Journal of Pragmatics Research
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Impoliteness in Power-imbalance and Power-neutral Relational Contexts: Evidence from a Persian TV Drama
This study investigated impoliteness in relational contexts. Interlocutors analyzed the data from a Persian TV drama from two perspectives: intentionality and perception of impoliteness. Two relational contexts were identified: power-imbalance and power-neutral, each comprising two types of impoliteness: reciprocal and non-reciprocal. Reciprocal impoliteness occurred in hostile and conflictual situations where impoliteness was both intended by the speaker and perceived by the recipient as a direct face-attack. In non-reciprocal impoliteness, however, when power imbalance was due to family hierarchy, the recipient of impoliteness remained silent; in other situations, the intentional face-attack was tolerated, unless the recipient’s social identity face was directly attacked. In power-neutral situations, impoliteness was not reciprocated when intimacy existed between the interactants. It was neither intended nor perceived as face-threatening; however, direct face-attack was reciprocal in hostile situations. The findings of the present study point to the significant role of the relational context in the interpretation of impoliteness
A Cross-Cultural Pragmatics Study of Request Strategies and Politeness in Javanese and Sundanese
This study aims to examine and compare request strategies and politeness of two groups of native speakers from two different ethnic groups in Indonesia, i.e., Javanese and Sundanese. The data were collected by using Discourse Completion Task (DCT) with 60 participants from 30 Javanese (East Java) and 30 Sundanese (West Java) speakers. The data were analyzed by using the classification of request strategies by Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) and social contexts in terms of social power, social distance, and degree of imposition by Brown and Levinson (1987) to reveal the levels of directness and politeness of request employed by each group of speakers. The result of this study indicates that Direct Strategy in the form of mood derivable and Conventionally Indirect Strategy in the form of query preparatory are two request strategies that are mainly employed by both Javanese and Sundanese speakers. In particular, Javanese speakers employ a more Direct Strategy than Sundanese speakers. However, the patterns of request strategies employed by Javanese and Sundanese speakers in most social contexts are similar. In addition, both groups of speakers can also adapt to the situations and employ appropriate requests to the hearer. Therefore, politeness and appropriateness in requests employed by each group of speakers in their DCT responses can reflect the local wisdom of each culture.Keywords: requests; social contexts; politeness; Javanese; Sundanes
Speech Acts Found in English Tourism Slogans Used in Indonesia
The research aims at describing the types and functions of speech acts in the tourism slogan in Indonesia. There has already been much research on tourism slogan, but only a few studies focusing on linguistics. To broaden the study of tourism slogans from a linguistics perspective, the research focuses on the speech acts in the tourism slogans. It belongs to descriptive qualitative research by focusing on the phenomena of tourism slogans in society. The data of the research are tourism slogans of some cities in Indonesia found on the internet. The technique of data collection used is content analysis. The technique of data analysis consists of data reduction, data display, and verification. There is no data reduction in this research. Data is displayed in the table and the last step data is analyzed based on the problem statements. The researchers found 31 data of tourism slogans. There are 4 types of speech acts in tourism slogans namely representative speech acts (13 data), directive speech acts (7 data), commissive speech acts (3 data), and expressive speech acts (8 data). The researchers find 3 functions of speech acts in the tourism slogan such as giving information about the history of the city, nickname of the city, hope or idea of the city (19 data), asking (7 data), and promising (5 data). The findings show that there is a tendency to be very simple in the slogans found. Besides, the slogans come with an exclusive appeal by emphasizing the effective component in the message.Keywords: tourism, slogans, speech acts.
A Survey of Infringements of Gricean Maxims in Some Precautionary Inscriptions on Medicine Packets
In communication, participants are expected to cooperate through observing a set of maxims. Nevertheless, some communicative instances reveal that there are cases of unintentional non-observance of the maxims, which Grice (1975) categorized as “infringing a maxim”. These instances of infringements call for attention to the extent that they could cause breakdown in communication. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to investigate some cases of infringements of the maxims in selected precautionary inscriptions on some medicine packets, with the objective to examine how such messages are interpreted. The theoretical framework adopted for this research is based on Gricean pragmatics. The method for this research is qualitative and its paradigm is interpretive. The data were collected from some packets of medicine sold in some pharmacy shops in Lagos, Nigeria. One of the major observations made in the course of this research is that, out of the four classes of the Gricean maxims, only the maxim of quality was not infringed in any precautionary inscription in the data. This result may be justified by the reason that precautionary inscriptions on medicine packets should be carefully couched in truth, so as not to jeopardize the health of the patients. Further studies on various cases of infringements in diverse aspects of communication are strongly recommended. Keywords: Precautionary Inscriptions; Communication; Pragmatics; Maxims; Infringement
On Speech Acts
This paper is intended to give insights to the readers about the development of speech act theories which include categories, characteristics, validities, and strategies. The research begins with the classification of speech acts done by some experts and continues with the description of characteristics and validities carried out especially by Austin and Searle, and ends with speech act strategies developed by Parker and Riley, using examples taken from Indonesian, Javanese, Balinese, and English, four languages that the writer masters relatively well. Most Indonesian, Balinese, and Javanese data together with their context are created intuitively as a native or nearly-native speaker while some English utterances are created and the others extracted from pragmatic textbooks used as references in this study. Research findings show that there are various types of speech acts, and each speech act has its own validity conditions. Among them, illocutionary acts constitute the focal point of pragmatics’ studies. The description shows that every expert of pragmatics uses different categories in classifying illocutionary acts, and the kinds of strategies used to express them.Keywords: pragmatics, speech act, speech act strategy
Acts of Requesting as Realized by English for Specific Purposes Students
