Politeness Strategies Represented In An English Textbook For Senior High School

Abstract

Dialogues in English textbooks should reflect politeness strategies as part of pragmatic knowledge that must be realized by students. This study aimed to explore the types of politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory as represented in the dialogues of Indonesian English textbooks grade X published by Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture. Descriptive content analysis was used to analyze the dialogues in the textbook. The result of the study revealed three politeness strategies were represented in the textbook: bald-on record, positive politeness, and negative politeness. The analysis revealed that positive politeness is the most used strategy in “Bahasa Inggris” published by Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture for grade X Senior High School with total number of positive politeness 54 items, followed by bald-on record 6 items, and negative politeness 1 item. Off-record, as the type of politeness strategy where the speaker wants the hearer to interpret the meaning, was not reflected in Indonesian English textbooks.