English Education Study Program – STKIP West Sumatera [2017]
POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY USED BY THE MAIN CHARACTERS IN TRUE STORY FILM
1Jefri, 2M. Khairi Ikhsan, 3Wily Satria
1 Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat,– Padang, [email protected], (1st Writer)
2 Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat,– Padang, [email protected], (Co-author)
3 Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, STKIP PGRI Sumatera Barat,– Padang, [email protected], (Co-author)
ABSTRACT
This research was positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in “True Story” film. The purpose of this research was to find the strategies of positive politeness used by the main characters. This research was qualitative research. The data were all utterances of the main characters in “True Story” film. In this research, the writer watched the film, read the film script, and identified the data. The writer classified the data into positive politeness strategy (15 positive politeness strategy based Brown and Levinson’s theory). It was classified by utterances of the main characters that contain of positive politeness strategy. The result of this research was shown that there were nineteen utterances belongs to positive politeness strategy that was used by the main characters, were 5 utterances of Notice, attend to hearer, 3 utterances of Give gifts to hearer, 3 utterances of Avoid disagreement, 2 utterances of Include both speaker and hearer in activity, 1 utterance of Intensify interest to hearer, 1 utterance of Use in-group identity markers, 1 utterance of Joke, 2 utterances of Presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, and 1 utterance of Offer, promise. This research contain of 9 positive politeness strategies that was used by the main characters in “True Story” film.
Penelitian ini adalah positive politeness strategy yang digunakan karakter utama dalam film “True Story”. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui positive politeness strategy yang digunakan karakter utama. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian kualitatif. Data mencakup semua ujaran-ujaran yang digunakan oleh karakter utama dalam film “True Story”. Dalam melakukan penelitian ini peneliti menonton film, membaca naskah film, dan mengidentifikasi data. Peneliti mengklasifikasikan data ke dalam positive politeness strategy (15.positive politeness strategy menurut teori Brown and Levinson). Ini diklasifikasikan oleh ucapan-ucapan dari karakter utama yang mengandung positive politeness strategy. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat Sembilan belas ujaran yang mengandung positive politeness strategy, diantaranya: 5 ujaran Notice, attend to hearer, 3 ujaran Give gifts to hearers, 3 ujaran Avoid disagreement, 2 ujaran Include both speaker and hearer in activity, 1 ujaran Intensify interest to hearer, 1 ujaran Use in-group identity markers, 1 ujaran Joke, 2 ujaran Presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, dan 1 ujaran offer, promise. Didalam penelitian ini terdapat 9 positive politeness strategy yang digunakan oleh karakter utama didalam film “True Story”.
Key words : Strategi Kesopanan Positif, Film “True Story”
INTRODUCTION
Language has an important role in daily interaction. The people use language to say or deliver their ideas, opinions, and give information to the others. Without language the people will be difficult to cooperate and understand each other.
When the people use language to communicate, they always want it runs well and smoothly and build a good relationship with others. Otherwise, communication cannot be successful because of misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer in conversation. Sometimes the speaker hurt
the hearer’s feel when they are talking so that it make the communication does not work well. In this case, politeness have to be learnt in study of language.
Politeness is very important in daily life. It purpose to avoid the conflict to other people. In general, the people did not aware with their utterance when they were doing and saying something.
When the people talked to other, he or she did not think about the choice of words that would use during the conversation. The speaker use the word
2 that damage the hearer’s feel so that he or she
felt uncomfortable with the speaker’s utterance in that conversation. In the other hands, it gave bad impression and decreased the relationship between speaker and hearer after the conversation.
Moreover, Brown and Levinson in Leech (2014:25), politeness is that it is a way of protecting face against face-threatening acts (FTAs). Face means the public self-image of a person. Brown and Levinson (1987:62) divide the face into two parts. There are negative face and positive face. The people should maintain these different faces so that Face Threatening Acts can be avoided. Face Threatening Acts (FTA’s) means the self-image of a person that threated by the other.
Thus, to avoid FTAs, Brown and Levinson have developed some strategies of politeness into four strategies. One of them is positive politeness strategy.
Positive politeness strategy is one of strategy to minimize the threat on the hearer’s face. Brown and Levinson in Bousfield (2008:57) state that positive politeness is performed utilizing strategies oriented towards redressing the positive face threat to the hearer. It always use when the speaker and the hearer have known well each other. Positive politeness strategy is focus to the person’s positive face which it shows that the speaker recognizes the hearer’s desire to be respected. For example, the speaker says “Buddy, can I borrow your pen?”.
The word of Buddy is one of politeness strategy because when the speaker use the word, it can be minimize the threat on the request. Thus, the hearer assume that he has claimed in the same group with the speaker and his positive face was maintained by the speaker. Politeness is not only seen in human daily interaction. It also seen through media such as in film.
Film is a series of moving pictures recorded with sound that tell a story, it shown at the cinema or movie theater. In film, communication are produced by the characters that used in different context. Generally, film is purpose to entertain the viewer. Besides, it also contain of educational that important to be learnt. Through film, the viewer can know the way of communication that related with some aspects of pragmatic included politeness.
