Ilhamdi Hafiz Sofyan

1410731012

Pragmatics

Politeness Strategies

As we know, in pragmatics, “face” can be defined as a self-image that every person

tries to protect in public. There are two kinds of face, the positive face and the negative face.
Positive face is the “want” of a person to be respected by others in a conversation, whereas
negative face is the “want” of a person to be not imposed by others. When a person interacts
with another person, the positive face of the speaker is being threatened because he or she
“wants” respect from his or her hearer. Conversely, the hearer’s negative face is also being
threatened because another person is imposing themselves on them. In conversational
analysis, there are several ways on how a person manages the face. This is referred as
politeness strategies, which are speech acts that express concern for others and minimize
threats to self-esteem or face in particular social contexts.

During a conversation, in order to save the face of our hearer where face-threatening
acts are inevitable, politeness strategies are used to formulate messages so the damage to the
hearer could be avoided. Brown and Levinson (1987) outlined several types of politeness
strategies during an interaction; they were bald on record, negative politeness, positive
politeness, and off record, including not doing FTA at all. In a bald on record strategy, the
speaker does nothing at all to reduce the threat to the hearer’s face. It usually used in a close
relationships or when information needs to be shared as fast as possible. For example, when a
person spot me that I would walked into a manhole, he shouted, “Watch out!” in order to
warn me. In this instance, the speaker does nothing at all to reduce the threat to my face,
because the information had to be shared quickly, or else I would fall into the manhole.
Another example can be seen when I told a person to “Shut up!” after he annoys me. In this
example, I had no intention to maintain my hearer’s face by doing bald on record politeness
strategy intentionally in order to make my hearer stop talking—which my hearer would
consider as rude depending on the situation.

However, if the speakers do intent to save his or her hearer’s face during FTA, they
would do on record politeness strategy with redressive actions. This would result in positive
politeness and negative politeness. In positive politeness, the speaker recognizes that his or
her hearer has a desire to be respected. The speaker could fulfills their hearer’s desire by
paying attention to the condition of the hearer, exaggerate it, strengthening his or her interest
to the hearer’s condition, put the hearer as part of the speaker’s community, and provide the
same perception that occurs towards the speaker. For example, during a conversation, the
speaker wanted to know about the vase that the hearer just bought and then he or she
exclaims, “What a beautiful vase this is! Where did it come from?” The speaker here wanted
to know about the origin of the vase, but in order to reduce the threat to the hearer’s face he
or she praises the vase as to signify that the speaker is paying attention to the hearer’s want to
be respected. In turn, the hearer would possibly reply by saying “Thank you,” first before
gives the answer to the speaker. Another strategy can be seen when the speaker intensify the
interest to hearer, so he or she would pay attention. For example, the speaker tells a story,
saying, “I come down the stairs, and what do you think I see? – a huge mess all over the
place, the phone’s off the hook and clothes are scattered all over…” By adding detail to the
story like “huge mess all over the place”, “phone’s off the hook” and “clothes are scattered
all over,” the hearer would pay attention to the speaker’s story because the way the speaker
describe the situation get them interested.

The second redressive on record politeness strategy is the negative politeness. The
negative politeness also recognizes the hearer’s face, but it also recognizes that the speaker is
in some way imposing on them. There are several strategies that could be applied by negative
politeness such as be being direct towards the hearer, not presume the hearer, not coerce the
hearer, communicate the speaker’s want to not impinge on the hearer, and redress other wants
of the hearer. In direct action, the speaker could decide to be conventionally indirect towards
the hearer, which in consequence makes the speaker faced by the opposing desires of trying
to give the hearer an ‘out’ by being indirect, and to go on record. This problem can be solved
by the use of phrases and sentences that have contextually unambiguous meanings, which are
different from their literal meanings. For example, a speaker is asking the hearer, “Why are
you painting your house purple?” In this instance, the way the speaker asks a question could
make the hearer thinks that the speaker is either curious (the literal reading) or just wanted to
give a critical challenge (a conveyed indirect reading). However, if the speaker adds
exclamatory expressions in his or her question, such as, “Why in the world are you painting
your house purple?” it would push the meaning into on record politeness. It would be clear to
the hearer that the speaker really wanted to give a critical challenge regarding the color that
the speaker used in painting his or her house.

The last politeness strategy is off record politeness strategy. The main purpose of off
record politeness strategy is to take some of the pressure off the speaker. In this case, the
speaker is trying not to directly imposing on the hearer. Instead, the speaker would rather be
offered by the hearer once he or she realizes that the speaker needs one. The off record
politeness is done in such a way that it is not possible to attribute only one clear
communicative intention to the act. If the speaker wants to do FTA, but in the same time also
wants to avoid the responsibility for doing it, he or she can apply off record politeness
strategy and let the hearer to decide on how to interpret it. For example, during a sunny day a
thirsty person notice that another person next to him holds soft drinks. He later exclaimed, “It
is really hot today, isn’t it?” to the person that had soft drinks. By doing so, the speaker
expressed his or her thirst while at the same time avoids the responsibility of doing FTA.
Now, it ups to the hearer to interpret what the speaker means. If he or she complies by
offering soft drinks to the speaker, the speaker would possibly say “Thank you” because the
hearer understand his or her want.