Analysis of Politeness in Hotel Transylvania

ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS IN HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA

Dilla Kartika Andriansyah

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ABSTRACT

The paper discusses the choice of politeness used by two main character in the dialogue of movie “Hotel Transylvania”. The researcher used Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. The method in this research was qualitative method. The techniques used in collecting data are choosing movie as the research object, observing movie, download the script movie, and identified the kind of politeness from the script. The result of this research showed there are 87 data (48 expresssions) is positive politeness, (12 expressions) used negative politeness , (26 expression) used bald off record, and the last (1 expression) used bald on record. The conclusion showing that positive politeness mostly used by the main character.

Keywords : Politeness, and Hotel Transylvania Movies

1. INTRODUCTION

Pragmatics is the study of meaning in relation to speech situation. Aspects of speech situation further provide a criterion to refer in determining whether we deal with pragmatic or semantic phenomenon (Leech, 1983: 13-4) . A linguistic interaction is necessarilly a social interaction. In order to look at various factors which relate to social distance and closeness. Some of these factors are established prior to an interaction and hence are largely external factors. They typically involve the relative status of the participants, based on social values tried to such things as age and power. We take part in a wide reange of interactions (mostly with strangers) where the social distance determined by external factors is dominant. However, there are other factors , such as amount of imposition or degree of friendliness, which are often negotiated during an interaction. These are internal to the interaction and can result in the initial social distance changing and being marked as less, or more, during its course. These internal factors are typically more relavant to participants whose social relationships are actually in the process of being worked out within the interaction. Both types of factorss, external and internal, have an influence not only what we say, but also on how we are interpreted.

Within their everyday social interactions, people generally behave as if their expectations concerning their public self-image, or their face wants, will be respected. Alternatively, given the possibility that some action might be interpreted as a threat to another’s face , the speaker can say something to lessen the possible threat. This called a face saving act.

From all the statements above, the authors realize the importance of the meaning of a phrase. and analyzing expressions using politeness theories considered attractive by the author. Therefore, the authors wanted to examine politeness of a movie entitled "Hotel Transylvania”.

1. THERITICAL REVIEW

1. Pragmatics

Pragmatics according to Levinson (1985:21) is the study of the relation between language and context that are basic to an account of language understanding. He also states that pragmatics is the study of relation between language and context that are grammaticalyzed, or encoded in the structure of a language (1985:9). In studying language, one cannot ignore the situation which is the speech uttered. There is close relation between an utterance and situations. Thus, pragmatics includes the relavant context or situation, instead of the language usage.

1. Politeness

Politeness is a system of interpersonal relations designed to facilitate interaction by human interaction by minimizing, potential conflict and confrontation inherent in all human interchange (Yule, 1996:106). In communication, politeness can be defined as the means to show awareness of another person’s face. Face means public self-image of person .it refers to that emotional and social sense of self that every person has and expects everyone else to recognize (Yule, 1996:134).

Brown and Levinson’s work consist of two part. The first part is their fundamental theory concerning the nature of politeness and how it functions in interaction. The second part is their face theory which contains three basic notions: face, face threatening acts (FTAs) and politeness strategies.

1. Face Threatening Acts (FTAs)

Face is defined as an individual’s self esteem. It has two aspects, namely negative and positive face. Negative face is ‘the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions’ and positive face is ‘the desire (in some respect) to be approved of. When we interact with others in society, it is necessary to keep one’s own face to avoid threatening another’s face .in order to avoid these FTAs, we try to employ politeness strategies in our interactions. Brown and Levinsonclassify different kind of such politeness strategies used according to the ways we react to FTAs. They also point out that the determinants of the kinds of politeness strategies used are the following three sociological factors : the relative power of the hearer over the speaker, the social distance between the speaker and the hearer, and the ranking of the imposition in doing the face-threatening act.

1)Positive Politeness

It is usually seen in groups of friends, or where people in the given social situation know each other fairly well. It usually tries ti minimize the distance between them by expressing friendliness and solid interest in the hearer’s need to be respected. In addition to hedging and attempts to avoid conflict, some strategies of positive politeness include statements of friendship, solidarity, and compliments.

Positive politeness techniques are usable not only for FTA redress, but in general as a kind of social accelerator, where S, in using them, indicates the he wants to ‘come closer’ to H.

2)Negative Politeness

Negative politeness are oriented towards the hearer’s negative face and emphasize avoidance of imposition on the hearer. These strategies presume that the speaker will be imposing on the listener and there is a higher potential for awkwardness or embarrasment than in bald on record and positive politeness. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous so the speaker is more apt to include an out for the listener, through distancing styles like apologies.

3)Bald on Record

Bald on record usually do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer’s face, altough there are ways that bald on-record politeness can be used in trying to minimize FTAs implicity. Often using such a strategy will shock or embarras the addressee, and so this strategy is most often utilized in situations where the speaker has a close relationship with the audience, such as family or close friends.

