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Thursday, January 31, 2013

NT Language & Cultures in Contact (final)

This is my mini research ....ndekman kenak meton laguk pede-pedean wah begak jari content blog ne




A Study on the Politeness in Sasak Perspective at Petak Batujai West Praya Central Lombok

Abdul Muhid
NIM: I2J012001



Abstract

This mini research presents the results of a study analyzing the extent to which the performance of Sasak people demonstrated an understanding of the norms of politeness influencing the selection and realization of strategies associated with two prominent speech acts (suggestions and apologies) in the Sasak society. I hope that the examples that will be presented here, might combine careful attention to the common features and unique social circumstances, which might encourage a reconsideration of “ancient” category of language and culture. However, understanding the sasak speech style can be insightful for all readers especially Sasak people. In this social study, Sasak speech style is described through observations of Sasak’s native speaker. In addition, I will use qualitative method since I want to describe the data findings. The purpose of this description is to let the readers know what happened in the environment under observation, what it was like from the participants' point of view to be in the setting, and what particular events or activities in the setting were like. Then in this mini research I entitled this paper “A Study on the Politeness in Sasak Perspective  at Petak Batujai West Praya Central Lombok”. This mini research is developed based on the article entitled ‘Cultural Expectations and Perceptions of Politeness: The “Rude Chinese”, Yu-Cheng Lee Foreign Language Department, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.


1.    INTRODUCTION

Politeness is an aspect of language that has been thoroughly studied. In the West, a number of theories have influenced research on notions of politeness and language. The Cooperative Principle (Grice, 1975), the Politeness Principle (Leech, 1983) and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of universal politeness.

One of the issues of major concern when it comes to intercultural encounters is the socio linguistic discourse of politeness. Even though at a theoretical and practical level extensive research in the field has already been conducted (Leech, 1983: 108), little research has been conducted so far into the politeness discourse of Romanians as compared to other nations. Therefore, I believe that this mini research may contribute to a research later and, hopefully, provide a theoretical and practical framework for further investigations into the field of polite requests. Moreover, I would like to emphasize the importance of taking such a specific approach when it comes to understanding intercultural relationships from a socio linguistic perspective. Through observation of communication styles and cultural artifacts manifested in action (process), the communication is theoretically a neutral way of sharing knowledge or worldviews and of maintaining social relationships. Practically, some aspects of communication can vary according to geographical areas, social class, gender, age and level of education. Thus, what generally is viewed as common sense knowledge.



2.    Research question

To do the mini research in proper way the writer formulates some questions to answer:

1.      What does the factors of Sasak Politeness in social interaction and how does politeness affect directive and in directive in speaking?
3.    Review of Literature

The first question addressed by the author’s previous studies, and the basis on which further studies have branched out from, is whether Chinese students and native English speakers possess the same basic cognitive perceptions of what politeness is, and how politeness is shown (through politeness strategies). A previous study by the author found that in terms of conceptualization at least (if not production), Chinese learners and native English speakers seem to hold very similar ideals of politeness. When asked about whom it is required to show politeness to for example, Chinese learners gave answers no different from those of native English speakers (age, occupation, knowledge, etc. of interlocutor). When asked about how Brown and Levinson’s weight factors would affect the degree of politeness needed, again Chinese learners and native English speakers concurred, replying that when faced with an interlocutor of high social status/power, high social distance, or when degrees of imposition are high, greater degrees of politeness are required.

In addition, the former researcher also investigated whether Chinese learners held the same beliefs about the hierarchy of politeness strategies. When asked to rank different strategies according to their degree of politeness, Chinese learners gave responses that once again agreed with Brown and Levinson’s model.

From the results of previous studies reported above, I can conclude that in judgments of politeness, Chinese learners and native English speakers do not differ greatly. At this point, we see that beliefs about how social factors affect politeness required are highly congruent, and that perceptions of politeness strategies are also highly similar between Chinese learners and native English speakers. I am interested in developing case of language and culture.

