Politeness Strategy In Maxims

Used by Staff and Students Of language and Arts Faculty

HKBP Nommensen University in Their Academic Services

Tiara K Pasaribu, Sondang Manik

tiara_pasaribu@yahoo.com

Abstract

The staffs of FBS – UHN Medan used four of six types of politeness principles in directive and
expressive speech act to communicate with the students at their services. They were tact maxim,
generosity maxim, approbation maxim and agreement maxim. The dominant type of politeness
principles used by the staffs of FBS – UHN was tact maxim. Staff needs the ability to communicate
politely The staffs were easier and felt more as older and appropriate in using this type in directive
speech acts as mostly focused on by the researcher. The students didn’t comply with all the staffs’
utterances although they were already in polite way. Staffs gave their polite response to some
students’ utterances or commands but in other way they ignored the some else staffs’ utterances to
them, this was because of the influence of positive emotions and also strongly affected by their poor
pragmatic competence.

Keywords : The Tact maxim, The Generosity maxim, The Approbation maxim, The
The Agreement maxim,

1. Background of the Study

Staffs at the office of Language and Arts Faculty is working in discipline They do the
administrative service as a higher education as the work place, staffs deal with lecturers, and students
to give information to type letters etc. He/she has to be able to communicate well, and friendly. In this
case, one of the ability needed is the use of politeness in their conversation. The staffs’ performance
will upgrade the quality of the faculty.
Staff needs the ability to communicate politely. For the administrative staffs politeness is
described as the behavior or attitude which is formal and good. Politeness in staffs conversation
means that to communicate respectfully towards the guest, lecturer or students. Therefore, politeness
is very important, particularly in interactions in campus life.
Being polite is a complicated business in any language. Politeness has an important role in
conversation, particularly incommunication between the receptionist and the guests. It is interesting to
study the positive ways to communicate that leads to the best conversation.The reason of choosing
this topic is to find the way of the administrative staffs interact in daily conversations . do they use
politeness principles in maintaining the good communication in order to get the accurate messages
from both sides.

The Objective of The Study

To find out maxims of politeness principles are found in the conversation
between the Staff of UHN and Students of Language and arts faculty
 and to find out Maxim of the politeness principles is mostly used in the conversation between
the Staff of UHN and Students of Language and arts faculty ?
The Scope of Study :
The scope of the research is limited to the habitual of daily conversation between the
administrative staff of Language and Arts faculty for their service to the students. There are
only three of the administrative staffs that are taken as the subject of the research.
By doing this research, the fact is recording. Hopefully the analysis would have some
significances and learn weather they (Students and Staff ) used the appropriate maxim in their
contextual relationship, in their service as the staff of Education and hopefully this research would be
useful for the improvement of faculty’s administrative services .
In this chapter, the writer presents the theories that are explained by some
linguists to support the research. This research is about politeness maxim, so the
writer chose the theories relating to Pragmatics as politeness is under pragmatics
subject. Then, kinds of politeness maxim are explored.

1.1 Pragmatics
According to Leech (1983:5-6) in the Mey (2001) the problem of distinguishing language and
language use has centered on boundary dispute between semantics and pragmatics. Those are
concerned with meaning. Mey (2001: 6) says that pragmatics study the use of language in human
communication
as determined by the condition of society. Foss and Hakes (1978:54) have summarized the semantic
or meaning system as a set of problems to be solved. A
successful theory of semantics will state how the meanings of words are characterized and how these
meanings are combined when they appear together in
sentences. Also, when one knows the meaning of a sentence, one knows something about what the
sentence entails and about its true conditions. Clearly, the internal code, meaning, is the last
understood aspect of linguistic structure.
Pragmatics is a systematic way of explaining language use in context. It seeks to explain
aspects of meaning which cannot be found in the plain sense of words or structures, as explained by
semantics. As a field of language study pragmatics is fairly new. Its origins lie in philosophy of
language and the American philosophical school of pragmatism. As a discipline within language
science, its roots lie in the work of (Herbert) Paul Grice on conversational implicative and the
cooperative principle, and on the work of Stephen Levinson, Penelope Brown and Geoff Leech on
politeness1. Searle (1969:17) quoted in a website; Speech Acts explains that pragmatics is an
approach which views the theory of meaning (and in fact the whole language) as a sub part of a theory
of action (illocutionary) 2. In one of the articles which is taken from a website, according to Austin’
preliminary informal description, the idea of an “illocutionary act can be captured by emphasizing that
“by saying something, we do something” 3. Speech act theory broadly explains these utterances as
having three parts or aspects: locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.

