Politeness Strategies in Directive Speech Acts in Local Indonesian Parliament Assembly Proceedings

Abstract

This study reports on politeness in directive speech acts appearing within the proceedings of the local parliament for Sukoharjo, Indonesia. The aim is to explain the politeness strategies used to convey intended persuasive forces during parliamentary discourses. Drawing upon the pragmatic qualitative approach, this study examined 18 parliamentarians and data on their previous utterances' form, function, meaning, and context in the proceedings. Using data collected through observation, records, and documentation, it looks at how the politicians acted. The results show that directive acts represent the main performance, with 154 tokens of illocution and 44 directive speech acts for politeness. Politeness strategies to perform directive speech acts are colored with on record, positive politeness, and aversion-to-acting negative politeness. The characters for positive politeness include inviting- gentle-direct, repressing-gentle-direct, suggesting-gentle-indirect, repressing-gentle-indirect, gentle-indirect, and respecting direct. This study implies pragmatic analysis in a different setting where an emphasized degree of formality is required. Suggestions are made to compare or contrast with utterances in less formal interactions, such as in the negotiations between a buyer and seller, and in religious circumstances like sermons in a mosque, church, or colloquial proceedings.

Speech Acts and Politeness: A Case Study on Indonesian EFL Learners in Teaching and Learning Practice

“…As stated by (Yule, 1996) indirect speech acts are generally associated with greater politeness in English than direct speech acts. It is supported by Huang (in (Maskuri et al, 2019) considers indirect speech acts to be politer than their direct counterparts because they are broadly connected to politeness. The use of indirect speech acts was to make a social distance among the students.…”

“…In teaching and learning activity, the relationship between the teacher and the students tends to be more formal in which both of the speaker and listener need to be threated on their self public image. Goody (in (Maskuri et al, 2019) identifies 10 subcategories of negative politeness:…”

“…It also called solidarity strategy (Yule, 1996). Goody (in (Maskuri et al, 2019) lists 15 subcategories of positive politeness strategies: (1) to notice and attend to the hearer, (2) to exaggerate, (3) to intensify interest to the hearer, (4) to use in-group identity markers, (5) to seek agreement, (6) to avoid disagreement, ( 7) to presuppose /raise/ assert common ground, (8) to joke, ( 9) to assert or presuppose the speaker's knowledge of, and concern for, the hearer's wants, (10) to offer or promise, (11) to be optimistic, ( 12) to include both the speaker and hearer in the activity, (13) to give (or ask for) reason, ( 14) to assume or assert reciprocity and (15) to give gifts to the hearer. Based on the analysis, politeness strategy acted by the speakers include in three categories, namely (1) to include both the speaker and hearer in the activity, (2) to give gifts to the hearer, and (3) to offer or promise.…”

Sarcasm in selected modern short stories: A pragmatic Analysis

“…Brown and Levinson"s concept of face is not denoting the physical facial form, but it denotes one"s public image or self-respect (Dibyo et al, 2019). They defined face as "the want to be unimpeded and the want to be approved of in certain respects" (Brown & Levinson, 1987: 62), this face contains two related parts: Face…”

Indonesian in Service Teacher’s Production of Directive Speech Acts and Students’ Responses

“…Empirical researches of speech acts have explored spoken or written language in various communication contexts, including teaching (Azizah, Suparno, & Tarjana, 2019;Basra & Thoyyibah, 2017;Merdana et al, 2013;Zulianti, 2018) and a range of speech acts, including asking (Andewi & Waziana, 2019;Isnawati, Anam, & Diana, 2014), command (Patmo, 2017;Susanto, 2017), request (Azwan, 2018;Jabber & Jinquan, 2013;Taguchi, 2006) and suggestion (Kamlasi, 2017;Wulansari & Suhartini, 2015). These speech act studies discussed several study focuses, including the directive speech act variations and expressions (Haryanto & Mubarok, 2018;Sulistyani, 2018;Suparno, 2013), directive function (Fatma, Prayitno, Jamaludin, Jha, & Badri, 2019;Fatma, Sumarlam, & Suwandi, 2018;Maskuri, Tarjana, Djatmika, & Purnanto, 2019;Rasmodjo, 2016;Zulianti, 2018) and the differences contexts in the use of directives (Bijad Alharbi, 2018;Prasetyo & Mulyani, 2018;Stevanovic & Kuusisto, 2019).…”