POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGIESIN EFL CLASSROOM

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.This study explores positive politeness strategies used by teacher in three 90-minute English lessons in a senior high school. The data were videorecorded from three different classroom settings where English is the object and the medium of teaching learning process. The analysis is based on Brown and Levinson‘s politeness strategies. The result shows that there are six strategies that emerged in the teacher-student interaction namely, strategy 2, Exaggerate interest, approval, sympathy with hearer; strategy 4, use ingroup identity markers; strategy 5, seek agreement; strategy 10, offers, promise; strategy 12, including both speaker and hearer in activity and strategy 13, 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.