1. Locutionary acts are simply the speech acts that have taken place.
2. Illocutionary acts are the real actions which are performed by the utterance,
where saying equals doing, as in betting, plighting one's troth, welcoming
and warning
3. Perlocutionary acts are the effects of the utterance on the listener, who accepts the bet or
pledge of marriage, is welcomed or warned
 Searle (1975) in the article which has been taken from one of the websites has set up the
following classification of illocutionary speech acts:
1. Assertive; speech acts that commit a speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition.
2. Directives; speech acts that are to cause the hearer to take a particular
action, e.g. request, command and advice.
3. Commisives; speech acts that commit a speaker to some future action, e.g.
promises and oaths.
4. Expressives; speech acts that express on the speaker’s attitudes and
emotions towards the proposition, e.g. congratulation, excuses, and
thanks.
5. Declaratives; speech acts that change the reality in accordance with the
proposition of the declaration, e.g. baptisms, pronouncing someone guilty
or pronouncing someone’s husband and wife.
Thus meaning pragmatically is defined in terms of what the speech acts of speakers perform
relatively to hearers. It means that the speaker in fact has the social or legal (or other kind of) standing
to accomplish the act depends on some things beyond the mere speaking of the words. Generally
pragmatics is how the context influences the way one interprets a sentence. The function of
pragmatics is how the language user applies their knowledge to interpret their utterances. It shows
how important the pragmatics in conversation.

Politeness in English Conversation

A polite person makes others feel comfortable. Being linguistically polite involves speaking
to people appropriately in the light of their (a polite person) relationship to hearer. Holmes (2001:268)
has stated that making decisions about what is or is not considered polite in any community involves
assessing social relationships along the dimensions of social distance or solidarity, and relative power
or status. People need to understand the social values of society in order to speak politely.
An important element in the assessment of a polite act is judging whether an utterances is
appropriate or not, either in relation to the perceived norms of the situation, the practices of
community or the perceived norms of the society as a whole. The nation of appropriateness is a very
difficult one to engage with, as Walsh has noted. It is generally drawn on as way of avoiding analysis
of the structural inequalities in conversation which lead to certain notions of appropriateness being
formulated which favor the dominant group’s norms. However, it remains a useful term to use with
caution when discussing the way that individuals come to an assessment of their own and other’s
utterances in relation to a set of perceived group norms. It should be noted also that individuals
may have misguided notion of what is appropriate within a particular group.
Holmes (2001: 268) has also given the two dimensions as the basis for a distinction between
two different types of politeness. Positive politeness is solidarity oriented. It emphasizes shared
attitudes and values. When the boss suggests that a subordinate should use the first name (FN) to him/
her, this is a
positive politeness move, expressing solidarity and minimizing status differences. A shift to a more
informal style using slang and swear words will function similarly as an expression of positive
politeness. By contrast, negative politeness
pays people respect and avoids intruding on them. Indirect directives such as ‘Could you stay a bit
later tonight, or do you think, and finish this job?’, ‘that job’s taking longer than we predicted’, ‘I
don’t know what we’ll do if it isn’t ready for tomorrow’, express negative politeness. Negative
politeness involves expressing oneself appropriately in terms of social distance and respecting status
differences.
Using title + last name (TLN) to your (the speaker’s) superiors, and to older people that you (the
speaker) do not know well, are further examples of the expression of negative politeness.
In the article of Brown and Levinson (1987) formulate a detailed, cross-linguistics taxonomy
of politeness strategies. The politeness is inclined by two kinds of “face” and two related kinds of
politeness, they are:
1. Negative politeness
It is used by a speaker to satisfy a hearer’s negative face. It functions to avoid or minimize the
imposition of a face-threatening act on a hearer. Negative politeness is characterized by speaker self-
effacement, formality and restraint and conventionalized indirectness. Example: ‘I’m sorry I’m late; I
miss the bus this morning.’ (Apologize).

