Positive politeness strategies in "The Pursuit Of Happiness"

MUSHLIHAN, HALIM RIYAN (2015) Positive politeness strategies in "The Pursuit Of Happiness". Masters thesis, Universitas Andalas.

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Abstract

Politeness is a common phenomenon in society. The conventions of politeness vary from culture to culture. How people value politeness or show politeness is influenced by many factors, such as age, gender, knowledge level, social status, or power. Politeness application happens either in daily or in formal conversation. People apply politeness in order to make a good way of communication. As Brown and Levinson (1987) states that “Politeness strategies is aimed at changing our language based on the hearer and our strategies for compliance gaining change depend on the audience”. Thus, we may avoid the utterances by which can fail the process when delivering a message to the hearer. Politeness strategies, in daily or formal situation, is important to avoid some utterances which can break the communication. Communication is closely related to maintain social interaction between speaker and hearer. In social communication, politeness is a way to be well-behaved in daily interaction. This can be influenced by various values. Fromkin (1990:222) states that we have referred to the context of a sentence or discourse, and the importance of context in interpreting language. The general study of how a context influences is the way 2 | P a g e sentence conveys information is called pragmatics. Pragmatic is the study of expression of relative distance. Moreover, This perspective then raises the question of what determines the choice between the said and the unsaid. The study of politeness strategies is interesting to be observed. The use of these strategies will be easier to find in the daily conversation because people have a reason in applying it. That is way the reasons are related to the strategies which they applied in communicating. The daily use of politeness strategies could be found in “The Pursuit of Happiness.” This film shared about an experience which happened in Chris Family. It has a good values to be applied and survived in life. Here, Chris has a financial problem, but he keeps and treats his son very well by speaking politely. All characters in this film, Chris, Linda and Christopher present the use of politeness strategies in communication.

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