And in this mini research I develop this material based on the former research entitled Cultural Expectations and Perceptions of Politeness: The “Rude Chinese”, Yu-Cheng Lee Foreign Language Department, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
4.    Analysis research/Methodology

Here, I will limit discussion to the most influential theory on politeness, developed by Brown and Levinson (1987). This theory originated with the aim to explain universal ‘politeness’ and the concept of face that is shared by every member of society. In their book titled Politeness: Some Universals on Language, Brown and Levinson (1987) give numerous examples, especially from non-European languages. Their approach divers from that of other researchers (Grice, 1975; Leech, 1983), who conceive politeness as a series of pragmatic rules and maxims. Brown and Levinson’s approach is more interactional and dynamic and takes into account a vast number of languages, including those that possess honorifics. A basic concept of politeness is face. Face, as defined by Brown and Levinson (1987), is a basic human desire that influences human interaction. Positive face is the desire to be liked, accepted, understood and so on. Negative face is the dislike of being imposed upon. People thus communicate so as to ‘save’ face, using strategies that address either positive or negative face. However, many communicative acts can potentially cause ‘loss’ of face, in what Brown and Levinson (1987) defined as face threatening acts (FTA).

The approach is concerned with; (1) the linguistic resources people use in context, including the socially situated uses and meanings of words, their relations, and sequential forms of expression; (2) the way verbal and nonverbal signs create and reveal social codes of identity, relationships, emotions, place, and communication itself. In addition to its focus on locally politeness of communication is also guided by a particular methodology and general concerns in theory pragmatic. As a theoretical perspective, it offers a range of concepts for understanding communication in any possible scene and/or community; as a methodology, it offers procedures for analyzing communication practices as formative of social life. The methodology typically involves various procedures for analysis including participant in the contexts of everyday, social life, as well as interviewing participants about communication in those contexts. Therefore, the most suitable method used in this mini research is descriptive qualitative method; since I want to describe the data findings in the society. The purpose of this description is to let the reader know what happened in the environment under observation, what it was like from the participants' point of view to be in the setting, and what particular events or activities in the setting were like.

Dell Hymes In 1962 published a paper that called ‘a new area of study’, a kind of linguistics that explored language not just as a formal system of grammar, but as something culturally shaped in the contexts of social life. In 1964, Hymes and his colleague John Gumperz published a special section of the journal ‘American Anthropologist’, the basis of a highly influential reader on the subject, pioneering a general path for ethnographic studies of communication.

The concept of communication event has become a prominent starting point for these analyses; it draws attention to communicative action as formative of social processes and sequences. A communication event can be understood from the point of view of participants’ part of social life. Communication events typically involve a sequential structuring of acts, can be understood by formulating norms or rules about them, and involve culturally bounded aspects of social life which have a beginning and ending.

Communication acts are most typically parts of larger sequences of social actions and in this sense are often usefully conceptualized as integral aspects of communication events. In any human community, there are many places where communication is expected or prohibited. These enter into ethnographies of communication as aspects of a setting in which communication itself occur. The concept of communication situation is used to identify specific settings and scenes for communication.

Communication situations may involve activities with some particular limitation but without a strict sequencing of acts or activities. A speech community is a group of people who share rules for using and interpreting at least one communication practice. A communication practice might involve specific events, acts, or situations, with the use and interpretation of at least one essential for membership in a speech community.

In this respect, I cannot claim though too much originality of the findings due to the restricted sample of respondents. Nevertheless, if further research will confirm these findings, then this research is considerable as reference in the field of similar research of pragmatics. Moreover, I emphasize the idea that only through such research one can actually cover in a scientific manner a part of the challenging field of intercultural, and more specific of intercultural encounters at the level of linguistic discourse markers.
4.1.Population

(Arikunto: 2002) stated “ population is the whole amount of research object, if somebody else wants to research all element in that area, then the research called research population. Batujai is very large village with thousands people there. Then, if I  try using all population is as the sample, I think quiet hard to mobile from one place to another one. Therefore, I limit the location, and the setting where mini research conducted was at Petak Kampong Batujai Village Central Lombok. The villagers are approximately 350 families.
4.2.Sample
The sample is a part of the population, which can represent the total amount of population in the research (Arikunto: 2002). In this mini research, I do not take all villagers as the sample.
4.3. Data Collection

In the research, data is very important. All researchers need data to complete their research. Moreover, to have better description, the writer collected the data through observation and interview. In addition, researcher should involve in every activities conducted by the member of the social community observed. The observation of a particular community is not taken from a distant and safe point but by being in the middle of things, that is, by participating in as many social events as possible.