2. Positive politeness
It is used by a speaker to satisfy a hearer’s positive face. The speaker indicates solidarity with
the hearer’s positive self-image. Its function is more subtly than negative politeness, to satisfy the
hearer’ need for approval and belonging. Example: ‘I’ll bring the book tomorrow’ (promise).
Brown and Levinson (1987) in Cutting (2002: 45-48) also propose both types of politeness
interaction in complicated ways, according to the nature of the act and the status of the speaker and
the hearer. Here are some Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies that manifest in several
languages they examine:
Politeness Strategies
1. Notice, attend to hearer’s interest, wants, etc
2. Use in- group markers
3. Be optimistic
4. Seek agreement
5. Indicate common ground
6. Offer, promise
7. Give and ask reason
8. Common statements
9. Include the speaker and the hearer in a conversation
Negative Politeness Strategies
1. Be conventionally indirect
2. Question, hedge
3. Be pessimistic
4. Minimize the imposition
5. Give deference
6. Apologize
7. Hesitation
8. Avoid pronoun, I, you and we
9. Give impression as a cost
Those strategies are operated in a conversation of non-native speaker in their daily activities.
In this research, the researcher shows how the non-native speakers apply the strategies of Negative
Politeness and Positive Politeness.

The Necessity of Politeness Principles in the Conversation.

People talk with the intention to communicate something to somebody; this is the foundation
of all linguistic behaviors. This is called as the Communicative Principle: when communicating,
speakers try to be understood correctly, and avoid giving false impression. It is given that I ‘want’ to
communicate, what I ‘do’ communicate depending on what I ‘can’ communicate, (given my
circumstances), and on what I must communicate (given my partner’s expectation). Communication is
not a matter of logic and truth, but of cooperation. The Communicative Principle is unlike a
grammatical rule, operates in concrete context, rather than in the abstract space of linguistic
speculation.
Communication, furthermore, requires people to cooperate; the bare facts of communication
come alive only in a mutually accepted, pragmatically determined context. In social science generally
and linguistics specifically, the Cooperative Principle describes how people interact with one another.
Mey (2001: 72) has written that Grice’s theory in Grice (1975,1989) states that cooperation has itself
been elevated to the status of an independent principle, whose Cooperative Principle (CP) consists of
four pragmatics sub principles, or‘maxims’, namely :
The maxim of quantity: Information
1. Make your contribution as informative as required for the current
purposes of the exchange.
2. Do not make your contribution more informative than required.
The maxim of quality: Truth
3. Do not say what you believe to be false;
4. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
The maxim of relation: Relevance
Make your contribution relevant.
The maxim of manner: Clarity
1. Avoid obscurity of expression. (“Eschew obfuscation”).
2. Avoid ambiguity.
3. Be brief (“avoid unnecessary prolixity”).
4. Be orderly.

Cutting (2002: 34-36) writes the observation of the four maxims that has
listed been above.
1. The maxim of quantity, which says that speakers should be as informative as is required, that they
should give neither toolittle information nor too much. Some speakers like to point to the fact that
they know how much information the hearer
requires or can be bothered with, and say something like, ‘well, to cut a long story short, she didn’t
get home till two’. People who give too little information risk their hearer not being able to identify
what they are talking about because they are not explicit enough; those who give more information
than the hearer needs risk boring them.

