Linguistic, English Education and Art (LEEA) Journal Volume 6 Nomor 2, Januari-Juni 2023 e-ISSN : 2597-3819 p-ISSN : 2597-9248 DOI : https://doi.org/10.31539/leea.v6i2.6440 233 POLITENESS STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY LECTURERS IN UNDERGRADUATE EFL CLASSROOM Septian Ardianto1 Universitas Negeri Surabaya Syafi’ul Anam2 Universitas Negeri Surabaya Oikurema Purwati3 Universitas Negeri Surabaya septianardian23@gmail.com1 Submit, 07-06-2023 Accepted, 22-06-2023 Publish, 23-06-2023 ABSTRACT This study investigates the politeness strategies employed by lecturers in EFL undergraduate online classrooms. This study focuses on answering a research question; (1) how do the strategies employed by the lecturers in their teaching- learning activity? The qualitative method was used to fulfill the objective of the study. The data was collected from sit-in observation during their teaching-learning process. It was transcribed and analyzed descriptively. The result shows that there are three strategies employed by the lecturers, namely positive politeness, negative politeness, and bald-on-record. It can be concluded that this study will enrich the discussion, which relates to the use of politeness strategies in the teaching-learning program and how this study helps other lecturers/teachers to enrich their view in conducting kinds of strategies in their teaching-learning activity. Keywords: EFL Undergraduate Classroom, Online Classroom, Politeness Strategies INTRODUCTION Using language is something undeniable. Language will always connect to communication which happens in society and will be followed by the culture. Those elements cannot be parted as one aspect only but should be parted as a whole. Language is usually called a tool used by society as a means of communication among people who have various different backgrounds as members of society (Wardhaugh, 2011). Therefore, when people want to communicate with others using language, they need to consider who the interlocutors are. Each person in society will have different cultures in the way of communicating. Thus, following the correct and appropriate norms, which are agreed upon by the communicators, will avoid conflict and misunderstanding while communicating. These kinds of behavior or attitudes will lead us to the politeness concept, where politeness is always viewed as the norm in all cultures, https://doi.org/10.31539/leea.v6i2.6440 234 both formal and informal. Politeness was used as a focus in this study. In social interaction, where communication happens every day as part of a daily need, politeness is a fixed concept that will be needed to engage a good relationship among people in having communication in society. Politeness is an act of having or showing good manners or respect for other people. We would find politeness in any situation, especially in our daily life, because politeness is an act that could make people judge whether they have a good personality or not. In the linguistic field, politeness is the part of the language system that uses verbal communication. People are always trying to avoid saying something like taboo words, swear words, rude words, and so on. In everyday communication, it is important to use politeness because knowing the appropriate language to use will help us to achieve something that we want and show some good regards. By using the politeness concept, people will try to use the language in order to be polite to attain the communication’s goal. Lakoff (1972) believes that politeness is a suitable behavior in some particular circumstances to preserve a successful relationship in society. While using politeness in communication, people would say uneasy things because it is not only the prior knowledge about the language itself but also includes all cultural values such as norms, mindset, and the way they express things in every community, which is always different one to another (Holmes, 2013). In the educational background, especially in Indonesia, English is a foreign language country. There are also several studies that discuss politeness strategies used in classrooms at universities. As Li, D et al. (2020) have stated that politeness enhances teaching and benefits the students, contributing to effective interaction and a friendly, lively atmosphere in the EFL classroom. Taking those benefits into account, these researchers had done politeness strategies in the university EFL classroom, Esfahlan & Boroumand (2020) studied male and female EFL teachers' politeness strategies and their effect on the learning process and found that female teachers are more sensitive about using politeness strategies, but male teachers are more direct in expressing ideas, male teachers usually express their disagreement in a direct way. Arif, Iskandar, Muliati, and Patak (2018) conducted a study that talked about politeness strategies employed by male and female lecturers, and they found out that male and female lecturers used four types of politeness strategies, namely bald on-record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record. Furthermore, the students perceived that male and female lecturers were polite. The students perceived that the male lecturer was more formal while the female lecturer was friendly. Studies related to the use of online learning platforms such as Zoom Class, It has produced effectiveness, and even ineffectiveness was also reported. The effectiveness of using the Zoom class seems to be the efficiency in material 235 delivery between teacher