of bald on-record strategy falls into eight. Below is the very brief description of each strategy and its examples taken from Goody’s book (1978: 95-98).

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a) Strategy 1 – No face redress in great urgency

It is used when maximum efficiency is very important either known by speaker or hearer, thus the speaker does not need to redress hearer’s face since

he/she only focuses on the great urgency itself. For example, when a speaker says “Watch out!”, it means that he/she wants to directly and effectively communicate

the danger or something which is very urgent to the hearer. In the other words, this utterance indicates that there is a great urgency that the speaker wants to inform to the hearer. Thus, he/she thinks that face redress is not necessary to be inserted.

b) Strategy 2 – Metaphorical urgency for emphasis

The speaker speaks as if maximum efficiency is very important, thus he/she intentionally emphasizes metaphorical urgency, for example in “Listen, I’ve got an idea”. The metaphorical urgency in this utterance is emphasized in the

word listen. It is to get attention from the hearer as if he/she has something important to say. Therefore, it can be said that the metaphorical urgency refers to the urgency in the eye of the speaker himself/herself, and its meaning is contextually personal. Other expressions to represent this strategy are in “Hear me out” and in “Look, the point is this”.

c) Strategy 3 – Metaphorical entreaties stressing high valuation of hearer’s friendship

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care for him/her, for example in the expression “Don’t forget us!” The utterance contains metaphorical entreaties in which the speaker begs the hearer to not forget him/her and others.

d) Strategy 4 – Channel noise

In this strategy, the speaker has to speak with maximum efficiency because there is an obstacle in the channel or in the means of communication. For instance, when the speaker calls the hearer across a distance by saying “Come home right now!”, he/she has to shout out because of the distance between them.

The case of channel noise in this utterance refers to the far distance between the speaker and the hearer. Therefore, the speaker talks in a direct way.

e) Strategy 5 – Task-oriented

The speaker wants the hearer to do something, but he/she feels that it is inappropriate to redress hearer’s face. For example, in “Lend me a hand here!”,

the speaker asks directly to the hearer to do the task, so that the hearer feels the burden to help him/her. Generally, when it orientates to the task, the more direct the utterance is spoken, the more effective the outcome from the hearer be.

f) Strategy 6 – Do not care to maintain hearer’s face or be rude

This strategy is used when the speaker feels powerful than the hearer, and does not care to maintain the hearer’s face. For example, in “Bring me wine, Jeeves!”, the speaker feels superior over Jeeves. He/she is also not afraid of the

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efficiency of delivering the task, in this strategy face redress is not used because the speaker merely does not want to.

g) Strategy 7 – Sympathetic advice or warning

This strategy is used when the speaker does FTA but at the same time cares the hearer’s face, for example in “Careful! He’s a dangerous man”. This

utterance indicates that in giving this warning by saying careful, the speaker cares to the positive face of the hearer, thus he/she thinks that he/she does not need any redress to the hearer’s face or any minimization to his FTA of requesting.

h) Strategy 8 – FTA-oriented bald-on-record usage

In this strategy the speaker invites the hearer to impose his/her preserve, because the speaker assumes that the hearer is careful not to infringe his/her face. This strategy is usually used in welcoming, farewell, and offers, for example in “Come in, don’t hesitate. I’m not busy.” It means that the speaker is not offended

if the hearer comes in. The words come in refers to the invitation that goes baldly on-record, while don’t hesitate, I’m not busy reflects to the additional expression of FTA-oriented strategy.

2) Positive Politeness Strategy

Positive politeness appeals to the addressee’s positive face, the need to be recognized and approved. In this case, the speaker acknowledges hearer’s face and

tries to keep the relationship going friendly. He/she uses intimate language in order to come closer to the hearer although precisely the risk of hearer’s denial

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Levinson in Goody, 1978: 103). They additionally posit fifteen strategies in addressing to this positive face, i.e. (in Watts, 2003: 89-90).

a) Strategy 1 – Notice, attend to hearer

The speaker should notice to hearer’s interests, wants, needs, or goods as

FTA redress, for example in “Jim, you’re really good at solving computer problems. I wonder if you could just help me with a little formatting problem I’ve

got.” The speaker approves or acknowledges Jim’s ability in solving computer problems as the notice to hearer and as minimization of his FTA of requesting that is to fix the computer.