2. The maxim of quality, says that speakers are expected to be sincere, to be saying something that
they believe corresponds to reality. They are assumed not to say anything that they believe to be false
or anything for which they lack evidence. Some speakers like to draw their hearers’ attention to the
fact that they are only saying what they believe to be true, and that they lack adequate evidence.
3. The maxim of relation, which says that speakers are assumed to be saying something that is
relevant to what has been said before. Thus, if we hear ‘The baby cried. The mommy picked it up’, we
assumed that the mommy was the mother of the crying baby and that she picked the baby up because
it was crying.
4. The maxim of manner, which says that the utterance should be brief and orderly, and avoid
obscurity and ambiguity. In this exchange from a committee, the speaker points to the fact that he is
observing the maxim: ‘Thank you Chairman. Jus-just clarify one point. There is a meeting of the
police committee on there is an item on their budget for the provision of their camera.’ Grice (1975)
says that hearers assume that speakers observe the cooperative principle, and that it is the knowledge
of the four maxims that allows hearers to draw inferences about the speakers’ intention and implied
meaning. The meaning conveyed by speakers and recovered as a result of the hearer’ inferences, is
known as ‘conversational implicature'. Based on Grice’s theory, those four conversational maxims
arise from pragmatics of natural language. Those maxims may be better understood as describing the
assumptions listeners normally make about the way speakers will talk, rather than prescriptions for
how one ought to talk. Grice does not, however, assume that all people should constantly follow these
maxims. Instead, he found it interesting when these were “flouted” or “violated” (either purposefully
or unintentionally breaking the maxim) by speaker, which would imply some other, hidden meaning.
The importance was in what was not said. For example: “it’s raining” is in violation of quality of
spoken language; however, in context (e.g. when someone has suggested a game of tennis) the
reasoning behind this ‘fragment’ sentence become clear. Unfortunately Leech insists that there are
some objections to Grice’s maxims, there are

1. The conversional constraints such as those of the CP do not work because the majority of
declarative sentences do not have an information bearing function.
2. The CP maxims are not universal to language, since there are linguistic communities to which not
all of them apply.
Therefore, it shows that the CP is in a weak position, as a matter of fact the Politeness
Principle (PP) can be seen not just as another principle to be added to the CP, but as a necessary
complement, which rescues the CP from serious trouble. Leech’s Politeness Principle is supposed to
collaborate with, and even rescue, the Cooperative Principle and its associated maxims. Grice does
not only introduce this kind of principle, but also the politeness principle. He explains that we also
need it in our conversations.
According to Leech (1983) that has been summarized by Cutting (2002: 49-50), there is a
politeness principle with conversational maxims similar to those formulated by Grice. He lists six
maxims: tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement, and sympathy. The first and second ones
form a pair, as do the third and the fourth. These maxims vary from culture to culture, meaning, what
may be considered as polite in one culture, may be strange or downright rude in another.
1. The Tact maxim
The Tact maxim states: ‘minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other; maximize
the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other.’ The first part of this maxim fits in with
Brown and Levinson’s negative politeness strategy of attending to the hearer’s interest, wants, and
needs:
- Could I interrupt you for a second?
- If I could just clarify this then.

2. The Generosity maxim

Leech’s Generosity maxim states: ‘minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the
expression of cost to self.’ Unlike the tact maxim, the maxim of generosity focuses on the speaker,
and says that others should be put first instead of the self. For example,
- You relax and let me do the dishes.
- You must come and have dinner with us.

3. The Approbation maxim

The Approbation maxim states: ‘minimize the expression of beliefs which express dispraise of
other; maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval of other.’ The operation of this
maxim is fairly obvious: all thing being equal, we prefer to praise others and if we cannot do so, to
sidestep the issue, to give some sort of minimal response (possibly through the use of euphemisms
 or to remain silent). The first part of the maxim avoids disagreement; the second part intends to
make other people feel good by showing solidarity. For example,
- I heard you singing at the karaoke last night. It was,
um…different.
- John, I know you’re a genius – would you know how to solve
this math problem here?

