Negative Politeness Strategies Used In The Movie “Sex And The City”
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 20.1 Agustus 2017: 146-152
Negative Politeness Strategies Used In The Movie “Sex And The City”
Nyoman Nila Rosiana Dewi
English Department, Faculty of Arts, Udayana University [[email protected]]
Abstrak
Makalah yang berjudul “Strategi Kesopanan Negative yang Digunakan dalam film Sex and The City”difokuskan pada strategi kesopanan negatif dan faktor yang mempengaruhi aktor atau aktris dalam menerapkan strategi kesopanan negatif. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk mengidentifikasi strategi kesopanan negatif yang digunakan dalam film “Sex and The City” dan juga untuk menggambarkan faktor yang mempengaruhi karakter dalam menerapkan strategi kesopanan negatif. Analisis strategi dalam kesopanan negatif dalam makalah ini didasarkan pada teori Brown dan Levinson (1987) dalam buku mereka yang berjudul Politeness: Beberapa Universals dalam Penggunaan Bahasa, Studi di interaksional Sosiolinguistik. Cambridge University Press dan menggabungkan dengan teori konteks situasi dari Halliday, M.K.A dan Hassan (1989) dalam buku mereka yang berjudul: Language, Conteks, dan Teks: Aspek Bahasa dalam Perspektif Sosial-semiotik. Victoria: Deakin University. Analisis dimulai dengan jenis strategi negatif kesopanan dan faktor yang mempengaruhi aktor dan aktris dalam menerapkan analisis kesopanan
strategi.Penelitian ini menunjukkan sepuluh jenis strategi kesopanan negatif yang ditemukan dalam data, data diambil dalam naskah film. Strategi yang menjadi
konvensional tidak langsung, pertanyaan-hedge, pesimis, meminimalkan pembebanan, memberikan rasa hormat, meminta maaf, impersonalize S dan H, FTA sebagai aturan umum, nominalize dan secara langsung memiliki hutang atau tidak menghutangi H . Saat ini ada beberapa faktor yang mempengaruhi strategi mereka; intrinsik, keadaan dan bobot risiko dalam strategi pilihan.
Kata Kunci: iOS, ikon, system operasi, semiotika, tipe makna.
We talk with one another every day; there are many ways to express the things we want. For example, when we are with a group of friends, we can say “Shut up!” to them. However, when we are surrounded by a group of adults in formal situation in which there are our parents, we must say, “I’m sorry, I don’t
mean to interrupt, but I am not able to hear the speaker”. In different social situations, we are obligated to adjust our use of words to fit the occasion. It would be seen socially unacceptable if the phrases above were reversed. Politeness is the way inn which the speaker appreciate and maintain the situation to the hearer in the interaction. Politeness is
best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette.
Brown and Levinson (1987) propose four super-strategies to minimize or alleviate face threats such as bald-on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off-record (indirect). Bald-on record strategy does not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer’s face, there are ways of trying to minimize face-threatening acts implicitly, often using such a strategy will shock or embarrass the addressee, so this strategy is most often utilized in the situation in which the speaker has a close relationship with the listener, such as family or close friends.
This study is concerned with the negative politeness strategies, and combines Brown and Levinson (1987) theory with theory of context situation by Halliday, M.K.A and Hassan (1989) .The negative politeness strategy was chosen because in contrary to positive politeness it always refers to something bad; however, in this case, negative politeness strategy is the most obvious way of being very polite than the positive one.
Based on the explanation given above, the problems of the study are formulated as follows:
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1) What strategies of negative politeness are used in the movie “Sex and The City”?
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2) What are the factors that influence the actors or actresses in the applying negative politeness strategies in their character?
In accordance with the problems above, the aims of this study are:
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1. To identify the strategy of negative politeness strategies used in the movie Sex and The City ”.
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2. To describe the factors influencing the actors or actresses to apply the
negative politeness
strategies.
In doing research, there should be a fixed guideline on how the research is conducted. Research method is required in order to determine the appropriate procedures of the study which mainly consists of three aspects; namely (1)
Data Source, (2) Method and Technique of Collecting Data and (3) Method and Technique of Analyzing Data.
Data source is the source from which the data are obtained in order to support the validity of the study. In this study, the primary data were taken from the utterances in the conversation between the characters in the movie entitled “Sex and The City”. Meanwhile, the secondary data of this study were the movie script of the movie. As this study focuses on negative politeness strategies, this movie was chosen as the data source because it is very expressive. There are strategies of negative politeness used by the actors and actresses.
Since the data were taken from the dialogue among the characters in the movie “Sex and The City” the documentation method was applied in order to obtain the data. The process of collecting data was done by watching and listening the conversations among the characters of the movie for a couple of times.
The descriptive qualitative method was employed to analyze the data. Since the data are spoken data, this study applied the descriptive qualitative method. Descriptive means that the data were analyzed by explaining them in words or sentences descriptively.
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5. Result and Discussion
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5.1 Strategy 1 : Be “conventionally
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indirect”
Data 1
06.18
BIG: Aren’t I a little old to be introduced as your boyfriend?
CARRIE: Point taken. From now on.. you’ll be my man friend.
