Positive Politeness Strategies in All the Bright Places Movie
Keywords:
Positive Politeness, Politeness Strategies, Brown and Levinson, Context of Situation, All the Bright PlacesAbstract
Politeness plays an important role in communication because it helps speakers maintain social relationships, minimize misunderstanding, and protect the hearer’s face. This study aims to analyze the positive politeness strategies employed by the characters in All the Bright Places based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory and to interpret their use through Halliday and Hasan’s (1989) context of situation. This research employed a qualitative descriptive approach. The data consisted of utterances containing positive politeness strategies produced by the characters in the movie. The data were collected through observation and documentation by watching the movie, identifying relevant utterances, transcribing the dialogues, and classifying them according to Brown and Levinson’s framework. The analysis focused on the strategies used to express concern, establish solidarity, reduce social distance, maintain harmony, and provide emotional support. The findings reveal that the characters employed fourteen of the fifteen positive politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson. The strategies identified were noticing and attending to the hearer, exaggerating interest or sympathy, intensifying interest, using in-group identity markers, seeking agreement, avoiding disagreement, presupposing common ground, joking, offering and promising, being optimistic, including both speaker and hearer in an activity, giving or asking for reasons, assuming or asserting reciprocity, and giving gifts to the hearer. Strategy 4, using in-group identity markers, was the most frequently employed, particularly in interactions between Finch and Violet. Strategy 1, noticing and attending to the hearer, and Strategy 8, joking, were also frequently used to express care and reduce tension. Overall, positive politeness strategies contribute significantly to building intimacy, expressing empathy, reducing social distance, and supporting character relationships throughout the movie.
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