AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS POLITENESS STRATEGIES TO THEIR LECTURERS IN WHATSAPP MESSENGER

This research aimed to describe the politeness strategies applied by the
fifth semester of English Department Students of Bengkulu University based on
Brown and Levinson politeness strategies theory. This research was carried out by
employing descriptive-qualitative design. The population of this research was the
fifth semester of English Department Students of Bengkulu University in
academic year 2017/2018. The samples of this research were taken by using
situation card, i.e 79 samples. The data were collected by WhatsApp messages
sent by students. The results of this study showed that the dominant strategy used
by the English students in texting their lecturer was Negative Politeness. There
were 59 students (76%) used Negative Politeness. The second position is Bald on
Record that was used by 15 students (19%). Third, Positive Politeness was used
by 3 students (4%). Last category was Off-record that used by 1 students (1%). Negative Politeness strategy gets the dominant used in the data findings. Most of
the students still have awareness about politeness when they want to speak or start
the conversation with other people. They tend to use this category in line with
Indonesian culture that emphasized with formal language use when converse with
older people like lecturer or teacher.
Keywords : Politeness, Politeness strategy, WhatsApp Messsenger