A SOCIO-PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED BY BARACK OBAMA AND HILLARY CLINTON IN THE DEMOCRATIC DEBATE HELD ON FEBRUARY 26, 2008

摘要

The use of politeness strategies is commonly found in daily conversations. Formerly, many sociolinguists believe that women are usually more aware in using politeness strategies than men. This assumption relies on the gender stereotype emerging in society. However, nowadays this stereotype has become faded and gender equality begins to be echoed. Thus, the aims of this research are (1) to find out whether or not there are differences between man and woman candidate of political campaign debate in using language, especially in using of politeness strategies and also (2) to describe the application of Illocutionary acts in forming the politeness strategies.udThis research employs descriptive qualitative research. The data of this research are collected from the 26th February 2008 Democratic Debate’s transcript. The main instrument of this research is the researcher herself. The data are categorized based on two theories. The first theory is the classifications of politeness principle’s maxims proposed by Leech (1983) andudthe second theory is the classification of illocutionary acts proposed by Searle (1975) which is cited by Leech (1983). To gain the data trustworthiness, the researcher asked the triangulators to check the collected data.udThe results of this research show that all types of politeness principle’s maxims are found in the debate script, they are: tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, agreement maxim, and sympathy maxim. The approbation maxim is more widely found in Obama’s statements, while the generosity maxim is more widely found in Clinton’s statements. The illocutionary acts’ types which are found in the debate script are assertives, directives, commissives, and expressives. The assertives is more widely used by Obama in his statements and the commissive is more widely used in Clinton’s statements. It shows that Obama uses politeness strategies more often to praise his opponent or other parties, while Clinton uses politeness strategies when she delivers her programs. Moreover, this research also shows that politeness strategies are more often found in Obama’s statements than in Clinton’s statements during the debate. It means that gender stereotype does not influence the use language between man and woman candidate in this research object.