b) Strategy 2 – Exaggerate

This strategy includes the exaggerative or emphatic use of words or particles focusing on the interest, approval, or sympathy with the hearer. It is illustrated in “Good old Jim, just the man I wanted to see. I knew I’d find you here.” The speaker exaggerates the intonation in saying this utterance especially in

the words Good old Jim to show his/her interest for meeting Jim. c) Strategy 3 – Intensify interest to hearer

In this strategy, the speaker shares his/her want to intensify his/her interests to the conversation by making a good story and as a result the hearer is being pulled to the event being discussed. The instance of this strategy is in “You’ll never guess what Fred told me last night. This is right up your street.”

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participant of this conversation by saying you’ll never guess what Fred told me last night.

d) Strategy 4 – Use in-group identity marker

The speaker conveys in-group membership to the hearer. It usually includes address form, dialect, jargon or slang, and ellipsis. One of address form usage is illustrated in “Here’s my old mate Fred. How are you doing today, mate?” The address form, mate, used by the speaker in this utterance reflects as an

identity marker in which the speaker claims that he/she and Fred is in one group membership.

e) Strategy 5 – Seek agreement

The speaker seeks ways to agree with the hearer and to satisfy his/her desire to be right, for example in “I agree. Right. Manchester United played really badly last night, didn’t they?” The common knowledge of the speaker and hearer

about Manchester United last match plays as the safe topic which makes the speaker possible to satisfy the hearer’s want to be right. Thus he/she performs agreement utterance in I agree and right. Another way to seek agreement is by using repetitions that is by saying partly or fully what the hearer said.

f) Strategy 6 – Avoid disagreement

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showing the disagreement by saying but. The other ways to avoid disagreement are by using white lies and hedging opinion. White lies are performed when the speaker does not want to damage the hearer’s positive face in stating his/her

opinion. For example, in response to a request to borrow a hand phone, the speaker might say, “Oh I can’t. The batteries are dead” where it is actually not

true. Meanwhile, hedging opinions are performed when the speaker chooses to be vague in order to be not seen to disagree. They include the expression such as sort of, kind of, like, in a way.

g) Strategy 7 – Presuppose or assert common ground

There are some ways to achieve this strategy, such as small talk, point of view operations which realized by personal-center switch from the speaker to the hearer, time switch, place switch, and avoidance of reports to hearer’s point of

view. The other way includes presupposition manipulations which cover to presuppose knowledge of hearer’s wants and attitudes, to presuppose speaker’s and hearer’s similarity of values, to presuppose familiarity in speaker and hearer

relationship, and to presuppose hearer’s knowledge. The utterance, “People like me and you, Bill, don’t like being pushed around like that, do we? Why don’t you

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h) Strategy 8 – Joke

Joking is basically used to put the hearer at ease or simply to minimize an FTA of requesting, such as in the following dialogue.

A: “Great summer we’re having. It’s only rained five times a week on average.”

B: “Yeah, terrible, isn’t it?” A: “Could I ask you for a favor?”

The conversation above shows that the speaker gives a joke about the climate by saying a paradox statement in great summer we’re having, it’s only rained five times a week on average. Then, he/she addresses an FTA of requesting which is reflected in could I ask you for a favor? Thus, by adding the joke before the FTA, the imposition of the FTA itself can be redressed.

i) Strategy 9 – Assert knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants

The speaker tries to imply knowledge of hearer’s wants in hope that the hearer cooperates with him/her, for example in “I know you like marshmallows, so I’ve brought you home a whole box of them. I wonder if I could ask you for a favor.” The speaker asserts his/her knowledge about the hearer’s favorite food that

is marshmallows, thus he/she tries to fulfill it first in order that the hearer can be cooperative with his/her request after that.

j) Strategy 10 – Offer, promise

In this strategy, the speaker will cooperate and help the hearer to achieve or obtain his/her wants. It is as illustrated in “I’ll take you out to dinner on Saturday, if you’ll cook the dinner this evening.” The speaker makes a promise

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shows a good intention to satisfy hearer’s positive-face want that is to have a dinner.