The researcher choose True Story film that will be researched. True story film is a 2015 American film directed by Rupert Goold, and produced by Dede Gardner, Anthony Katagas, and Jeremy Kleiner. This film is based on actual event which it tell about a reporter, Michael Finkle (Jonah Hill), meets accused killer, Christian Longo (James Franco) who has taken Finkle’s identity. The researcher choose this film because the story puts the situation most in the work place, where the different statuses such as friend, client, and boss. It is contain different social distance
and power in doing communication. Thus, there will be positive politeness strategies employed in this film.
The main characters of this film are Michael Finkle and Christian Longo. They have important role in this film. The story of the film was happened when Longgo was accused. He used Finkle’s identity for some reasons. They are who never meet each other, want to build relationship for some aims for themselves. In showing the closeness, they are keeping the positive self-image of the addressee who it can avoid a conflict. Thus, positive politeness strategy will be used by both of the characters. From the phenomena above, the researcher is interested in conducting the research about Positive politeness Strategy. The researcher will find out the positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in True Story film.
RESEARCH METHOD
In this research, the writer used qualitative research. However, Bogdan and Taylor in Moleong (2010:4) stated that qualitative research refers to research procedure that produce descriptive data in written of spoken words from the people and observable behavior. Besides, according to Lofland and Lofland in Moleong, (2010:157), the primary data in qualitative research is form as words and acts, and an addition data such as document and the addition data such as document and others. Thus, in this research, the writer needed a film and the script as the source of data. Therefore, the researcher chose “True Story” film as source of data.
Meanwhile, According to Moleong (2010:9) stated that in the qualitative research, the instrument of data collecting process is the researcher him or herself or with the assistance of somebody. Hence, in this research, there were two instrument. First, the primary instrument is the researcher himself. Second, the secondary instrument is data sheet of analysis of positive politeness strategy based on Brown and Levinson (1987). This instrument used to help the researcher in categorized, classified, analyzed, and interpreted the data.
Moreover, in this research, the writer used document method in collected the data. However, Arikunto (2002:206) also stated that documentation method is searching the data about things or variable that form in note, transcript, book magazines, and others. Furthermore, after collecting the data, the writer did the last step in this research. In getting the result of this research, The steps of data analysis in this research are taken from the techniques proposed by Miles and Huberman in Sugiono (2014:91), argue that the analysis of the data contains of three steps namely;
data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/ verification.
3 FINDING AND DISCUSSION
In this research, the writer tried to find out positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in “True Story” film. There were 19 utterances consisted positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in “True Story” film.
The result of the analysis can be seen on the table 4.3. The table is formulated to make the reader easy in getting information about the result of this research.
Table 4.3 Positive Politeness Strategy in “True Story” film.
N Positive Politeness Strategy Quantity 1. Notice, attend to the hearer 5
2 Exaggerate -
3 Intensify interest to hearer 1 4 Use in-group identity markers 1
5 Seeking agreement -
6 Avoid disagreement 3
7 Presuppose/raise/assert
common ground -
8 Joke 1
9
Presuppose speaker’s
knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants
2
10 Offer or promise 1
11 Optimistic -
12 Include both speaker and hearer
activity 2
13 Asking, giving for reason - 14 Assume or assert reciprocity -
15 Give gifts to hearers 3
19 From the table above, it can be seen that there are 9 positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in True Story film. Those were 5 utterances of Notice, attend to hearer, 3 utterances of Give gifts to hearer, 3 utterances of Avoid disagreement, 2 utterances of Include both speaker and hearer in activity, 1 utterance of Intensify interest to hearer, 1 utterance of Use in-group identity markers, 1 utterance of Joke, 2 utterances of Presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants, and 1 utterance of Offer, promise.
CONCLUSION
Based on the finding, the writer concluded that there are 19 positive politeness strategy used by the main characters in True Story film. There are 5 utterances of Notice, attend to the hearer strategy, 3 utterances of Give gifts to hearers
strategy, 3 utterances of Avoid disagreement, 2 utterances of Include both speaker and hearer activity strategy, 2 utterances of Assert or presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for hearer’s wants strategy, 1 utterance of Intensify interest to hearer strategy, Use in-group identity markers strategy, Joke strategy, and Offer or promise strategy.
SUGGESTION
The writer hopes that the reader could be applied this positive politeness strategy in daily activity. This study was expected to give reference for further study. The further study could be conducted in the real society. In communication, the people should be careful in interpreting what the speaker means. The people had to maintain the face of the person so that it would not damage their self-image. Therefore, there is no misunderstanding between the speaker and the hearer when they communicate. For the next researcher, the researchers can use other theory that different from this research. They can use the other object so the data and findings will be different. Thus, the writer expects any critics and suggestions from the readers and also the next researchers to make it better.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
A special thanks and appreciation from the deepest heart are given to advisors, M. Khairi Ikhsan, M.Pd., and Wily Satria, M.Pd., who have been kind and willing to give their times, energy, suggestions and supports in completing this thesis.
REFERENCES
Arikunto, Suharsimi. 2002. Prosedur Penilitian.
Jakarta: PT Rineka Cipta.
Brown, Penelope and Steven C. Levinson.
(1987). Politeness: Some Universal in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bousfield, Derek. (2008). Impoliteness in interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Moleong, Lexy J. 2010. Metodologi Penilitian Kualitatif. Bandung: PT Remaja Rosdakarya.
Leech, Geoffrey. (2014). The Pragmatics of Politeness. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sugiono. 2014. Memahami Penilitian Kualitatif.
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