Politeness Strategies used in Jakarta Post Caricatures

ABSTRACT

Politeness Strategies are involved in communication in order to help the speaker reaches the goal of communication without threatening hearers’ face. Politeness phenomena can appear in written communication such as in caricatures since they provide the language that is used by the writer to deliver the message and information to readers.Therefore, the researcher chooses to investigate the politeness strategies used in Jakarta Post caricatures. The objectives of this study are to find kinds and functions of politeness strategies used in Jakarta Post caricatures.

In this study the researcher uses the theory of politeness strategy explained by Brown and Levison, namely: bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record to analyze the caricatures.

The researcher uses descriptive qualitative because the major purpose of this study is to describe systematically the analysis of the object chosen and focus on interpretation of meaning and exploration of concept from the data that are in the form of words.

The result of this study shows that four strategies are used in the caricatures. (1) Bald on record strategy is used in data (1.2) and (2) for the purpose of making the readers understand clearly what is meant by the caricaturist, it also makes the person criticized or teased on the caricatures understand easily. (2) Positive politeness strategy is used in data (1.1), (3), (4.2), (9), (10), and (15) to minimize the distance between the caricaturist and his readers.(3) Negative politeness strategy is used in data (11.2) and (12) to avoid the further imposition of prolixity and obscurity. (4) Off record strategy is used in data (4.1), (5.1), (5.2), (6), (7), (8), (11.1), and (14) in the purpose of minimizing any potentially damaging face interpretation.

To broaden the area of investigation, the researcher hopes to the next researcher to conduct research on politeness strategies in the other form of written communication such as letters, newspaper, and magazine.