and students 26 (Chakraborty et al., 2020; Shokarova, 2020; Paudel, 2020; Yasin et al., 2021; Kurnia, 2021). At the same time, a number of studies of the ineffectiveness of using Zoom classes were also proved. Dissatisfactions araised from students. Lacking internet data connection and network disconnection were problems for teachers and students during the class created in Zoom. For this reason, zoom class seems to create ineffectiveness in learning (Wasehudin & Anshori, 2021). Therefore, this study focused on the use of politeness strategy in ELT Online Classroom taken place in EFL undergraduate degree. To make it different, there were two lecturers that were analyzed in this study where the lecturers had the experience of living overseas with English as their first language. Not only the types of politeness strategies used that were analyzed in this study but the perceptions of using the strategy from lecturers were also taken into account. LITERATURE REVIEW Politeness Strategies Communicating with others is needed as a human being that lives in society. Using language as a tool, communication will be connected with cooperation among them to be able to get along in society and to get comfortable life. Politeness has become one of the aspects that will be considered by society in order to communicate with others in order to reach the goal of communication. To reach the goal while having communication, people usually will talk and behave properly without imposing on others. To be able to do so, one must refer to the concept of politeness and face. Several studies have been done in different fields related to politeness strategies because this strategy covers every aspect of communication, such as request, command, apology and etc. Rabab'ah et al. (2019) talked about the relationship between positive politeness strategies and the speaker's ethnic background on the Opray Winfrey talk show. This study found that Oprah and her Caucasian guests used more positive politeness strategies than the African-Americans. It was also found that the most frequently used strategies in Oprah's talk with both groups were "Seek agreement," "Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with H)," "Give (or ask for) reasons," "Presuppose/raise/assert common ground" and "Assert or presuppose S's knowledge of and concern for H's wants," respectively. However, the study showed that there was a difference in the use of positive politeness strategies due to the addressee's ethnic group background (African-American and Caucasian). Politeness Strategies Used in the Classroom Politeness strategies are attached to every aspect of daily activity. As long as the communication occurs, a politeness strategy will follow. The use of the 236 politeness strategy in the classroom is also always happening because, in the teaching-learning process, there will always be communication inside, both between teacher-student and student-student. There are some studies that h a v e already talked about the politeness strategy used in teaching-learning processes inside the classroom, either in Indonesia or overseas. In 2018 there are some studies taking place in Indonesia focusing on politeness strategies. Those are Mahmud (2018) and Haryanto, Weda, and Nashruddin (2018). Mahmud found the problem related to politeness strategies practices among students; mostly, students are having a problem showing the politeness strategy and how to use it. Starting from the problem, he tried to do research that focused on students' perspectives on politeness strategies at the university. Twenty students from the English Literature department were asked to fill out an open-ended questionnaire; the questionnaire was analyzed descriptively about politeness theories. This study found that the students perceived that politeness has an important role in classroom interaction. Politeness is a need in education, a strategy to create good characters, and a learning motivation. There are also some ways to show politeness according to the students, such as being on time and not getting angry in class. These students' perspectives should be given priority to create an effective learning and teaching process. Findings from this study become valuable inputs for teachers and students in their efforts to create effective classroom interaction. Haryanto et al. (2018) have done research on 8th-grade students from SMP Negeri 23 Makassar that English as Foreign Language. They proposed a theory of Leech that politeness consists of six maxims. The objective of this study was to find out the politeness principles of EFL teachers during the interaction and to find out the implication of politeness principles toward the teaching-learning process. This study found that teachers used all of the six maxims, and the tact maxim is the most frequently used maxim. Also, from the data, it is also found that the politeness strategies principle creates togetherness between teachers and students. Using the proper politeness principle can create a positive attitude toward the lesson that motivates them to be more active in the teaching-learning process. Sari, Utama, and Yawisah (2019) conducted a qualitative study to find out the type of request strategy and type of politeness strategy in a request made by Native Dayanese at OKU South Sumatra. 