The Employment of Language Politeness Strategies in Student-Lecturer Virtual Interaction

Abstract

Language politeness is a critical element to be incorporated in communication for its worth across social status, power, or position. In this study, WhatsApp text conversations between students and lecturers were utilised in analysing its politeness strategies used by the students. Purposive sampling which involved WhatsApp texts from two classes of English for Oral Presentation (ELC590) subject was conducted and text messages from thirty (30) students were selected. The text messages were then analysed using descriptive qualitative and quantitative analysis studies according to the four (4) politeness sub-strategies by Brown and Levinson (1987). All four (4) types of language politeness strategies were observed in the respondents' texts. Negative politeness strategy is the highest strategy used among respondents, followed by bald-on, positive politeness, and lastly off-record strategies. Based on the results, a number of respondents were not communicatively competent as some of the text messages contained Face-threatening Acts (FTA) that would damage the lecturers' face and be considered as impolite thus breaking down effective communication. Hence, it is recommended that other elements could be explored in future research such as time, use of emoji, punctuation or capitalisation. The findings would result in better understanding of language politeness strategies used in students' communication with lecturers.