4. The Modesty maxim

The Modesty maxim states: ‘maximize the expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of
dispraise of self.’ Modesty is possibly a more complex maxim than the others, since the maxim of
quality can sometimes be violated in observing it. For example,
1) Oh, I’m so stupid
2) I didn’t make a note of our lecture! Did you?

5. The Agreement maxim

The Agreement maxim runs as follows: ‘minimize the expression of disagreement between self
and other; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other.’ It is in line with Brown
and Levinson’s positive politeness strategies of ‘seek agreement’ and ‘avoid disagreement’, to
which they attach great importance. However, it is not being claimed that people totally avoid
disagreement. It is simply observed that they are much more direct in expressing agreement, rather
than disagreement. For example,
A: I don’t want my daughter to do this; I want her to do that.
B: Yes, but ma’am, I thought we resolved this already on your last
visit.
6. The Sympathy maxim
The Sympathy maxim states: ‘minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize sympathy
between self and other.’ This includes a small group of speech acts such as congratulation,
commiseration, and expressing condolences 1) all of which is in accordance with Brown and
Levinson’s positive politeness strategy of attending to the hearer’s interests, wants, and needs:
2) I was sorry to hear about your father.

2. Methodology Of Research
This research is a qualitative research because in this research, the data of this research are not
in the form of numbers. It is also an interpretative research. So the writer used qualitative method. The
researcher considered four parameters that has been suggested by Miles and Huberman (1984) in
Craswell’s (1994: 149), these are the setting (where the researcher will take place), the actors (who
will be observed doing or interviewed), the events (what the actors will be observed doing or
interviewed about) and the process (the evolving nature of events undertaken by the actors within the
setting). The setting is at the office area of Language and Arts Faculty office. The actors are the three
administrative staffs. The event is the finding of the maxim of politeness principles in the daily
conversation. The process is observing the maxim of politeness principles found in the conversation in
order to know what conversation mostly used that show the maxim of politeness principles in the
academic services.

Participants
The data are obtained from some conversations of the staffs of Language and Arts Faculty of HKBP
Nommensen University Medan, with some students. The researcher observed them in the context of
Indonesian.
 The writer ask the students to used hand phone recorder as the instrument to get data on
whether the maxim of politeness principles were found in the conversations which was recorded and
the data is transcribed into words.

The Procedures of Data Analysis

The writer transcribes the data of the recording conversation and analyze them to get an
answer on how they apply the maxim of politeness principles. After getting the data, the writer
checked which Maxims were commonly used and which Maxims were left behind. After that, the
researcher checked which maxims of politeness were more often used when the respondents make
utterances in the conversation. The writer also counts the applications of the Maxims of the politeness
principles. Thus the final result showed the total using of the maxim of politeness principles.

The Procedure of Analyzing Data

In qualitative research, collecting the data can be done in various setting, various resources
and various techniques. Based on the setting, this research use natural setting as the location is at the
FBS office.. The research conducted until the researcher gets enough data which started from the
end of June 2015. The following chronological steps are undertaken to obtain the data of this study:

Recording the staffs’ utterances in the office and also the students’ responses to the utterances or
the request.2. Transcribing the recording. 3. Identifying the staff’s directives and expressive speech
acts and also politeness strategies that are used. 4. Analyzing the effect of politeness strategies used
by the staff

Data Analysis

Data analysis is the process of systematically searching and arranging the observation
transcripts, audio visual transcripts, and other materials that the researcher accumulate to increase her
own understanding of them and to enable her to present what she has discovered to others ( Bogdan
and Bilden, 1992). The analysis involves three concurrent flows of activity, namely, data reduction,
data display, and conclusion.

The researcher first identified data. summarizing the data which is in the form of words,
subsuming which means grouping the data into the similar category. Afterwards the researcher
displayed the data as an organized assembly of information that permits conclusion and action taking (
Bogdan and Biklen, 1992). The last activity is conclusion which was done through deciding what the
data means of finding pattern or regularities after reading the matrices or display.