k) Strategy 11 – Be optimistic

The speaker assumes that the hearer knows and wants what the speaker wants, thus the hearer will cooperate with him/her. One instance of this strategy is in “I know you’re always glad to get a tip or two on gardening, Fred, so, if I were you, I wouldn’t cut your lawn back so short.” The speaker utters an optimistic

expression in I know you’re always glad to reflect that Fred is happy to do gardening. In addition, the words a tip or two are used as the minimization of the size of the FTA and as the softener of his presumptuousness.

l) Strategy 12 – Include both speaker and hearer in the activity

This strategy utilizes inclusive pronoun we instead of you or me. It is used by the speaker to make cooperative interaction with the hearer, for example in “I’m feeling really hungry. Let’s stop for a bite.” The speaker uses the word us

which actually refers to me in order to make the hearer agree with his/her want to stop and eat something.

m) Strategy 13 – Give reasons

The speaker gives or asks a reason to the hearer why he/she wants what he wants, for example in “I think you’ve had a bit too much to drink, Jim. Why not stay at our place this evening?” The speaker addresses the FTA of offering to Jim

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n) Strategy 14 – Assume reciprocity

The speaker urges the cooperation with the hearer by giving reciprocal rights or obligations. One instance of this strategy is reflected in “If you help me with my math homework, I’ll mow the lawn after school tomorrow.” This

utterance implies reciprocity between the speaker and the hearer that is if the hearer does the speaker’s math homework, the speaker will mow the lawn for the hearer. By negating this debt aspect, the speaker softens his/her FTA at once. Therefore, it can be said that the reciprocity precisely shows the cooperation between them.

o) Strategy 15 – Give gifts to hearer

Satisfying the hearer’s positive face can be done by giving gifts such as goods, sympathy, understanding, and cooperation, for example in “Have a glass of malt whisky, Dick.” In this utterance, the speaker attends to Dick’s positive face

which is to be cared about by giving drink to him. 3) Negative Politeness Strategy

Negative politeness is a type of politeness in which the purpose is to redress the threat of addressee’s negative face (Brown and Levinson in Goody,

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a) Strategy 1 – Be conventionally indirect

In this strategy, the speaker’s utterance goes on record but his/her desire goes off record. It can be seen in “Could you tell me the time, please?” This is an

indirect request used by the speaker to communicate his/her want to know what time it is rather than asking hearer’s ability to tell the time. In other words, there is

a transformation from the literal meaning into the conveyed meaning. The transformation also includes the insertion of sentence-internal please.

b) Strategy 2 – Question, hedge

Instead of making direct assumptions towards hearer’s want, the speaker question or hedge them, for instance in “I wonder whether I could just sort of ask you a little question.” The speaker uses the words wonder and just sort of to hedge

the assumption that the hearer permits him/her to ask a question. c) Strategy 3 – Be pessimistic

To redress the hearer’s negative face, the speaker expresses his doubt whether the condition to his speech act is appropriate or not. It is illustrated in “If

you had a little time to spare for me this afternoon, I’d like to talk about my paper.” The use of if clause in the utterance acts as the subjunctive which shows

that the speaker is in doubt or seemingly pessimistic to the possibility that he/she can talk about his/her paper with the hearer.

d) Strategy 4 – Minimize the imposition

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hearer’s negative face by saying could I talk to you, but then he/she minimizes the

imposition by using the word just which means only in literal meaning and merely in its additional meaning.

e) Strategy 5 – Give deference

The speaker uses the deference strategy to the hearer, for example by using formal address form in “Excuse me, officer. I think I might have parked in the wrong place.” The address form used by the speaker is officer which is the general form of hearer’s occupation as a police constable. This indicates that he/she shows

deference to the hearer since he/she is unfamiliar with him. f) Strategy 6 – Apologize

The speaker does not want to impose the negative face of the hearer. Therefore, he/she tries to apologize for doing the FTA. For example, it is reflected in “Sorry to bother you, but . . .” It is to express that the speaker begs hearer’s forgiveness before addressing the FTA. Other ways to show regret or reluctance to do the FTA are by admitting the impingement, indicating reluctance, and giving overwhelming reasons.

g) Strategy 7 – Impersonalize speaker and hearer

In this strategy, the speaker is avoiding the pronouns I and you. It is illustrated in the following example.