In this technique observation, I intensively interact with other participant and might even get to participate in. In the case of linguistic fieldwork, complete participation means being able to interact competently in the native language. Complete participation, when possible and ethically appropriate, gives researcher a great opportunity to directly experience the processes they are trying to document. This technique has its weaknesses. The participation of the researcher in communities implies an attention to one’s role and one’s perception by others that can be very absorbing and, from the point of view of documenting what is going on, extremely distracting. Researchers should restrain themselves from complete participation. They have to stand and sit the least intrusive place.

I should at least be in the middle of community for about six moths. However, because it is just mini research, yet the data taken is little and the time spent approximately one month. In the interview, researcher is continuously asking questions and many of the questions they ask are about topics and issues they are trying to make sense. In this sense, researcher’s questions are never useless even though any answers given are least informative, the answer might be quite informative for the researcher sometimes later. Interview is good for obtaining background cultural information that is crucial for understanding particular speech exchanges researcher is studying. The interview might be an occasion for getting a linguistic corpus for studying grammatical forms, stylistic variations, and attitudes toward the language (Hill and Hill 1986) in. The weakness of this technique is that this technique is rarely providing the richness of information needed for culturally linguistic analysis. There are also differences among society about conceptualizing what interview is. In relation to asking question, researcher should know about the ecology of asking question, that is who is allowed to question who, when and how, as proposed by Dell Hymes.
4.4.Data Analysis

The data of this research was obtained through the techniques above, are transcribed, and then analysed them. Descriptive method is the step of analysing the data, finding the patterns, searching for the main problem and giving conclusion are some steps of analysing qualitative data (Davies, C. A. 1999).

Finally, For details, about the problem statement, it will be presented in result and discussion in the following.
5.    Discussion

After all the data need were collected, here the writer will discuss and interpret all the data collection.  The analysis process begins with assembling the raw materials and getting an overview of the entire process. The analysis process involves consideration of words, context, non-verbal, internal consistency, frequency, extensiveness, intensity, specificity of responses and big ideas.  Interpretation involves attaching meaning and significance to the analysis, explaining descriptive patterns, and looking for relationships and linkages among descriptive dimensions.

In this part, I will discuss the data finding the cause of Politeness, Politeness in Sasak, and  the appearance of politeness.

5.1. The Politeness

In our daily life, we have the awareness about which one is polite action and which one is not. Politeness, thus, is an observable and social phenomenon. Whenever we want anybody else to respect and being good to us, we have to show our politeness. In turn, he/she will respond you politely either. We often say “hello!” to others. All we want to do is to show our good feelings, our friendliness, and our intention to maintain harmonious relationships with them. In general, we act politely in order to show our wishes to start a friendly relation with someone, or to maintain it if it is already existing, or to fix it if it is being threatened for some reasons. To maintain such smooth, harmonious interpersonal relationships expected by every human in every society, politeness serves as an appropriate means. There are ideas by expert about what politeness is. Watts (2003, p. 39) had proposed four definitions of politeness. They are as follows:

a)    Politeness is the ideal union between the character of an individual and his external actions (e.g. the language which that individual uses).

b)   Politeness is the ability to please others through one’s external actions (e.g. through one’s language usage).

c)    Politeness is the natural attribute of a ‘good’ character.

d)   Politeness is a socially acquired state of mind that is adjudged to have reached a state of being ‘polished’ and of thereby being in conformity with a set of socially accepted forms of behavior  Kasper (1990) as cited in Huang (2008) said that “communication is seen as a fundamentally dangerous and antagonistic endeavor”. Politeness is therefore defined by Kasper as a term to refer to the strategies available to interactants to defuse the danger and to minimalise the antagonism. Similarly, Brown and Levinson (1978) as cited in Huang (2008) view politeness as ‘a complex system for softening face-threatening acts’.

As stated in previous sections, the reason why dis-preferred pairs are lengthier and more complex can be explained in terms of ‘face’. A rejection for example, is a Face Threatening Acts and participants will try to use strategies in order to avoid or minimize the threat. Speech styles, personal pronouns and social relations Speech style is determined by the relationship between interlocutors and the formality of the interaction. The humble forms are used by younger or lower status speakers when talking about himself or herself or about someone who belongs to his or her inner circle. Again, the form is not reciprocated.