20 Native Dayanese have participated in this research. To get the data, the researchers used Discourse Completion Test (DCT). In analyzing data, the researchers used Trosborg’s Theory and Brown Levinson. The result showed that category ability/willingness was mostly used by Native Dayanese to make requests, for instance, Majuat, Hijuat, and Pandaiat. The word Majuat is used to ask the interlocutor who has high status, while the word Hijuat and Pandaiat is used to ask the interlocutor who has a middle and low 237 level. Furthermore, most Native Dayanese used Negative Politeness in performing politeness strategy on request. A recent study that talks about politeness strategies has been done by Rahayuningsih, Saleh, and Fitriati (2020). This study aimed at analyzing the realization of politeness strategies and sociological factors influencing the choice of politeness strategies in EFL Teacher-students classroom interaction at SMP Semesta Bilingual School. This study used qualitative research in the form of classroom discourse analysis. The participants were an EFL teacher and 30 EFL students in two EFL classrooms. The research instruments were made based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework of politeness strategies. The findings showed that bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off records were realized in the classroom interaction. The teacher dominantly used positive politeness to show solidarity and to maintain a close relationship with the students, bald on record to give unambiguous instruction, negative politeness to minimize the coercion to the students, and off the record to give hints. In addition, sociological factors, namely distance, power, and degree of imposition, influence the choice of politeness strategies. In conclusion, politeness is important in maintaining relationships and creating a comfortable environment in the EFL classroom. RESEARCH METHOD This study is qualitative research type. It manages information investigation and portrayal as opposed to numerical parts, for example, chart, rate, computation, and so forth. This research is the most appropriate research structure for this investigation and used some consideration techniques. This study is an exploration approach that contains a few methodologies of various information that the outcomes are picked up by essentially from the start until finish, non-numerical information that is then investigated by non- measurable examination. This is a procedure wherein the information is changed into a printed structure or word structure. From this point of view, this present study described and reported the politeness strategy used by the teacher in the classroom setting by analyzing the written data in words, and the factors that affect the usage of the strategy were also explained. The participants of this research have been taken into consideration as the subject two lecturers and 20 students that were involved in the classroom meeting. There were two lecturers who already had a master's degree specialty in English education or linguistic field from various universities. The lecturers were asked about politeness theory beforehand so that the understanding of the concept of politeness theory would be the same as the researcher's. The lecturer has experienced living overseas, where English is the first language. Moreover, the 238 place where this study took place was in the university in Surabaya, where each lesson will have a 90 minutes session in the classroom. The lessons observed were at least four sessions or could be more in terms of getting richer data. The participants were selected because they were the students who take an English language program where the language used in the classroom is mostly English, which is linear with the topic that this study observed where the students were all undergraduate students whose English language proficiency is advanced. The data that came from the sit-in observation and also the video recording that had been taken before were used in order to avoid any missing data. The video recording can be a help in gathering the data if, in the middle of the process, there were something forgotten. The observation data were used to find out the kinds of politeness strategies used by the lecturers and how the process of using them. The data was analyzed by reducing the data first and relating it to the literature review and theory to discard the irrelevant data. Then, the researcher also compresses the data into a data display. Finally, the researcher carefully analyzed and interpreted the Findings and Discussion section. FINDING This chapter covered the research findings. It discussed how the lecturers employed politeness strategies in their teaching-learning activity and the kinds of strategies they used also. Politeness strategies employed by the lecturers in their EFL classroom could be traced almost in all of the activities in their teaching-learning process, such as giving instructions, evaluating, managing class, and also in motivating the students. The presented data were originally taken from transcribed spoken utterances of the lecturers in their EFL classroom setting to answer the first research question about how the politeness strategies are employed and also the kinds of strategies that will also be presented. It is necessary to emphasize the data and then analyzed all the related data using Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategies to describe all phenomena that happened in the setting. The details findings are presented in the table below: Table 1 Findings of Politeness Strategies Positive Politeness Negative Politeness Excerpt 1 M1: Alright. Today I would like to talk about the recent issues about celebrity. Okay class, what do you think? Why there are some celebs, ehm…you know…, do something that inappropriate to their fans? S: Maybe they have mental issue sir. M1: what do you mean by that? Excerpt 7 M1: Okay class. Please, one person tells me where we ended the material last week. Students: yes sir, last time we were on page 75 talked about the use of tenses in real life. M1 : okay thank you. Now class, please open page 76. 