4)Bald off Record

Off record strategy has the main purpose of taking some pressures off of the hearer. In this case, the speaker performs an act in a vague manner that could be interpreted by the hearer as some other acts. Such an off record utterance usually uses indirect language that construct more general utterance or actually different from what one mean. Therefore, the interpretation of the utterance greatly depends on the existence of context that frames up the utterance.

1. RESEARCH METHODS

1. Research Design

The writer used qualitative research.A qualitative research design is a research design that places primary importance on studying small samples of purposely chosen individuals; not attempting to control contextual factors, but rather seeking, through a variety of methods, to understand things from the informants’ points of view; and creating a rich and in-depth picture of the phenomena under investigation (Tavakoli, 2012:503).

1. Research Method

Gay L.R (2006) states that : Descriptive method is a method of the research that involves collecting data in order to answer question concerning the current status of the subject of the research in presenting the data, the writer employs a descriptive method.

1. Instrument

The instrument of this research is the writer her self by watching the movie ‘Hotel Transylvania’ and reading the film’s script.

1. Data Collection

To collect the data, there are 6 steps :

1. choosing movie as the research subject.
2. observing the movie.
3. download the script movie..
4. Identified the kind of politeness from the script.
5. identified once more
6. take a conclussion from the result of research.

1. Data Analysis

To analyze politeness strategies, the writer using ‘Hotel Transylvania’ Movie. The father and his daughter as its unit of analysis, including its screenplay which is produced by Michelle Murdocca. The data analyzed through analysis technique, the writer notes, separates and classifies utterance in the film’s dialogues into appropriate politeness.

1. Unit Analysis

The unit of analysis of this research paper is using the dialogue betwen Dracula (as father) and Mavis (his daughter) based on plot of movie’s story.

1. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

A.Result

Data 1

Mavis : “(1.1) What out there?”

Father : “(1.2) oh we never go out there. Ever!”

(1.2) what out there? Is a kind of positive politeness, because S tries to minimize the distance. The utterance shows Mavis who wanted to be closer with her father, and asked for her father’s aproval to be allowed out of the hotel.

(1.2) oh we never go out there. Ever! Is a kind of negative politeness because father speaks more of the interests of listeners. The father insisted that his daughter remained in the hotel. Mavis just need an answer yes or no, but the father are more confirms by saying “Ever!” it means never forever he will allow Mavis to out of the hotel.

Data 2

Father : “(2.1) And burned their clothes and bit their toes! And took their candy”

(2.1) And burned their clothes and bit their toes! And took their candy is a kind of bald off record by using overstatement.the father tell the story with exaggerated up away from the fact. The father aims is making mavis afraid to the humans.

Data 13

Mavis : “(13.4) well you can’t be sure, it’s all in how you present yourself”

(13.4) well you can’t be sure, it’s all in how you present yourself is a kind of bald on record, because making embarras the addresse. Mavis upsetwith her father, she speak loud and embarrasing her father in front of everyone.

• The table below show what politeness mostly used by the main characters troughout the conversation.

Character / Father / Mavis
Politeness
Positive politeness / 25 / 21
Negative politeness / 4 / 9
Bald off record / 15 / 14
Bald on record / - / 1

B.Discussion

In the case of communication, maintaining others face is needed in order to make communication runs well and smoothly. One way to maintain other’s face is by applying politeness. Politeness is communication strategy that people use to maintain and develop relationship (related goal) and a technical term in language study to signify the strategies we use to achieve our goals without threatening the self-respect of others. There are four kind of politeness, namely positive politeness, negative politeness, bald off record and bald on record.

5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

1. Conclusion

The film script of Hotel Transylvania after it is analyzed, from 87 data positive politeness (48 expressions) as the most used politeness, bald off record (26 expresssions) and followed by negative politeness (12 expressions) and bald on record as the last and rarest politeness with one expressions.

The father often used positive politeness when talking to his daughter because he was wanted to be closer to his daughter, always pay attention to his daughter condition, the most plausible reason is because the father is very dear to his daughter, so he always avoid contradiction, joking and always promised to always keep his daughter.

As well as the father, Mavis also often used positive politeness when she talking with her father for the same reason. Their relationship are father and daughter, which means having a very close attachment to one another so that politeness strategy they used is same.

1. Suggestion

1. The researcher hopes to the next researcher to conduct research on politeness strategies in the other form of literary works. Such as, poetry and drama in the purpose of enriching the pragmatics studies.
2. The researcher assume that study on politeness involving language other than English, so it can be broaden the knowledge in applying linguistic aspect in various language.

Referencess

Brown, Penelope and Stephen C.Levinson. Politeness: Some Universal in Language usage: Cambridge University Press. 1987

Fallon, Daniel. Positive and Negative Politeness. Hildesheim : Hildesheim University press. 2004

Watts, Richard J. Politeness. Cambridge University press.2003

Brown, Gilliam and george Yule. Discourse Analysis. New York : Cambridge University Press.1983

accesed on 3 october 2015

on 3 october 2015

Kitamura, Noriko. Adapting Brown and Levinson theory of Politeness the Analysis of casual conversation.2000