A: “That car is parked in a no-parking area.” B: “It’smine, officer.”

A: “Well, it’ll have to have a parking ticket.”

Instead of saying “You park in a no-parking area”, the speaker says “The car is

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parking ticket” than “You have to have a parking ticket”. These clearly show that the speaker avoids saying you to refer to the hearer by using passive voice with agent deletion.

h) Strategy 8 – State the FTA as general rule

The speaker states that the FTA addressed to the hearer is as an example of general social rule or regulation. One example is reflected in “Parking on the double yellow lines is illegal, so I’m going to give you a fine.” The speaker addresses the FTA as telling the rule that parking on double yellow lines is prohibited. Therefore, it is seemingly that the speaker is being forced to address the FTA to the hearer because of the circumstance telling so or as a result of the parking rule.

i) Strategy 9 – Nominalize

The speaker nominalizes the actor and adds formality, for instance in “Participation in an illegal demonstration is punishable by law. Could I have your name and address, madam?” The speaker adds formality by nominalizing the

subject or removing the active doing part of the hearer in the expression. Therefore, the expression is more formal and less imposing than in “You participate in an illegal demonstration, and it is punishable by law.”

j) Strategy 10 – Go on record as incurring a debt

To redress an FTA, the speaker claims or disclaims the indebtedness to the hearer. It can be seen in “If you could just sort out a problem I’ve got with my formatting; I’ll buy you a beer at lunchtime.” The speaker claims to incur a debt to

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help which actually impinges on hearer’s negative face. As Brown and Levinson stated (in Goody, 1978: 209), the more speaker in hearer’s debt, the more careful he/she treats hearer’s preserve.

4) Off-record Strategy

Off record generally refers to the indirect communication in which the hearers have to make inference by themselves. According to Brown and Levinson (in Goody, 1978: 211), in off record strategy, it is more than one clear communicative intention that is being attributed by speaker, which means that the interpretation of speaker’s utterance is left to the hearer. These are the fifteen strategies together with their instances taken from Holtgraves’s (2008: 44) and Goody’s book (1978: 213-227).

a) Strategy 1 – Give hints

This strategy is the violation of the maxim of relevance because the speaker says something which is not explicitly relevant, and instead he/she raises an issue. One might say, “It’s cold in here.” There are actually two interpretations

of this utterance. First, the speaker merely talks about the condition. Second, the speaker gives hint about the coldness of the room because he/she has a motive for asking the hearer to shut the window or to turn off the air conditioner.

b) Strategy 2 – Give association clues

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speaker and the hearer mutually have the same association to the meaning of the word headache itself. Therefore, it is possible that the utterances above may be used to convey a request from the speaker to borrow hearer’s swimsuit.

c) Strategy 3 – Presuppose

Like giving hints and giving association clues, presupposing also violates the relevance maxim. The speaker presupposes the assumptions of his/her utterance to the hearer. Thus, he/she leaves the hearer to observe what he/she really means. For instance, it can be reflected in “I pretend to be happy.” From this utterance, it can be identified that the speaker wants the hearer to notice that he/she is actually not happy.

d) Strategy 4 – Understate

This strategy is the violation of quantity maxim where the speaker speaks less informative as required, for example, when someone asks about the new haircut and demands the opinion, the speaker only answers by saying “It’s OK”. It means that the speaker gives less response and palters with his/her new haircut which is called as understatement.

e) Strategy 5 – Overstate

This is the opposite strategy of understatement, which is being too much informative as required. The instance of this strategy is when someone says, “The line in the grocery store was a mile long”. The speaker overstates the excuse about

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f) Strategy 6 – Use tautologies

In this strategy, the speaker seems to express something obviously, but actually he/she intends to communicate more than what is said, for instance in “Business is a business”. Although it seems a meaningless utterance, the speaker

probably has something more in mind about the topic of business that he/she wants to communicate to the hearer.

g) Strategy 7 – Use contradictions

The speaker says two contradictive things because he/she cannot tell the truth. For example, it is illustrated in the following dialogue.

A: “Are you upset about that?” B: “Well, I am and I am not.

