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.