The success of language learners’ intercultural communication highly depends on their acquisition of not only grammatical knowledge but also pragmatic aspects of the target language. However, research examining English for specific purposes (ESP) learners’ request realization, as a crucial indicator of pragmatic competence, still remains a paucity of evidence. Addressing this issue, the present study aims to examine English for specific purposes (ESP) students’ most frequently used request strategy and their reasons behind the selected strategy. To this end, 36 ESP students of a public university in Surakarta Indonesia were involved in a descriptive qualitative study. A set of Discourse Completion Test (DCT), role-play, and semi-structured interview were employed as a means of data collection. The data were analyzed based on Blum-Kulka and Olshtain’s Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP) and followed by thematic content analysis for the interview responses. The results depicted that conventionally indirect requests were the most frequently used strategy by the students than other strategies, i.e. direct request, and non-conventionally indirect request. The semi-structured interview further revealed that cultural factors, degree of politeness, and social distance among the interlocutors became the primary reasons for the students’ massive selection of conventionally indirect strategies. These results offer fruitful insights for English language teaching stakeholders as an effort to equip ESP students with satisfactory pragmatic and cross-cultural knowledge.Keywords: acts of requesting, pragmatics, request strategies
Impoliteness Addressed to Different Genders and their Responses in The Kitchen Nightmares, a TV Reality Show
This paper reveals the impoliteness strategies addressed to different genders and their corresponding responses. The data source is the video transcript of a TV reality show, The Kitchen Nightmares season 6 episode 2 for substantial and technical considerations. As it contains impolite expressions, abundant data can be gained to clarify the focal points. The subjects are the host and male and female participants in that show. This study uses a descriptive qualitative approach. In collecting the data, the researcher identifies the utterances containing impoliteness and their responses in the transcript. Then, they are classified and compared to discover the impoliteness strategies and their responses related to gender differences. It is discovered that, in this show, the types of impoliteness strategies addressed to male addressees are not different from those of female participants. Regarding responses, it is found out that male participants respond to the impoliteness differently from the females. It can be concluded from the show that gender difference is not effective as recipients of impoliteness, but it is operative as producers of the response towards impoliteness. Keywords: entertainment, gender, impoliteness, responses to impolitenes
Integrating Politeness Principles and Strategies in Counselling Technique: A Phenomenological Study
Politeness is an important academic topic. An action must be taken to prevent rudeness. As a result, this study investigates how counseling techniques can modify students' behavior to be more courteous by implementing politeness tactics and concepts. Furthermore, the purpose of this study is to determine why counseling strategies may alter students' perspectives. The research was conducted using a phenomenological study using an observation checklist and interview guideline. The instruments were triangulated for validity. Data collection, data condensation, data display, and conclusion were all used in the data analysis. The findings revealed that Counselling Technique could have an impact on the outcome. The findings revealed that Counselling Technique had the ability to change students' conduct to become more polite. The students used negative politeness methods to consult with the instructors during its execution. Furthermore, students used all of the politeness standards, including the tact principle, generosity principle, modesty principle, approval principle, compassion principle, and agreement principle. In summary, the counseling strategy could be employed to help pupils with their behavioral issuesKeywords: Politeness principles, strategies; counselling technique, Phenomenological stud
Sociopragmatics Competence in The Characteristics of Banyumas Community Blakasuta
Banyumas people have characteristics and personalities that can be observed through the use of language. This is seen in terms of lexical peculiarities, tone of speech, and grammar structure. Banyumas language is used as the identity of banyumas people who are blakasuta (cablaka, thokmelong, outspoken). With this identity, it can be described how the sociopragmatics competence of banyumas people. This sociopragmatics competency is related to the ability of banyumas people to use language in accordance with certain social contexts or certain social conditions. which are understood by speakers and identify models of communication competencies in banyumas people who are blakasuta. The purpose of this study was to uncover the characteristics of blakasuta used in banyumas community and identify the forms of speech resulting in daily communication. This research is qualitative descriptive research using a sociopragmatics approach. The method of data collection uses observation techniques by interviewing directly to the informant. The results of this study show that the characteristics of banyumas people who are blakasuta can show the sociopragmatics competence of banyumas people in speech. Banyumas community communication patterns can be identified from the form of speech acts, type of speech acts, and speech acts strategy in each communication process. This cannot be separated from the cultural characteristics of banyumas people. Pragmatics competence relates to the cultural principles underlying the way banyumas people communicate, namely the principle of respecting others and the principle of avoiding open conflict to maintain a harmonious relationship.Keywords: Sociopragmatics, Blakasuta, Banyuma
Persuasive Strategies in Selected Brand Products’ Advertisement on Instagram: Rationalization Aspect
The objective of this research is to find the reason for using persuasive strategies in Selected Brand Products’ Advertisement on Instagram”.In Instagram Captions’ found in the selected brands' product, it is found the persuasive strategy used in “Mineral Water” products, “Medicine” products, “Food and Drink” products, “Household” products, and “Beauty and Skin Care” products. In “Mineral Water” products, these advertisements try to persuade consumers to focus on the quality and technology of the product used. In “Medicine” products, these advertisements try to persuade consumers to focus on the ingredients in the medicine and its uses, also tries to get consumers to focus on the causes and drugs that must be consumed. In “Food and Drink” products, these advertisements try to persuade consumers to focus on the high standards and technology to produce the product and quality of ingredients of the products that can be consumed. In “Household” products, these advertisements try to persuade consumers to focus on the ingredients in it and its benefits to be used. In “Beauty and Skin Care” products, these advertisements try to persuade consumers to focus on the ingredients in it and its benefits to be used. Those advertisements use rationalization in their persuasion strategy. Rationalization in persuasion work because the advertiser knows what the consumers’ needs and wants. There is the involvement of reasons, deep thought, making a sense and logical statements that expected can be accepted by the consumers