The expression I am and I am not draws an interpretation that there are two contradictive sides of feeling in the speaker. Therefore, he/she encourages the hearer to find the way to reconcile them.

h) Strategy 8 – Be ironic

The speaker does not literally say what is true, but he/she uses sarcastic irony instead. For example, there is a girl asking about her new dress to her friend. However, her friend might say, “That’s brilliant” when it is actually not. This belongs to irony expression. Through the irony she performs in the expression, the speaker’s intended meaning is conveyed indirectly since she is merely

backhanded and intentionally does not say the truth. i) Strategy 9 – Use metaphors

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the speaker does not intend to mean that his/her job is a jail but rather to mean that his/her job is like in a jail. The connotation of the metaphor used by the speaker means that he/she is discontented with his current job.

j) Strategy 10 – Use rhetorical questions

Another strategy of off-record politeness associated with the violation of quality maxim is by using rhetorical questions, which is illustrated in “Just why would I have done that?” The speaker does not have the intention to obtain the hearer’s answer of his question, yet does not mind if the hearer gives reaction to

it.

k) Strategy 11 – Be ambiguous

The speaker creates ambiguity between the literal meaning and the implicature invoked in his/her utterance, for example in “John’s a pretty smooth cookie.” This utterance does not have a clear interpretation since it can be

interpreted as a compliment or as an insult. What makes it be ambiguous is on the connotation word smooth.

l) Strategy 12 – Be vague

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m)Strategy 13 – Over-generalize

The speaker states an instant rule to offend hearer, but actually this only lets the hearer have a choice in deciding whether it is applied to him/her or not. One example of this strategy is illustrated in “Mature people sometimes help do the dishes.” The speaker gives advice as the FTA of requesting to the hearer to do

something by giving an instant rule, which is if the hearer does the dishes; he/she is mature then. However, the hearer is left to decide by himself/herself.

n) Strategy 14 – Displace hearer

The speaker does not address the FTA to the hearer directly, but pretends to address it through someone else. For example, when in the teacher room, one asks the other to pass the stapler by using negative politeness, whereas the stapler is much closer to the headmaster rather than the other teacher. It means that the teacher displaces the headmaster.

o) Strategy 15 – Be incomplete, use ellipsis

The speaker leaves his/her utterance is undone and hanging in the air, for example in “Well, if one leaves one’s tea on the wobbly table …” In this utterance, the speaker leaves the hearer is burdened with cogitating upon the additional meaning of this undone utterance. Therefore, it is likely that the hearer cogitates what happen next after someone leaves tea on that wobbly table.

c. Politeness Principles

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and sympathy. Tact focuses on the hearer that is minimizing cost to other and maximizing benefit to other. In contrast, generosity focuses on the speaker that is maximizing cost to self and minimizing benefit to self. Approbation means minimizing dispraise of other and maximizing praise to other. On the other hand, modesty means minimizing praise to self and maximizing dispraise of self. Then, the last two principles are not related at all. Agreement focuses on minimizing disagreement between self and others at the same time maximizing agreement between self and others. While sympathy focuses on minimizing antipathy between self and others and maximizing sympathy between self and others.

d. Sociological Factors

In discussing interaction especially politeness, it is important to look at three sociological factors coined by Brown and Levinson which influence to the use of language expression. Sociological factors here act as the circumstances of the utterances in which people make calculations to the seriousness of the Face Threatening Act. Politeness strategies and sociological factors have a correlation when the speaker speaks to other participants of the conversation. According to Brown and Levinson (in Goody, 1978: 71) there are three sociological factors affecting the choice or the preference of politeness strategies, i.e. Rank of Imposition (R), Social Distance (D), and Relative Power (P).

1) Rank of Imposition (R)

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and sensitivities of a culture. Its example taken from Goody’s book is illustrated when a discouraged traveler talks to a stranger at a railway station, “Look, I’m terribly sorry to bother you but would there be any chance of your lending me just enough money to get a railway ticket to get home? I must have dropped my purse and I just don’t know what to do.” In this example, the rank of imposition is great

because the speaker asks the hearer to lend money to him. Therefore, there is a demand of goods expenditure from the speaker to the hearer. In Anglo-American culture, this act of asking without recompense is considered to have more imposition rather than direct requesting (Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978: 81). Furthermore, the speaker realizes that the FTA of requesting directed to the hearer is very serious, thus he uses negative politeness strategy to lessen it. He uses strategy 4 that is minimizing the imposition by employing the words just enough money, and he also uses strategy 6 that is apologizing in I’m terribly sorry to bother you.

