Politeness in Directive Speech Acts Used by Students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta

Abstract

This research aims to describe the politeness strategies used by students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta. It focuses on written utterance of asking and requesting expressed by students. It uses descriptive qualitative method. The data are collected by using documentation which are done through WhatsApp platform. The subject of this research is students of English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta who have sent a message containing expression of asking and requesting. The data are in the form of screenshots containing conversation sent by the students to the lecturer. In analyzing the data, theory of Brown and Levinson (1987) is used. The result shows that students of Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta uses three politeness strategies, namely: negative politeness (82.60%), bald on record (4.35%), and off record (13.05%). To conclude, 82.60% students have asked and requested appropriately.