5.2.The Factors caused Politeness in Sasak

As I noticed in my environment where I live in. I found some factors that cause the politeness in speaking. Moreover, I involved myself to the society; in quite long term, even though the data taken are not adequate to support such a large research. In addition, the causes of politeness that I found during observation are:

a)   Education

As we know that, education still holds high position in our society. Someone who is educated may have such a high priority in social interaction. In addition, this also affect how people say something, how they behave or interact to others. For instance, Galih is S2 graduation, while he welcomed the audiences at Maulid Nabi; he is very polite and careful. Yet he is 29 years old of age and to whom he spoke approximately 25 to 35 years old. This is the sentence whilst Maulid Nabi on 19th January 2013 at Masjid Petak; “tiang pelungguhm sami saq sampun rauh leq masjid……., tiang tunas do’e leq pelungguhm sami…., dani penglinsir….”. From this sentence, we can see how he addressed people. Pay attention the underlined phrase. He seems that he wanted to show whom he is, to whom he is speaking and where he is speaking. As what proposed by Hymes refers to this rule as SPEAKING. It consists of Setting, Participant, End, Act of sequence, Key, Instrument, Norm of instruction and interpretation, Genre.

To achieve the goal of politeness, we should consider it from the following aspects proposed by Watts (2003): 1) Considering the social background of the communicator. Generally, the more educated a man is, the more he tends to show his politeness to other people. The more he knows about the suitable ways to show politeness, the better he uses them to be polite to others. Besides, the personality of the communicator is also very important here. Good-tempered person prefers to use “face-saving act” while bad-tempered person prefers to “face-threatening act” when they come across the “face-losing condition”. 2) According to the communicative circumstances.

b)   Power

In this case, what I include in this term is social status (Principal, Kepala Dusun, Kepala Desa, Bupati, Gubernur, Kiyai, dan Tuan Guru,), social strata (Lalu, Raden, Baiq and Dinde). To get clarity from this social status, I will present some statements that depict whom speaking, where it takes place and what situation he or she peaking is. In referring to Hymes about Speaking; here, also proves that his idea at thing that affect speaking.

For instance, vice of Bupati Lombok Tengah gave speech in the funeral on 11th January 2013 at Pemakaman Montong Tangar Petak, I quoted his sentences as these; “inaq amaq semeton jari, toak tanak, arik-kakak, dewek tiang niki yak ngaturin tipak pelunguhm sami…kance napi saq sampun tebaosang isiq tuan guru saq baruk…

However, the speaker needs to consider social relationship between the speaker and the listener in terms of status and familiarity. Such decision is needed because many words have different variants according to the style. For example: the equivalent to the English word I is dewek tiang in high style, tiang in middle and low style. Geertz as cited in Wardhaugh (2002, p.276) added some interesting observation. He said that “as you move from low to high style, you speak more slowly and softly and more evenly in terms of rhythm and pitch, so that the highest levels when spoken correctly have kind of stately pomp which can make the simplest conversation seem like a greater ceremony. In general, one uses lower levels when speaking commercial matters, higher ones if speaking of religious or aesthetic matters. One will tend to speak rather high, if one speaks at all, with someone with whom one has quarreled. The presence of the third person, one tends to speak higher to the same individual if others are listening. Wardhaugh (2002, p.278) stated three principles that seem to operate. They are:

1)        Highest style is used among the old aristocrats or by anyone at the highest levels of society who wants to give the appearance of elegance.

2)        Middle style is used by people who are not close friend or peasants addressing superiors. In formal occasions, people tend to use formal expressions to show politeness, especially between the new acquaintances. While in informal states, people tend to be casual to show intimacy even if it is in the very moment they meet. Moreover, that does not mean impoliteness. We can see it through the following example: A man came into a kiosk and said to the seller: “maeh endeng segelas kopi juluk?”Although they have never met before, the man used very casual phrases to enclose their relationship. This is a usual way to show friendliness to strangers.