2) Social Distance (D)

According to Brown and Levinson (in Goody, 1978: 76), social distance is a measure of the social similarity and familiarity between participants. It is related to the symmetric relation between speaker and hearer on the assessment of the frequency of interaction. Basically, the more distance between the two speakers, the politer one is expected to be, for example, when the speaker is a friend of the hearer and says, “Got the time, mate?” The utterance clearly shows that the

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hearer’s positive face by using positive politeness strategy particularly using in

-group identity marker strategy. 3) Relative Power (P)

Relative Power is the degree to which one can impose things upon the other hearers (Brown and Levinson in Goody, 1978: 77). When people exercise or use their power in their utterances over the others, they tend to use bald on record strategies. Factors contributing to power can be institutional, such as employer - employee or larger social traditions, such as gender. It can be illustrated when an employee says to his Boss in the office, “Excuse me sir, would it be all right if I smoke?” The employee asks permission to the boss whether he can smoke or not

because the boss is more powerful than him. However, the weightiness of the FTA of the employee to the boss is minimized by using negative politeness strategy especially give deference strategy.

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3. Context

Speaking of pragmatics, the use of language cannot be separated from the word context. According to Stillwell Peccei and Yule (in Cutting, 2002: 2) there are two interpretations of the meaning of context. First, it is the knowledge of the world which socially and/or psychologically influences the communication. Second, it is the knowledge of when and where the communication happened.

Cutting (2002: 2) divides context into three types. They are situational, background knowledge, and co-textual context. Situational context is the physical environment including the surrounding situation where the interaction happens, such as a classroom, a restaurant, a mosque, etc. Background knowledge context is the assumed background knowledge which speaker-hearer has in mind about each other either in cultural or personal level. Meanwhile, co-textual context refers to the context of the text itself that is the linguistic material escorting the referring expression used.

In general, context is useful in making sense of the people’s utterances. In

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4. The Great Debaters

The Great Debaters is a movie directed and starred by Denzel Washington. It is written by Robert Eisele and released on 25 December 2007 by The Weinstein Co. It is a biography and drama movie which is based on the true story of Melvin B. Tolson who is an English professor from Wiley College. The setting of the story is in 1935, in Marshall, Texas, United States of America. The story itself is about an underdog team which wins a national debate championship. This team consists of four members: Henry Lowe starred by Nate parker, Hamilton Burgess starred by Jermaine Williams, James Farmer Jr. starred by Denzel Whitaker, and Samantha Booke starred by Jurnee Smollett-Bell as the only female member of the 1930 debate team who participates in the collegiate interracial debate in America. All of them are selected from mini auditions held by Tolson in the college.

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academic activity in Wiley college, Tolson also has politics activity outside the class that is persuading laborers, especially sharecroppers to organize union to fight back the injustice. However, he puts aside the field of politics in the classroom.

At the end of the story, Tolson cannot accompany the team in debating with Harvard as he does in the prior competitions because he has been blacklisted to leave the city for forming underground union, Southern Tenant Farmer’s union.

However, the Wiley College debating team can finally win, and even become undefeated for ten years long. Tolson himself does not stop from his activities. He still runs his work with the union and becomes famous poet instead. His students even more become successful people since then. James Farmer Jr. becomes the leader of civil right movement, Henry Lowe becomes a minister, and Samantha Booke becomes a lawyer.

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5. Previous Studies

There are many studies dealing with the topic of politeness whether under pragmatics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, or other issues. Therefore, it is worth to refer some of which so that the current study of the research can be more comprehensive. The results of the previous studies are very helpful for the researcher in analyzing the data. The previous studies in question are as follows.

First of all, it is an undergraduate thesis written in 2012 by Talitha Yuniawati entitled A Pragmatic Analysis of Politeness Features in Revolutionary Road. In this research, she tried to dig out the politeness strategies used by the main characters, which are the female and the male ones, and the politeness principles underlying the preference of the strategies themselves. It was based on Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategies and Leech’s theory of

politeness principles. The result showed that both of the characters used four types of politeness and used mostly the positive politeness. Meanwhile, the principle mostly used is approbation maxim. In addition, the result of the research highlighted that there was no significant difference in the application of politeness principles between the male and female main character.