239 S: I mean something related to their mental sir. Perhaps something called as stary syndrome sir. So, they just too shocked because of being famous. M1: ah… I see. That’s good, nice. Excerpt 2 M1: ok guys, let’s open page 63, where the last time we met last week. I’m sure all of you have already understood the last material that we have discussed last week, so we can move to the next part. Excerpt 8 M1: alright guys, time’s up. Everyone who wants to answer please raise a hand. Students: wait a minute sir, we haven’t finish it yet. M1: it’s alright guys. Just say the answer actually. Everyone may try to answer it. Don’t be afraid of making mistake. Excerpt 3 M2: Morning class. Students: Good Morning sir. M2: Alright I’m sure that you’re all okay. Before we start the class let’s pray together. Excerpt 9 M1: Alright. Budi, please tell me your opinion about this recent situation in our country. Students: yes sir. (Telling his opinion) M1: alright Budi thank you for the opinion. But I think I miss some part of it, can you please repeat it again one more time? Excerpt 4 M2: What a beautiful day isn’t it? Starting the day with the recent viral news from Indonesia and also overseas. Students: (Soft noises from students because of different responses from students) M2: alright, alright. That’s enough intermezzo, so it’s time for us to get down to the real business we had, shall we? Let’s open the last page we had in the last week. Excerpt 10 M1: Alright that’s enough of intermezzo. Now, Rendi would you mind to read page 80 where we end our meeting last week? Students: Not at all mam. (Start reading the paragraph) M1: Alright Rendi that’s enough. Thank you very much. Excerpt 5 Students: Sir, can you please make the last test later easier than usual? M2: what do you mean with easier? I already make the test easy enough for you, isn’t it? Students: (responding to the statement altogether) Not at all Sir! M2: hahaha, you plan this altogether right. Alright, I’ll make the last test easier for you, but all of you need to all out and get really serious in doing the presentation. Got it? Students: do you promise sir? Excerpt 11 M2: Morning Class. Students: Morning Sir. How are you sir? M2: I’m good thank you. Hope you are all okay in this situation. Okay, I see some of you still not ready yet to begin the class. Ok, I’ll let you have 5 minutes more to prepare first. After that we can begin. 240 M2: yes, I Promise. Excerpt 6 Student: (Explaining the whole story of his experience) M2: ok thank you for the amazing story of yours. But, how about you retell this old- man about some certain part. I personally lost in some parts of the story, it seems that age can never lie, hahaha Students: no worries, sir. I will retell you all of the stories you need and by the way you are as young as we are sir. So don’t sweat it. Excerpt 12 M2 : Alright, I can see that all of you are ready now to start the class. Students: yes sir, we are ready. M2: Alright, before we start the class let’s pray. Aldi please lead the pray. Excerpt 13 M2: ok good, thank you class. Today I would like to talk about recent weather which is unpredictable. Students: yes sir. It makes us feel the fever that worsen the recent situation due to the pandemic. M2: yeah, then let’s read an article that connect with our recent situation about weather then move on to the next thing we can do. So first, I want you guys to read and then we’ll do the exercises. After completing the exercise we’ll watch the video that talk about the climate change that maybe perhaps enlighten you with our recent phenomena. Excerpt 14 Student: (noises because she does not mute her microphone) M2: Sorry Lia, but could you mute your microphone for a moment? because it creates noises to us. Student: ah yes sir, I will. I’m sorry because I didn’t notice that my microphone is unmute. M2: no worries, Lia. DISCUSSION Positive Politeness Positive politeness strategy seeks to minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face and make the hearer feel good about him/herself. A person, when having a conversation, he/she wanted to make them happy and feel good about 241 themselves and tries to avoid saying such a thing that makes them feel bad. These strategies include juxtaposing criticism with compliments, establishing common ground, and using jokes, nicknames, honorifics, tag questions, and in-group jargon and slang. Positive politeness is still also used by these two lecturers. The reason was to show that they were on the same page, to show that they were on common ground as they were in the same group. To the lecturers' perception in creating a good relationship with their students, showing solidarity was needed, and positive politeness was an appropriate strategy to achieve it. As Rahayuningsih, Saleh, and Fitriati (2020) found in their study that to express solidarity and build close contact with the students, the teacher mostly employed positive politeness. It was also proved that the lecturers wanted to build not only lecturers students' relationships but friend alike relationships. Excerpt 1 M1 : Alright. Today I would like to talk about the recent issues about celebrity. Okay class, what do you think? Why there are some celebs, ehm…you know…, do something that inappropriate to their fans? S : Maybe they have mental issue sir. M1 : what do you mean by that? S : I mean something related to their mental sir. Perhaps something called as stary syndrome sir. So, they just too shocked because of being famous. M1 : ah… I see. That’s good, nice. From the excerpt above, the speech act that delivered by the M1 ‘why there are some celebs, ehm…. You know….’ was an example for positive politeness in intensify interest to hearer. It can be seen from the linguistic marker ‘you know’ which can be used to intensify the interest to hearer. Furthermore, after speaker got the attention from the hearer and also got the reaction that M1wished for, he also performed another positive politeness act which is ‘that’s good, nice’ with an exaggerate intonation that can be classified as positive politeness, exaggerate approval. By using positive politeness and forming the exaggerate approval, the M1 minimized any threat that can be occurred within their conversation and by doing that can also triggered others students to be able to active in classroom communication. Excerpt 2 M1 : ok guys, let’s open page 63, where the last time we met last week. I’m sure all of you have already understood the last material that we have discussed last week, so we can move to the next part. 242 In this conversation, excerpt 2, by instructing his students to open certain page of the material book, he tried to start the lesson and maintain the conversation also. To minimize the gap between the teacher and the students he maintained the flow of the conversation by decreasing the level of imposition of the instruction. He used positive politeness strategies with the form of ‘let’s’ so that his students did not feel any pressure from his instruction. He also tried to confirm that the lesson from last week was already understood by all the students. By using politeness strategies form of ‘I’m sure all of you have already understood’ he tried to put himself in his students’ point of view. So, the students did not feel any pressure nor any FTAs from the M1. Excerpt 3 M2 : Morning class. Students : Good Morning sir. M2 : Alright I’m sure that you’re all okay. Before we start the class let’s pray together. In excerpt (3), there were double used of positive politeness strategy used by the lecturer which is M2. The first use he used the statement ‘I’m sure’ as a form of the strategy, by using this statement he tried to be assumed as a part of their party. By mentioning the word ‘I’m sure’ as a form of his politeness strategies he tried to reduce the gap between him and his students. Also, he strengthens his position as their party member by using the word ‘let’s’ and followed with the word ‘together’ as his strategy to follow the first form that he said earlier. The form used of ‘together’ can assure the students that he would do it with them and showing respect to them as their member. The usage of the word ‘I’m sure’ and ‘let’s’ over here were asserted that M2 wanted to reduce the gap between him and his students by sharing power and also to show solidarity so that it was not a teacher-center class, but rather to show his students that it was also a student- center class. By using those kinds of positive politeness techniques, he kept his good reputation with his students. Excerpt 4 M2 : What a beautiful day isn’t it? Starting the day with the recent viral news from Indonesia and also overseas. Students : (Soft noises from students because of different responses from students) M2 : alright, alright. That’s enough intermezzo, so it’s time for us to get down to the real business we had, shall we? Let’s open the last page we had in the last week. In excerpt (4), the M2 had performed two different strategies of positive politeness strategies. The first form he used was by ‘exaggerating interest’ strategy 243 by stating ‘what a beautiful day isn’t it?’ he tried to claim the common ground with the students by stating that the day was so beautiful so the students needed to cheer up while having a teaching learning activity in the class. The other form he had performed is ‘That’s enough intermezzo, so it’s time for us to get down to the real business we had, shall we?’. By performing this strategy, he tried to assert the common ground with the students, because usually this strategy started and done by having a small talk such as gossip and by stating this form, he tried to time switch into the real thing that he needed to do which was teaching. Followed with the word ‘let’s’ M2 really had tried to minimize any threat created from the conversation he had with the students, by starting the class with small talk, using personal switch and ending with the word ‘let’s’ as a solicitation to start the teaching learning activity without creating any FTA to the hearers. Excerpt 5 Students : Sir, can you please make the last test later easier than usual? M2 : what do you mean with easier? I already make the test easy enough for you, isn’t it? Students : (responding to the statement altogether) Not at all Sir! M2 : hahaha, you plan this altogether right. Alright, I’ll make the last test easier for you, but all of you need to all out and get really serious in doing the presentation. Got it? Students : do you promise sir? M2 : yes, I Promise. In excerpt (5), again, there were 2 different forms of positive politeness employed by M2 as the