Linguistic politeness strategies in Javanese political discourse

Submission note: A thesis submitted in the total fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Languages and Linguistics, College of Arts, Social Sciences and Commerce, La Trobe University, Bundoora.

This study examines linguistic politeness in communication among the participants in the meetings of the Yogyakarta Provincial Parliament (DPRD Provinsi DIY). It focuses on the organization of speech acts, linguistic politeness strategies reflected in the speech acts, and sociopragmatic factors together with cultural principles that underlie the use of those linguistic politeness strategies. The study uses the qualitative method. The data were collected from natural interaction among the Legislatives (i.e., the Chairs and sitting MPs) and Executives who were attending the Rapat Kerja ‘Working Meeting’ of DPRD Provinsi DIY. As supplementary data, fieldnotes were taken during passive participant observation and interviews with some participants. The analysis of the data was conducted continuously through the process of displaying the data, reducing them, and drawing conclusions. The main theoretical framework used was that of politeness theory as introduced by Leech’s (2014) General Strategies of Politeness (GSP), along with Poedjosoedarmo’s (2009) Javanese nuanced politeness theory as characterized by unggah ungguh ‘Javanese politeness norms’. The study identifies and categorizes speech acts (greeting, disagreeing, interrupting and so forth), and shows that Leech’s (2014) General Strategies of Politeness can be applied to understand the linguistic politeness phenomena seen in those speech acts. Additionally, sociopragmatic factors that underlie the choice of linguistic politeness strategies are identified, such as vertical distance and cost and benefit. Finally, it is shown that some Javanese principles underlie the use of linguistic politeness strategies, namely: sumanak ‘friendly’, tepa selira ‘considerate’, andhap asor ‘modest’ and ngajeni ‘respect’, empan papan ‘agree with the setting and speech event’, conflict avoidance and nuju prana ‘pleasing the heart of the interlocutor. The study shows that political discourse in DPRD Provinsi DIY has been significantly shaped by basic principles of Javanese culture, and that the concept of rukun ‘social harmony’ is important even in political debate where conflict cannot always be avoided.