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realizations are used by both of the characters in giving commands and the relative power is the large contributing factor to their politeness strategies.

These two researches are used as the comparison as well as the reference for the current study. The difference between these researches and the current research lies in the object and the focus of the study. The current study is aimed to examine the types of politeness strategies, the realizations of each strategy, and the affecting sociological factors in the utterances of the main character only. B. Conceptual Framework

This research is under the field of pragmatics which discusses the phenomena of politeness along with their realizations and affecting sociological factors. This study is based on Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness (in

Goody, 1978). The strategies studied here are those used by the main character of The Great Debaters movie, Melvin B. Tolson, who represents as a teacher character. In this movie the utterances performed by Melvin B. Tolson are analyzed in term of his politeness strategies which are divided into bald on-record strategies, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness strategies, and off-record strategies. The researcher also analyzes how the strategies are realized by him. Finally, the affecting sociological factors in politeness as in Brown and Levinson’s theory, i.e. rank of imposition, social distance, and relative power are

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A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN DENZEL WASHINGTON’S THE

GREAT DEBATERS MOVIE

Strategies

1. No face redress in great hearer’s friendship

urgency 4. Channel noise

2. Metaphorical urgency for 5. Task-oriented

emphasis 6. Do not care to mantain hearer’s face or be rude 3. Metaphorical entreaties 7. Sympathetic advice or warning

stressing high valuation of 8. FTA-oriented bald-on-record usage

1. Notice, attend to hearer 7. Presuppose or assert 11. Be Optimistic

2. Exaggerate common ground 12. Include both speaker

3. Intensify interest to hearer 8. Joke and hearer in the activity 4. Use in-group identity marker 9. Assert knowledge of and 13. Give reasons 5. Seek agreement concern for hearer’s wants 14. Assume reciprocity 6. Avoid agreement 10. Offer, promise 15. Give gifts to hearer

1. Be conventionally indirect 6. Apologize

2. Question, hedge 7. Impersonalize speaker and hearer 3. Be pessimistic 8. State the FTA as general rule 4. Minimize the imposition 9. Nominalize

5. Give deference 10. Go on record as incurring a debt

Pragmatics

Implicature

1. Give hints 6. Use tautologies 11. Be ambigous

2. Give association clues 7. Use contradictions 12. Be vague

3. Pressupose 8. Be ironic 13. Over-generalize

4. Understate 9. Use metaphors 14. Displace hearer

5. Overstate 10. Use rhetorical questions 15. Be incomplete, use ellipsis

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40 CHAPTER III

METHODS OF RESEARCH

This chapter is divided into six parts which are to be the guidelines on how this research was conducted. They are research type; form, source, and context of data; instruments; data collection technique; data analysis technique; and trustworthiness.

A. Type of the Study

Qualitative research is a type of research with a purpose to describe phenomena in narrative or textual mode, meaning that the description itself presented via words (Vanderstoep & Johnston, 2009: 7). Hence, the current research was conducted by using qualitative method precisely with descriptive method because its aim was to describe the politeness phenomena. It used quantitative method as well in order to measure the frequency of data occurrence. Pragmatic approach was used in this research since the researcher intended to collaborate meaning and context as the analysis of the research. Furthermore, the research focused on its analysis on the process of finding and making conclusion based on the research question made. On the whole, the researcher met the final analytic decision through following procedures such as collecting, classifying, analyzing and interpreting the data.

B. Form, Source and Context of Data

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analyzed using several methods and can be visualized using graphs, images, and others. Pieces of data actually refer to individual piece of information. Therefore, data are collected and analyzed to create information which is suitable for making decisions.

The object of this research was The Great Debaters movie. The data were in the form of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences found in the utterances of the main character, Melvin B. Tolson, particularly those containing politeness strategies. The sources of data were The Great Debaters movie and its transcript which is taken from a reliable internet page, http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a1/ the-great-debaters-script-transcript.html. Lastly, the

context of data was the dialogues between Melvin B. Tolson and the other characters in the movie.