The background of the 3 of interviewee or Staffs,

There are 3 Staffs that become the subject of research, they are working on the same office
room and they have the different job description. They serve all the administrative affair and also
serve the students .

According to Leech (1993), there are six maxims used in politeness principle in analyzing
politeness. Politeness involves minimizing the cost and maximizing the benefit to speaker.
Theoretically, the politeness consists of six maxims namely’ tact maxim, generosity maxim,
approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy maxim. Tact maxim is a
strategy when the speakers try to minimize cost to others and maximize the benefit to others. The
generosity maxim is used when the speakers try to maximize profits by adding cost for him.
Approbation maxim is to dispraise of others and try to maximize praise of others. Modesty maxim is
to minimize the expressions of praise of self and maximize the expression of dispraise of self.
Agreement maxim is used by the speakers to build their agreements so that they will be polite each
other. And the last is sympathy maxim This is used to minimize antipathy between self and others and
try to maximize sympathy between self and others. The staffs used politeness principles in their
speech. From the observation conducted it was found that the staffs used four types of politeness
strategies in their communication.

The following are the frequency of the four types of politeness principles used by the teachers
according to the theory of politeness principles

Table 1. The Occurrence of Different Types of Politeness Principles of the FBS staffs

To be more details, there was data presented on the following page about which politeness

Types of Politeness NS MT SiM

Principles

Tact maxim 8 12 20

Generosity Maxim 3 - 3

Approbation Maxim 2 2 4

Modesty Maxim - - -

Agreement Maxim 1 2 2

Sympathy Maxim - - -

principles used by each subject and how many times they used each politeness principles which was
delivered according to the sequence of number of all data.

There were data presented on the table about how much compliance that the students gave to
the teachers’ utterances in politeness and which politeness strategies didn’t get the compliances from
the students.

Based on the data, the staffs used tact maxim in their communication to the students because they
want to reduce or minimize their benefit and maximize the benefit to students. Because of the
researcher focused on the directive speech, the staffs used tact maxim when they are commanding,
questioning, begging, and instructing, requesting, warning to the students. It can be seen in the data
below.

The examples of tact maxim used by the students and Staffs as follows:

Politeness on FBS staff:

1. There are good and patient if anyone asks
2. There are getting annoyed if the students come together ask questions
3. There are always like to make a joking if anyone asks

1. Interviews to FBS Administrative Staff:

1. Mr. MT
A student : Excuse me Sir, I would like to ask you about something?
Mr.MT : Hey Yanti, what do you want to ask about?
A student : Is there have scholarship from Bank BCA or from another bank, Sir?
Mr.MT : Nothing on this year but later i will find out who knows there is a scholarship again, why?
A student: Nothing Sir, I just wanted to know because I wanna get a scholarship hahaha
Mr.MT : Oh ha ha ha ha
A student : Yes Sir that's it. Thank you so much
Mr.MT : Okay Yanti, no worries.

2. Ms. NS
A student: Excuse me Miss, I would like to ask you about something?
Ms. NS : what would you like to ask about?
A student : Is there any TOEFL try out?
Ms. NS : Oh it was a month ago from Primus Interpares, but no TOEFL try out on this month. If it
have, later we will tell you
A student : Oh I see.
Ms. NS : Why? Who wants to join TOEFL?
A student : My sibling Miss, she wants to join TOEFL and wanted to know her TOEFL score
achievement .
Ms. NS : Tell her to find out from another university such as USU, that university also have TOEFL
try out event.
A student: Okay Miss ,thanks for your information
Ms. NS: Your welcome

3. Ms. SiM
A student : excuse me, Ms. Sinta, do you see Ms Hotnida?
Ms. SiM : I saw her in here but maybe she was go home, why?
A student: Nothing Ms, because Miss. Hotnida told us if she isn't here, submit our assignment to Ms.
Sinta
Ms. SiM: What kind of assignment?
A student: Assignment from her, Ms
Ms. SiM : Oh, where is it?
A student : Here, please give this to her tommorow okay Ms
Ms. SiM : Okay
A student : Thanks Ms
Ms. SiM : Hmm okay okay

From the conversation it is learned that,

Mr. MT : Notice, exaggerate, intensify interest, seek agreement, jokes and be optimistic.
Ms. NS : Notice and give reasons
Negative Politeness : Question ,hedge, minimize imposition, impersonalize, nominative
Ms. SiM : Notice, intensify interest, seek agreement, offer, promise, be optimistic.

