The Positive Politeness Strategies Used in “English for Nusantara” Textbook

Abstract

<em>The integration of pragmatic competence and politeness is an essential focus in the development of English learning materials like textbooks. Using appropriate textbooks can help students develop communicative competence as the primary goal of English language teaching as a foreign language. This study discusses the positive politeness strategy in the textbook "English for Nusantara". The present study used a qualitative approach with a documentary analysis design. The data were collected by analyzing the dialogues contained in the textbook. The theory of positive politeness strategy, developed by Brown and Levinson (1987), was used to examine the data. The findings revealed that there are eight positive politeness strategies used in the dialogues of the English for Nusantara textbook, namely (1) exaggerating one’s interest in, approval of, and sympathy of the listener, (2) employing in-group markers of identity, (3) requesting agreement, (4) requesting & promising, (5) involving the speaker and the listener in action and (6) offering or asking for an explanation, (7) using inclusive “we” form, and (8) giving (or asking for) reasons. The most dominant positive politeness strategy was ‘exaggerating interest in, approval of or sympathy with the hearers.’ EFL learners’ pragmatic competence will be increased when pragmatic contents, like politeness, are integrated into the textbook as English learning materials used by teachers in the classroom.</em>

Translation techniques of the positive politeness utterances in the Pay It Forward movie

“…This difference happens probably due to different contexts or media involved in the research. However, this research on the Pay It Forward movie was somewhat similar in design to the research on the English for Nusantara textbook by Erlinda et al (2023), as the latter also found that the dominant positive politeness strategy was exaggerate one's interest in, approval of, and sympathy of the hearer. Moreover, things in common for positive politeness utterances are involved in the social interactions, i.e.…”

“…Syukur et al (2020) on speech acts of single-child adolescents, Mustaqim et al (2023) on pragmatic functions on Japanese wordplay, Darmapratiwi & Pratiwi (2024) on translation strategies of metaphors in novels, and Indrowaty et al (2024) on the pragmatic approach in learning speaking skills/kaiwa in Japanese. One of the popularly researched aspect of pragmatics, to support human interaction varieties, is the so-called Brown & Levinson's theory (1987) on positive politeness strategies to observe people talking or communicating within their positive politeness utterances, as elaborated within various research of this kind by Jansen & Janssen (2010), Marpudianto (2020), Yolanda & Bram (2022), Patama et al (2022, Puteri et al (2022), Nurmawati et al (2019), Maula et al (2023), Bintangtricahya et al (2023), andErlinda et al (2023), to mention a few. There then comes into play the so-called politeness within social actions.…”

Students’ English Language Acquisition and their Proficiency Improvement at IPRC Kigali, Rwanda

“…A language is a tool of communication. Erlinda (2010) stated that both animal and human beings can communicate to each other. Languages are acquired or learned.…”