C. Instruments

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Table 1. Sample of data sheet of politeness strategies performed by Melvin B. Tolson in TheGreat Debaters movie

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or sentences that contained politeness strategies including bald on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record strategies. Then, she compiled these raw data into the data sheet that she already made. Finally, she made sure that the data collected was ready to be analyzed by re-reading the transcript and re-watching the movie itself.

E. Data Analysis Technique

In analyzing the data taken from the script of The Great Debaters, the researcher worked under a comprehensive framework in analyzing politeness including identifying the types of politeness strategies, the realizations of politeness strategies, and the sociological factors affecting the preference of politeness strategies. It referred to qualitative description in finding politeness strategies performed by Melvin B. Tolson. The researcher more or less analyzed the data by following phases of qualitative research analysis. They include organizing and preparing the raw data, reading through all data, interrelating themes or description, interpreting the data, and concluding the result (Creswell, 2009: 185).

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was used. Finally, after gaining the result, she drew conclusions and gave suggestions.

F. Trustworthiness of Data

Establishing trustworthiness guarantees the quality of findings. Trustworthiness of data consists of reliability and validity. Reliability refers to the consistency of the research, while validity refers to the accuracy of the findings (Gibbs in Creswell, 2009: 190). In order to get trustworthiness of the data, the researcher used triangulation technique. This triangulation utilizes sources outside the data to verify the data or to compare them to make sure that the research is valid and reliable.

First of all, the data of the research were triangulated by using several theories and sources. The theory used was Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness in Goody’s book entitled Question and Politeness issued in 1978. Furthermore, the data findings of the research were triangulated by two linguistics students as researcher’s peer reviewers. The data were read and re-read comprehensively by them. Then, the result of the triangulated data findings were consulted to the researcher’s supervisors. By applying these, the validity and

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46 CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter comprises two sections, i.e. findings and discussion. The first section, findings, provides the data found and presents them in a table. The second section, discussion, illuminates the detail and further explanation about the data findings along with their examples.

A. Findings

This section shows the findings or data related to the research objectives including the types of politeness strategies, the realization of each politeness strategy, and the sociological factors affecting the preference of the politeness strategies performed by the main character in Denzel Washington’s The Great

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As presented in Table 2, bald on-record strategy is used most frequently by Melvin B. Tolson, as the main character in the movie, with a total of 14 times occurrence. It indicates almost a half of the data is performed by using this strategy. On the other hand, the least strategy used by him is off record strategy. It is only performed 3 times. Then, in terms of politeness strategy realizations, 18 out of 48 sub strategies are performed. In bald on record strategy, task-oriented comes as the most strategy used since it is performed 7 out of 14 times. Meanwhile, in positive politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, and off-record strategy, there is no single dominant strategy since the occurrence of some sub strategies are similar in numbers.

In performing these four politeness strategies, Melvin B. Tolson takes three sociological factors into his consideration. Although all of which are employed in each utterance performed, only one dominant or significant factor is chosen as the representative of each utterance in this research. Relative power is the most frequent factor that affects Melvin’s preference of politeness strategy

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strategies or realizations of politeness strategy performed by Melvin, only task-oriented strategy which is dominantly affected by the three sociological factors.

In short, four politeness strategies are performed by Melvin B. Tolson with the realizations of 18 sub strategies. Bald on-record strategy comes as the most frequent strategy performed by him with the total of 14 times. In addition, all the sociological factors, namely rank of imposition, social distance, and relative power affect his preference of politeness strategy. However, relative power is the most frequent one.

B. Discussion

In this section, the findings are explained and discussed thoroughly. It is divided into three parts in accordance to the research objectives. The first part discusses the first objective that is identifying the types of politeness strategies performed by the main character in The Great Debaters movie. The second and third parts respectively discuss the second objective that is describing the realizations of each politeness strategy and the third objective that is revealing the sociological factors affecting the preference of politeness strategies performed. To get them all well explained, some examples are also presented.

1. Types of Politeness Strategies Performed by the Main Character in The Great Debaters

A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN DENZEL WASHINGTON’S THE GREAT DEBATERS MOVIE.

I dedicate this thesis to my beloved parents for their endless supports

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