There are good and patient if anyone asks, there are quick to feel annoyed if anyone asks
and there are like to make a joking if anyone asks.

4. With Mr.MT
Student 1 : sir ,I 'd like to ask you something
Mr.MT : what's that?
Student 1 : about PPL Sir
Mr.MT : what semester you are now?
Student 1 : semester 4. But i want to know about PPL
Mr.MT: A PPL for semester 6 and it doesn’t held in here but in office, hotel during one month
Student 1 : ok, that's right
Mr.MT : do you understand?
Student 1 : yes Mr. Thank you
Mr.MT : ok

5. With Ms.NS
Student 1 : Ms, I'd like to ask you about my writing and communicative skill score because my score
is not avaiable on website.

Ms.NS: how could it be?

Have you seen on FBS blackboard?
Student 1 : I've checked it, but I couldn't see my score
Ms.NS : are you sure?
Student 1 : yes, Im sure
Ms.NS : let me check your score. Wait a minute
This is your score, you can see it.
Student 1 : yes Mrs,thankyou.

6. With Ms.SiM
Student 1 : Ms SiM,can you see Ms Nova?
Ms.SiM : Ms Nova still free
Student 1 : why Ms Nova leave?
Ms.SiM: Ms Nova wanna giving a birth
Student 1 : how long Ms Nova took a leave ?
Ms.SiM : three months
Student 1 : allright Thank you Ms SiM
Ms.SiM : yah

Ms.MT : jokes, be optimistic, give reasons, seek agreement, apologize, notice, exaggerate,
intensify interest
Ms.NS : give reasons, question, hedge, notice, minimize imposition impersonalize, nominative
Ms.SiM : seek agreement, be optimistic, give reasons, notice, intensify interest, offer, promise.

In this conversation it is found that the staffs used tact maxim to the students. The staffs minimize
her cost and maximize the students benefit by uttering In the conversation, it is found. that MT used
tact maxim in order to maximize benefit for others and minimize her own benefits. The utterance
produced by the staffs showed tact maxim as the teacher expressed indirectly that usually more
polite than the speech acts expressed directly.

Based on the phenomena, the researcher found that the subjects also used generosity maxim.
The intent of this maxim is to make the advantages of the speaker as small as possible. In this maxim,
the participants are expect substitutions being respectful of others. Respect for others happened if
people can reduce profits for himself and maximize profits for others.

In one the conversation, the staff tried to advice the students about Toefl Try out . In getting
the staffs’ response, the staffs used generosity maxim by giving them more information . The staff
tried to reduce profits for her and maximize profits for the students.

In this conversation, the staff commanded the students to prepare for the PPL . So, the staffs
with minimizing profits for her .The other conversation showed the staffs used generosity maxim by
saying let me check your score. Wait a minute. The staff was willing to help the students In this
conversation, the teacher tried to reduce her profit and to maximize profits by saying In this situation,
the staff reduced her profits to students by willing to tell him the answer of her score so as to help
the students

After analyzing the data, the researcher also found that the subjects also used approbation
maxim as their politeness principle. This approbation maxim is to maximize respect for others and
minimize the disrespect to others that expressed by expressive speech such as congratulated, thanked,
praised, and express condolence ( Isdianto,2008:l 1).

After analyzing this utterance, it was showed that the staff used approbation maxim to praise
the students’ right answer by saying In this conversation, the teacher tried to maximize respect to the
students in order to get respect which then caused compliance for the next command from them.

