THE FORMS OF POLITENESS APPLIED BY ENGLISH STUDENTS IN COMMUNICATION TO THEIR THESIS ADVISOR LECTURERS VIA WHATSAPP

This research aims to determine the forms, scales, and factors of students'
politeness in communication to their thesis advisor lecturers via WhatsApp. The
research design was descriptive qualitative research. The subject of this research
was 54 2017 English students' text messages to their thesis advisor lecturers who
were selected from classes A, B, and C by using the purposive sampling
technique. The data were analyzed based on Kushartanti’s forms of politeness
theories, Leech’s scales of politeness theory, and factor affecting politeness
theories by Brown & Levinson's. From the findings of this study, there are four
forms of politeness used by students, namely pronominal sentences, indirect
sentences, opening sentences, and word appreciation sentences. The most widely
used forms of politeness are opening sentences and appreciation words. Five
politeness scales were also found, namely the cost-benefit scale, the optionally
scale, the indirectness scale, the authority scale, and the social distance scale. The
social distance scale is the most widely used. All politeness data are influenced by
social distance and relative power, and there is no size of imposition politeness
factor found. There are also two forms of impoliteness in this study, directness
and without using the word appreciation and some students are classified as
impolite based on the optionality scale. Students use all existing forms of
politeness because they use Indonesian politeness forms and Indonesian culture,
which considers these forms a sign that sentences in a conversation are considered
polite. The form of politeness used by students is influenced by the social distance
politeness scale and vice versa. Based on the result, it can be concluded that most
of the students have used politeness form when communicating with their
lecturers through WhatsApp text messages.
Keywords: Politeness, Forms, Scales, Factors of politeness, WhatsApp