POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN SPEECH ACT OF REQUEST IN SAMBAS DIALECT OF MALAY IN NOTARY OFFICE IN SAMBAS

Abstract

The study is meant to find out the mood indicating request in Sambas dialect of Malay, to examine the use of politeness strategies in the conversation in Sambas Dialect of Malay carried out in the notary office in Sambas, and to define factors underlying the use of politeness strategies. The study applies a descriptive qualitative approach. The data consist of 14 conversations between a notary, her clients, and/or her staffs. The conversations were recorded and transcribed. Note taking was used to complement the data. From the 14 conversations, there are 46 requests made by the notary, the staffs, and clients. The results of the analysis show that the requests are conveyed in imperative, interrogative, and declarative, the requests in Sambas dialect of Malay are mostly conveyed by using imperative. The use of imperative in the requests include three kinds, namely imperative sentence, imperative sentence as request, and imperative sentence as order. After that, the requests categorizes into four super strategies, that is Bald on record, Positive politeness, Negative Politeness and Off record. . Among the four super strategies, negative politeness uses dominantly by all the interlocutors. Bald on record is used by the notary to her staffs indicating that the speaker has higher power or status than the hearer. Meanwhile, Positive politeness is used by the notary to her clients, the notary to her staffs, the client to the notary, and the staffs to the notary. The interlocutors used positive politeness because they want to claim common ground and interest, and to show their cooperation in the conversation. Furthermore, negative politeness is used by all the interlocutors involved in the conversation to indicate that the speaker wanted to avoid coercing to the hearer’s response by explicitly giving hearer the option not to do the future act, to avoid presuming or assuming about hearer, to satisfy hearer’s negative face demand. Moreover, Off record is used by the client to the notary, and by the notary to her staff, because the speaker and the hearer have mutual knowledge or interactional experience between them. From the assessment of sociological variables, it can be concluded that the social power can be seen by the difference of social status, or age among the participants. Meanwhile, the social distance can be differed by the use of honorifics or appellation. The rank of imposition shows that the amount of demand influences the choice of strategies, in that positive politeness is used when the imposition is higher, and negative politeness is used if the rank of imposition is lower. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the requesters of Sambas Dialect of Malay in the notary office excessively use negative politeness to convey his/her request, in that indirect request is conveyed.