speaker. Those were assumed, offer, and promise strategy. The conversation started with a protest from the students because of the hardness level of the test given by the lecturer. Knowing this situation M2 using the 12th strategy (assume), he assumed that the students tried to negotiate about level of the last test and then it became the negotiation between students and lecture. By stating ‘I’ll make the last test easier for you, but…’ M2 wanted the students to do something first in exchange M2 would reduce the level of the last test in the future. After conducting the first strategy, to strengthen it, he performed another form of strategy which is 9th strategy (promise) by saying ‘I promise’ to claim the common ground between M2 and his students. Speaker (M2) claimed that whatever hearers wanted which were the students, M2 wanted for them and would help to obtain. So, by saying certain form such as ‘I promise’ the students as the hearer felt that they were in the same page and the gap they had will gradually decreasing. Excerpt 6 Student : (Explaining the whole story of his experience) 244 M2 : ok thank you for the amazing story of yours. But, how about you retell this old- man about some certain part. I personally lost in some parts of the story, it seems that age can never lie, hahaha Students : no worries, sir. I will retell you all of the stories you need and by the way you are as young as we are sir. So don’t sweat it. In excerpt (6), 2 forms of positive politeness were again performed by M2. This conversation taken place after one student having a time in telling the story of him to the class. It seemed that M2 had not understood of some parts of the story. By knowing this situation, he performed 2 form of positive politeness which one form would support the other form. The first form he employed in order to claim common ground, he performed 2nd strategy (exaggerate). By saying ‘thank you for the amazing story of yours’ he tried to make a perception that he really loved the story meanwhile he lost some parts of it. In order to deliver the thought, he had because of missing some parts of the story he performed another strategy which is 8th strategy (joke). By delivering some joke of himself by calling himself an ‘old-man’ he tried to minimize any FTA that possible to be there because of the situation he had. Negative Politeness A negative politeness strategy is avoidance based and it presumes that the speaker will be imposing on the hearer. This strategy is intended to avoid giving offense by showing deference. These strategies include questioning, hedging, and presenting disagreements as opinions. Mostly used form in this negative politeness strategy are modals. Both students from two different classes had two different kinds of face. Positive face, as the wants to be liked or approved, and negative face as they want not to be imposed by others. There were also some considerations before both lecturers performing the strategy such as the power they had to the students as their lecturers, their social gap as their closeness, also the degree of imposition of each activity should be taken into account as their consideration. After considering those things happen inside the class, they may employ the proper politeness strategies to the students while having teaching learning activity. By doing so, both lecturers may reduce the threat that the students may possibly feel while performing the strategy. Since making requests and giving command can be seen as threatening to some students, it was important for teachers to be aware of what students wanted and to take that into account when issuing requests or ordering command. This also found in Sari, Utama, and Yawisah (2019) study that Negative Politeness was 245 used the most in performing politeness strategy on request. For this reason, polite behavior in class activities was the best way to go in this context performing negative politeness strategy as a picture of being polite. This means that the teachers gave the students freedom to talk and act according to what they were asking for, based on the content of the request and the command. Excerpt 7 M1 : Okay class. Please, one person tells me where we ended the material last week. Students : yes sir, last time we were on page 75 talked about the use of tenses in real life. M1 : okay, thank you. Now class, please open page 76. From the excerpt above, there were 2 kinds of negative politeness employed by the teacher. First, the teacher used the word ‘please’ to soften the instruction. The use of word ‘please’, according to Brown and Levinson, is an example of negative politeness to indicate a conventionally indirect instruction (Strategy 1). Being indirect can be realized by including the insertion of sentence internal ‘please’ (Brown and Levinson, 1987, p.133). Moreover, the use of pronoun ‘one’ instead of ‘you’ is an example of negative politeness (Strategy 7. Impersonalize S and H) so the hearer did not feel intimidated with the instruction that the lecturer has given. Excerpt 8 M1 : alright guys, time’s up. Everyone who wants to answer please raise a hand. Students: wait a minute sir, we haven’t finish it yet. M1 : it’s alright guys. Just say the answer actually. Everyone may try to answer it. Don’t be afraid of making mistake. Excerpt above showed two negative politeness strategies. The teacher tried to encourage the students to answer the question and wrote the answer on the board. First, she said ‘everyone may try’ which showed that the speaker did not coerce