There are six maxims as the types of politeness strategies. They are tact maxim, generosity maxim,
approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim and sympathy maxim. In this study, the
researcher analyzed the data aid found one kind of those politeness strategies was dominantly used in
the staffs’ utterances in directive and expressive speech acts. The researcher tried to show the
dominant

The percentage of Politeness Principles in MT’s utterances

The matrixes above showed that tact maxim was dominantly used in teachers’ utterances in directive
speech when communicating to their students. This was because the teachers were easier and felt
more appropriate of using this type in directive speech as the researcher mostly focused.

Students’ Compliance in Staffs’ Utterances by Using Politeness Principles

Compliance refers to a particular of response to a particular communication (Cialdini, 2003:592).

After receiving a request or command, targets use their feelings as cues for effective responding.
According to Zhang. (2009:350), the more polite someone’s request, it will elicit positive emotions
(e.g. happiness) then cause compliance and the more impolite someone’s request, it will elicit
negative

Discussions

After analyzing the data, there were some points that were considered as the important things
to be discussed.

The types of politeness principles were uttered by the staffs of FBS – UHN . Those types namely tact
maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, and agreement maxim. These types of politeness
principles were uttered by the teachers to the students in their communication in directive speech acts
and expressive speech acts. There are two other types of politeness principles that were not found in
this study. They were modesty maxim and sympathy maxim. Based on the data, the teachers did not
utter those two types of politeness principles. It is similar to Yadi (2012) in his paper that he also
found four types of politeness strategies in his study, namely tact maxim, generosity maxim,
approbation maxim and agreement maxim. These types of politeness have their own functions when
they were uttered. In Yadi (2012), tact maxim was usually used in giving command in daily
conversation at home. Agreement maxim was used to propose a deal or agreement. Generosity and
approbation maxim were used in giving suggestion in daily conversation.

In line with the previous study) in. this research the researcher found that tact maxim was
used when the teachers commanded, instructed, requested and questioned the students especially in
directive speech acts. Agreement maxim was used to propose and suggest something to the students
through making an agreement. The approbation and generosity maxim were used in praising and
giving suggestions to the students.

It is similar to Zhang (2009) in her paper, suggest to use high politeness then caused
compliance. She stated that giving request or utterance to the students with high politeness will evoke
positive emotions then caused compliance and vice versa, giving request or utterance to the students
with low politeness will evoke negative emotions and then caused resistance. Her study also indicates
that positive emotions mediate the effects of teacher request politeness on student compliance
intention. In other words, staffs’ request politeness first elicits positive emotions from students, which
ten affect their compliance intention. While, strong and impolite languages are found to evoke
negative emotions (e.g., anger), which then cause resistance.

4 Conclusions
After analyzing the data, the conclusions were stated as follows:
1. The staffs of FBS – UHN Medan used four of six types of politeness principles in directive
and expressive speech act to communicate with the students at their services. They were tact
maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim and agreement maxim.
2. The dominant type of politeness principles used by the staffs of FBS – UHN was tact
maxim. The staffs were easier and felt more appropriate in using this type in directive speech
acts as mostly focused on by the researcher.
3. The students didn’t comply with all the staffs’ utterances although they were already in polite
way. They gave their compliances to some staffs’ utterances or commands but in other way
 they ignored the some else staffs’ utterances to them. This was because of the influence of
positive emotions and also strongly affected by their limited of pragmatic competence.

Suggestions
Based on the conclusions above, this research has some suggestions to the staffs who have
important role in giving services to the students as follows:
1. It is suggested to staffs to use politeness strategy in order to make them acquired and
understood in communicating with people
2. In order to make the students are able to acquire and understand by using politeness, it is
suggested to the staffs to use the maxim in communication with students.
3. In relation with the findings of this research, it is suggested to other researchers to use
typology of politeness principles by Geoffrey Leech in classifying politeness since it can be
found in any other context.

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