Politeness in Social Interaction: The Process of Educating Society in

Formal Situation

Desra Eka Putra

Linguistics Graduate Program, Andalas University, Padang, Indonesia

Keywords: Politeness, Employee, Utterance, Government.

Abstract: This study examines politeness in social interaction in the process of educating society in the formal

situation. One part of politeness in the social interaction the process of educating society in the formal

situation is employee’ utterance in the government. This paper aims to describe the types of politeness of

employer ’s utterance in the government. The data were taken from the employee’ utterance in government.

The data were collected by recording and tapping; the steps were data tagging, data noting and data

checking. The method used in analyzing the data was referential and translational identity method. The

result of the analysis was presented by the formal and informal method. Based on the result of data analysis,

types of politeness found in the employee’ utterance were politeness of refusing, , giving, politeness when

requesting, commanding, promising, praising and politeness when asking.

1 INTRODUCTION

Politeness can be said to be a genuine desire to do

good to others (Thomas, 1995). A sincere desire can

take a verbal action, i.e., use of language, or

nonverbal actions, i.e. behavior daily. Itis one of the

important variables in speech events. When speaking

or speech, politeness into consideration in selecting

the first linguistic forms in addition to clarity of

intention. Moreover, clarity and politeness are two

important aspects to be considered in verbal

communication (Lakoff & Ide, 2005).

However, sometimes two aspects of the above

contradiction so both partners can understand that

speech. Speakers often consider the pragmatic factors

thoroughly may be involved in the communication

process, such as the speakers will use a variety of

different said by the situation said.

Politeness is one of the objects of study of

pragmatics, according to Leech (1993) States the

pragmatics, in General, relate to the meaning or

grammatical meaning of a speech with the speech

pragmatics. This link can be relatively direct or

indirect. Language politeness based on the opinion

that it can serve as a benchmark level of politeness of

a person to a partner he said. A message containing

the meaning there in need to be consideration of

approval and rejection is defined by the partners said.

According to Anam (2012) politeness is one

aspect that needs to be considered in communication.

Compassion or not speech is very dependent on the

size of the politeness of the speakers of the language

used. Speech in Indonesian, in general, has been

stated politely if speakers use polite words, namely:

the speech does not ridicule directly, indirectly, and

others.

There are many ethics, manners, and courtesy in

the community that is known and adhered to. One of

the references we can exemplify the procedures for

speaking in Minangkabau. Minangkabau language

has four oral parts which are commonly called

narrative bases. This variety of calls is called kato nan

ampek. Kato nan ampek or what is called Navis

(1989) langgam kato is the everyday way of talking

between fellow Minangkabau people according to the

social status of the speaker. It is essential to

understand the concept of kato nan ampek in

Minangkabau. Wisdom and intelligence of someone

choosing and sorting out the language that will be

used by the concepts of kato nan ampek become a

measure of one's maturity, wisdom, and maturity.

Kato nan ampek consists of four parts, each of

which is based more on social status and speech

participants' relationships (Oktavianus & Revita,

2013; Aslinda, 2000; Navis, 1999).

The use of speech based on kato nan ampek is in

line with politeness (Oktavianus & Revita, 2013;

Putra, D.

Politeness in Social Interaction: The Process of Educating Society in Formal Situation.

DOI: 10.5220/0008682502070210

In Improving Educational Quality Toward International Standard (ICED-QA 2018), pages 207-210

ISBN: 978-989-758-392-6

207

Navis, 1999). Speakers who can fulfill the conditions

that are written in kato nan ampek are categorized as

people who know about kato nan ampek and polite

understanding. Therefore, wherever you are here, it is

very important to pay attention to and prioritize this

politeness aspect.

Workplaces are offices, banks, schools, the

government of offices and others. One place to act is

a government of Padang city. The government of

Padang city is led by a Mayor, who is democratically

elected based on the 1945 Constitution. To support

the smooth running of all Mayor activities, the Mayor

is assisted by mayor group employee. A Mayor's

group consisted of 7 people who were commanded by

a Mayor's Personal Secretary.

The duties and authorities of the mayor's group

are:

1. Serve all guests who will meet with the

Mayor.

2. Receive all incoming documents or

documents to get the Mayor's disposition or

signature and record it in the agenda book,

3. Receive letters that have been disposition or

signed by Mayor and distribute to the

administration of Regional Secretary letter

or administration of Secretariat's letter.

4. Arranging Mayor's activity agenda and

making official notes for needs of Mayor's

activities.

All tasks and authority of the mayor's group, all

interact, both interactions occur between an employee

of fellow employee and interaction between

employee and the guests.

The interaction that occurs in the government of

Padang city is the interaction between the employee

and the guests and employee language politeness

when serving guests at the government of Padang

city. An employee is a group of people who assist /

services to guests in the government of Padang city,

meaning that Mayor group employee is people who

interact directly with guests as one of the most critical

spearheads for a government office in building guest

satisfaction.

A guest is someone or an institution/organization

that has needs in the form of official needs or personal

needs in a government. It is the primary basis that an

employee must be able to be ethical in language,

especially when interacting with guests at the

government of Padang city.

One type of politeness is politeness when asking.

Following is one of the speech models requesting in

Minangkabau language spoken by employees and

guests at the government of Padang city.

The Guest

Eeei lamak kue ko bantuaknyo

mah Uni.

‘This cake looks delicious.’

Employee

Kok lai suko ambiak lah. Pado

mubazir se.