H and give H option not to do act. It was marked by the word ‘may’ which was a hedge in the form of modal auxiliary (Strategy 2). The second one, ‘just say the answer actually’ is an example of negative politeness strategy, minimizing the imposition (Strategy 4). Here, the speaker minimized the imposition by saying that that the students needed to ‘just say’ the answer. The speaker tried to save the hearer’s negative face and reduce the threat of imposition. Excerpt 9 M1 : Alright. Budi, please tell me your opinion about this recent situation in our country. Students: yes sir. (Telling his opinion) M1 : alright Budi thank you for the opinion. But I think I miss some part of it, can you please repeat it again one more time? 246 In excerpt 9 we could notice that the lecturer M1 tried to utilize this negative politeness strategy by being indirect to his student by using the modal ‘can’. This strategy was being used because of the power M1 possessed to his student to repeat some particular part that he had not catch or understand. To minimize threat or minimizing the harm of his student’s negative face he used the modal ‘can’, so the student may not feel ignored with the opinion that he has spoken to the class. Excerpt 10 M1 : Alright that’s enough of intermezzo. Now, Rendi would you mind to read page 80 where we end our meeting last week? Students: Not at all mam. (Start reading the paragraph) M1 : Alright, Rendi that’s enough. Thank you very much. In excerpt above we can see that M1 tried to instruct his student to read certain paragraph in certain page of the book to discuss the material. By using negative politeness strategy of being indirect with the use of modal ‘would’, he tried to maintain his student’s negative face since he did not mention the exact part that needed to be read by the student. It may find disturbing by the student since the student need to remember where did the last part they had in the last meeting. To minimize the disturbance his student may feel from his act, he minimized it by using the negative politeness. Excerpt 11 M2 : Morning Class. Students: Morning Sir. How are you, sir? M2 : I’m good thank you. Hope you are all okay in this situation. Okay, I see some of you still not ready yet to begin the class. Ok, I’ll let you have 5 minutes more to prepare first. After that we can begin. In excerpt above we could see how M2 has given his students more time to prepare before starting the meeting and make the student ready to follow the material. Excerpt 12 M2 : Alright, I can see that all of you are ready now to start the class. Students: yes sir, we are ready. M2 : Alright, before we start the class, let’s pray. Aldi, please lead the pray. In above conversation it can be seen that the M2 wanted to start the class. But before that he wanted one of the students to lead the pray before starting the class as one of the daily routines in the class. To minimize any threat that may occur while he asked his student to lead the pray, he softened his request by adding the word ‘please’ so the hearer may not have misperception in the request he has given. 247 Excerpt 13 M2 : ok, good, thank you, class. Today I would like to talk about recent weather, which is unpredictable. Students : yes, sir. It makes us feel the fever that worsens the recent situation due to the pandemic. M2 : yeah, then let’s read an article that connects with our recent situation about the weather, then move on to the next thing we can do. So first, I want you guys to read and then we’ll do the exercises. After completing the exercise, we’ll watch the video that talks about climate change that maybe perhaps enlighten you with our recent phenomena. In the excerpt above, M2 wanted his students to do an exercise from the book by expressing negative politeness strategy in the form of performative ‘I’ and ‘you. He wanted to avoid any conflict or misperception with his student about the thing that he and his students were going to do in the class. This also indicated that he did not want to impose on his students’ negative faces by impersonalizing his instruction with a performative verb like ‘want’. Excerpt 14 Student: (noises because she does not mute her microphone) M2 : Sorry, Lia, but could you mute your microphone for a moment? because it creates noise for us. Student : ah, yes, sir, I will. I’m sorry because I didn’t notice that my microphone is unmute. M2 : no worries, Lia. In this excerpt, we can see how the lecturer asked request to the students to do something. He chose to use negative politeness in asking requests from the student rather than using direct command even though he had the power to do so. By doing so, he tried to minimize and save the hearer's negative face. Also, with the use of modal 'could', he wanted Lia to feel not intimidated by the request he delivered. Even more, he put the word ‘sorry’ beforehand. CONCLUSION This study found that both male lecturers in a class tend to use mostly negative politeness to ask for things or give commands, it could harm their relationship with their students, since some students may feel distant from them 248 even though most of them were already close to the lecturers. Additionally, the lecturers may still need to respect the freedom of their students to talk and express themselves in response to the requests and commands these two lecturers deliver, even if those students were not very close to the lecturers. Positive politeness still also used by these two lecturers. 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