Positive Politeness Strategies in EFL Classroom Interaction

Abstract

Learning a foreign language involves not only knowing how to speak and write well, but also how to behave linguistically. Therefore, the teacher-student interaction in class is influenced by their pragmatic knowledge, how to behave and respond in different situations and contexts. This study approaches teacher-student interaction in EFL classroom from pragmatic perspective. It focuses on linguistic politeness; that is, the ways the teacher expresses politeness verbally through teachers’ use of language.Thepresent study concerns on positive politeness strategies supplied by English teachers in the three 90-minutes English meeting in a senior high school. The data were video-recorded from three different English classroom where English was used in the classroom interaction.The data analysis used the theory of politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson. The reseearch result indicatesthat there are eightstrategies that emerged in the teacher-student interaction namely, Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy with hearer; use in-group identity markers; seek agreement; joke; offers, promise;be optimistic; including both speaker and hearer in activity and giving or asking a reason. The age difference, institutional setting, power, and the limitation of the linguistic ability of the students has contributed to the different choices of positive politeness strategies.