Place & Time: Penthouse—Moments Latter—Summer
Relevant to the context of situation
Big was Carrie’s boyfriend for ten years, Big had been married twice before. They had a plan to stay at New York so they went looking for a penthouse. The conversation occurred in a luxury pre-penthouse. The penthouse was better than their previous apartment before. Carrie and Big stepped in and
started to look around. The agent and Carol went through the terrace and then Carrie and Big followed them, lagging a little behind. The agent was the seller for penthouse and Carol was a woman to help the Agent sell the penthouse. The agent showed the beautiful interior of the penthouse and then they also followed him. Big’s dialogue Carrie was ambiguous in meaning; he was too old to be Carrie’s boyfriend. When Big asked Carrie like that at the same time he smiled.
Data Interpretation and Evidence
The data “Aren’t I a little old to be introduced as your boyfriend?” is classified into strategy 1, Be conventionally indirect. Big as a speaker and Carrie as a hearer, the question from Big was ambiguous in meaning, because the statement from Big actually had another meaning and he said it with an ambigous expression. Big asked Carrie if he was old to be her boyfriend. Big and Carrie were a couple and they had already been ten years together, so the position of Big and Carrie was close relationship. Big used the negative politeness because indirectly he wanted to get married with Carrie. The
expression of Big in that situation was smiling; meaning that he had something better for his relationship.
Strategy 2 : Question, Hedge
Data 3
(05.42)
AGENT: Your wife has quite a sense of humor.
CAROL: They’re not married.
CARRIE: He’s my boyfriend.
Place & Time: Penthouse—Moments Later—Summer
Relevant of the context of situation
Big, Carrie, Carol and the agent met for the first time. The agent was a seller for some penthouses in New York City, Big and Carrie as buyers who were looking for a good penthouse for them. Carol also helped them as an estate agent. In the penthouse apartment, Carrie and Big also followed the agent of the penthouse, walked and saw the exclusive penthouse. The agent starts told them about the facilities and interior of the apartment. The agent also told about the price of penthouse. In the middle of the conversation, Carrie was
stunning of rooftop terrace from the penthouse. She said the rooftop terrace was like nirvana. When Carrie said nirvana all them were having small laugh. In the data the agent said that Carrie had a quite a sense of humor and it showed the characteristic of strategy 2.
Data Interpretation and Evidence
The data “Your wife has quite a sense of humor.” is classified into strategy 2, Question, Hedge. In the data the word “quite” is a hedge. Hedge is a particle, word, or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set. The word “quite” in the data refers to Carrie. The agent was a lower position than Big and Carrie because Big was a buyer. Big had a higher position, for keeping respect of him the agent used the negative politeness, the agent kept the hearer’s face to keep the social distance between the seller and buyer; the agent was smiling when he said “Your wife has quite a sense of humor.” From his expression and intonation, the agent also showed if he was not serious and actually the agent wanted to please Carrie as Big’s girl friend in that conversation. The agent was smiling
when he said “Your wife has quite a sense of humor.”
Data 8
(1.44)
THERAPISH: Steve- you’re very quiet today.
STEVE: Miranda, I know I made it hard for you to trust me. But—You made it hard for me to trust you.
MIRANDA: Me?
Place & Time: Therapist’s office—day-summer
Relevant to the context of situation
Steve and Miranda were a couple and they had a son. They were already married for around seven years; Miranda was a hard worker, and she always put her job in priority. Sometimes Steve felt lonely because Samantha was too busy to handle as a mother and a lawyer. Steve was a good husband for Miranda and their son, he always understood how to be a good husband and a father. One time, Miranda and Steve little bit argued. Steve cheated with other women outside, he told Miranda about it and he
apologized. Miranda was so shocked and felt disappointed with her marriare. Miranda left Steve and divorced. Then Miranda and Steve stayed away in order to make distance. For four months , Miranda still would not forgive Steve and they met Therapist, someone who could help their marriage. They started talking in the Therapist’s office.
Data Interpretation and Evidence
The data “Miranda, I know I made it hard for you to trust me. But— You made it hard for me to trust you.” is classified as strategy 6, Apologizing which was classified as admit the impingement. Steve was a speaker and Miranda was a hearer. Speaker could simply admit that he was impinging on H’s face. Steve used the negative politeness strategy to avoid impinging with Miranda. Steve actually admited impinging with Miranda but he used negative politeness to avoid the loss of face and keep respect of the hearer.
There are some points that can be concluded based on the analysis from the previous chapter. Based on the analysis, there were ten strategies of negative politeness; they are be conventionally
indirect, question-hedge, be pessimistic, minimize the imposition, give deference, apologizing, impersonalize S and H, state the FTA as a general rule, nominalize and the last go on record as incurring a debt, or as not indebting H. Strategy 6 (apologizing) and strategy 1 (be conventionally indirect) were most found in the data, strategy 8 (state the FTA as a general rule) was rarely found in the data, the data were taken from the movie script from Sex and The City. There were 3 factors mentioned by Brown and Levinson (1987); they are the intrinsic payoffs and the second was relevant. Circumstances and the last was related to the two. In the previous chapter, the factors that influenced the actress and actor were intrinsic payoffs by doing the negative politeness and social distance.
Strategy 6 (apologizing) was the strategy most frequently found in the data because there were some problems and conflicts in the movie which could influence the characters to use the negative politeness strategy to avoid the negative face from the speaker to hearer, and to the keep social distance between speaker and hearer.
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