POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN A CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICER AND CUSTOMERS: A STUDY IN BADAN PERTANAHAN NASIONAL (NATIONAL LAND AGENCY) SEMARANG

Abstract

This study deals with the realization of politeness strategies used by a Customer Service Officer (CSO) of Badan Pertanahan Nasional (National Land Agency) Semarang, Central Java. This research aims at presenting the politeness strategies used by the CSO during service process and the sociological variables influencing the use of politeness strategies in conversations. This study is a descriptive qualitative research. The data were taken using non-participant observation. Then I analyzed and classified them based on politeness strategies theory by Brown and Levinson. The result shows that there are four strategies found namely bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness and off record. The most dominant strategy is bald on record. Bald on record is actually an act to prevail over face concern (Face Threatening Acts/FTA).This strategy is mostly affected on the place where the conversation takes place (in Central Java) when the CSO purposely and intentionally switches Indonesia to Javanese language during serving processes most of the time in order to keep being ‘direct’ hence ‘polite’ to the customers. Then, there are two sociological variables which are connected with politeness strategies used by th CSO. They are relative power (P) and social distance (D). Based on the findings, bald on record indicates relative power and close distance. Hence, here the sociological variables do not affect much in the use of politeness strategies by the CSO. The CSO tends to minimize the power because it is influenced by the Javanese culture that people should be consider about respect terms, humble, place-conscious, and tolerant in communicating. This indicates that socio cultural and social value is being high praised by the Javanese people.