‘Take it, if you like it. Than just

redundant.’

The Guest

MokasUni

‘Thank You’

The above discussion occurs between guests and

Employee. The Guests declare that a cake is

delicious. Based on the context, besides expressing

something, the utterance contains a literal meaning to

ask. It is just that, due to various pragmatic

considerations, guests do not express their requests

frankly.

In politeness studies, there are several topics, such

as politeness strategies, types of politeness, politeness

principles, politeness markers, modesty rules,

politeness scale, and facial tone. A possible problem

in this study is to find the types of information found

in interactions with people who use oral speech guests

government.

2 METHODS

This paper is descriptive research with a

qualitative approach. According to Semi (1993: 23),

descriptive research is a method that is done by not

using the numbers but using the depth of appreciation

of the interaction between concepts which is being

studied empirically. Descriptive research can be

interpreted as a problem-solving procedure that is

investigated by describing or describing the current

state or object of research based on facts that appear

as they are.

Moleong (2002) also suggested that qualitative

research is a study aimed at understanding the

phenomenon of what is experienced by research

subjects, such as behavior, perception, actions, and

others. This study is based on facts and phenomena

that exist at the point of observation and the findings

of the field without addition and subtraction. Related

to that, the researcher describes the object of his

research, namely courtesy of employees government.

The data of this study is employer's speech. Nadra

and Reniwati (2009) suggested that the data is a staple

in a study. The purpose of this study is to answer the

problem or question related to the object of the

research objectives.

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Methods of providing data by researchers will use

the method refer. A basic tapping technique used for

collecting the data. Then, the data also used the

advanced technique including recording technique.

Here, researchers observe and record the procession

of politeness spellings of an employee in the

government.

Furthermore, the advanced technique used is non-

participant observational technique. Researcher uses

the the recording to note speech politeness language

uttered bythe employee transcribed. Based on the

above explanation, the application of methods and

techniques of analysis can be described or described

in several stages. The stages in question are as

follows:

a. The researcher first provides preliminary

exposure on each subtopic analysis of

research data. The introduction is a general

overview of the theories used to analyze

data.

b. Data is transcribed by researchers from

spoken language into written language.

3 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Data 1

Employee

Jadi apa yang bisa kami bantu?

‘So what can we do for you?’

‘dan suratnya sudah dimasukan

belum?, terkait permohonan

atau undangan?

‘the letter has been entered?

Related to request or invitation?’

The interaction of the utterances above happened

between an employee of the government of Padang

city and UNAND Student who came from the LKMM

BEM UNAND organization who was asking for a

letter of request for cooperation and the invitation for

the opening ceremony for Mayor. The guest asked

Jadi apa yang bisa kami bantu? dan suratnya sudah

dimasukan belum?, terkait permohonan atau

undangan?.

Based on the above context, utterances “Jadi apa

yang bisa kami bantu? dan suratnya sudah

dimasukan belum?, terkait permohonan atau

undangan?” is a question that politely states that the

speaker asks the partner to speak about what the

speech partner wants.

Data 2

Employee

Buk, mohon ditulis juga

surat permohonan

menandatangani sertifikat

kepada bapak Walikota.

‘please also write a letter of

application with a certificate to

Mayor.’

The above discussion took place between a

mother named ZZ, She was one of the employee of

West Sumatra Ministry of Education and Culture

Conservation Office who was visiting employee at

the mayor's office. The Guest states Buk, mohon

ditulis juga surat permohonan menandatangani

sertifikat kepada bapak Walikota. Based on the

context of the speaking, the statemets is a polite

request without forcing the speech partner to do it and

the speech partner is happy to do it even though he is

not used to writing the request.

Table 1. Results of analysis language politeness types

No.

language politeness

types

Amount

Commanding

Politeness of refusing

Giving

Politeness when

requesting

Promising

Praising

Politeness when asking

Total

Based on table 3, it can be understood that in the

overall politeness in social interaction consisting of

48 languages politeness, tends to have the most

dominants level of need for the politeness when

asking type 31. After politeness when asking

politeness, this in social interaction in the process of

educating society in the formal situation has a second

predominant level requirement for the language

politeness types of politeness when requesting that is

8. Furthermore, the level of needs of relatively small

participant roles ranged from large to small, i.e.

promising 3, commanding 2, praising 2, politeness of

refusing 1 and giving 1.

The findings of results data analysis show that

factors behind politeness in the social interaction the

process of educating society in the formal situation

are:

Politeness in Social Interaction: The Process of Educating Society in Formal Situation

209

1. The government of Padang city located in the

central government of Padang City.

2. Most guests come from middle-upper

educated people.

3. Government of Padang city is the

administrative center of Padang city

frequented by many guests from all walks of

life and various educational backgrounds; all

guests are treated with courtesy and courtesy.

The third aspect above is the reason for the

politeness of employee in serving the guest in the

government of Padang city. Based on data analysis,

language politeness occurs in Padang City

Government in the formal and non-formal situation.

A more frequent occurrence of linguistic politeness is

a formal situation when an employee is serving guests

directly in the government of Padang city. Analysis

of the data shows the politeness of language that often

arises is politeness when asking and requesting which

is part of the types of politeness. It is due to the many

questions and requesting guests when visiting The

government of Padang city.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Based on the result of data analysis, types of

politeness found in the employee’ utterance were

politeness of refusing, giving, politeness when

requesting, commanding, promising, praising and

politeness when asking.

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