3)        Low style is the style all children learn first regardless of social class origin, and everyone uses it on some occasion, even close acquaintances of the highest classes. Men and woman are also required to speak differently. Women are expected to be more talkative than man do and to err on the side of being over-polite in their words choices. On the other hand, men are required to be extremely careful in manipulating the style of speech because nuanced speech is highly prized.

c)    Age

One more factor that affects our speaking politeness in society is the influence of an age. For example; while young man addressed older people, he trends to use polite language and expression; “assalmu’alaikum, mbek em lumbar miq”. Thus, the language used in our contacts.

Another example will be elaborated as additional data in this mini research. For instance, while we talk with our friends (face to face or via phone) and we talked about the third person, who is very popular, kind, pious, and charity, we trend to address the third person in polite way; “marak basen pak kamal”. This statement shows the politeness to someone we respect, even the man we mean is in far way. In directly, we are respecting him a lot. Since, communication activity is not only viewed as a tool to express the idea but also owns direct and indirect function as well. The direct function owns expressive, poetic, directive, referential, and phatic function (Saville-Troike: 13). Considering the social distance or closeness. In situations of social distance or closeness, showing awareness for another person’s face when that other seems socially distant is often described in terms of respect or deference. Showing the equivalent awareness when the other is socially close is often described in terms of friendliness or solidarity. Even though, there are exceptions.

Other example; while Papuk Salam wants to get his money from Inaq Pesah for payment of cage, he spoke like this “…Inaq Kadi litu bejual baruk, muk uk adik pindang aji Rp. 5000, mok kepengkh nggakn karing Rp.3000 nyolet…” from statement of Papuk Salam he shows his politeness in indirect way or negative face. The function is to avoid rejection that makes him lose of face.

In Savill-Troike 2003:12 the function of communication is used selectively and owns motivation behind it. The function of communication is frequently related to prestige, for instance, is as a tool to emphasize the limit of group, self-identification, and separated outsiders from internal.  The other function of language choice in specific context is a tool of defense and manipulation of the social identification in network. Diglossia is happened in the communication usually depicts the dominant used of language, which considered legal with historical background in the society.
6.    Conclusion

From the data above it can be concluded that:



1.      Politeness shows our good feelings, our friendliness, and our intention to maintain harmonious relationships with them

2.      To avoid hard rejection from partner of speaking, we have to use strategies in order to avoid or minimize the threat of losing face.

3.      Hymes introduced four concepts as basic units for the ethnographic study of communication. They are (1) communication event, (2) communication act, (3) communication situation, and (4) speech community

4.      People do not speak in unmannered ways. There is set of rule that governs the way people speak. Hymes refers to this rule as SPEAKING. It consists of S=setting, P=participant, E=end, A=act of sequence, K=key, I=instrument, N=norm of instruction and interpretation, G=genre.

5.      In conducting socio-cultural research, there are some techniques that can be used to gather the data. They are participant observation, interview, and using local language.







REFERENCES


Brown, P. and S. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: CUP.
Cheng Yu. Lee. 2011. Cultural Expectations and Perceptions of Politeness: The “Rude Chinese”, Foreign Language Department, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Davies, C. A. 1999 Reflexive Ethnography: a guide to researching selves and others, London: Routledge.
Grice. H.P. 1975. Logic and Conversation. University College london
Hill.1986. Universals of linguistic politeness : Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 10, 3347-371. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(86)90006-8
Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania.
Kasper, G. 1990.Linguistic politeness: current research issues. Journal of Pragmatics,14,193-218.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(90)90080-W
Leech, G. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Suharsimi, A, 1991. Prosedur Penelitian Suatu Pendekatan Ilmiah. Jakarta: PT Bina Aksara Wardhaugh, Ronald. 2002. An introduction to sociolinguistics. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.
Troike, S.M. 2003. The Ethnography of Communication an introduction. Blackwell Publishing.
Wardhaugh, R. 2002. An introduction to sociolinguistics. United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishing.
Watts, R. J. 2008. Politeness Theory and Relational Work. Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 1, 9-33.
Yongliang, Huang. 2008. Politeness Principle in Cross-Cultural Communication (Available in Journal on English Language Teaching, Vol.1 No.1. June 2008)




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Wednesday, January 30, 2013

CLIL in Classroom

Bu Lek ma Pa Lek lg ngajar bahasa Sasak eh salah...



 Aran tumben bedait kance turis tarik pade befoto
 Aneh...arak batur jari imam ruen tiye ....