Politeness strategies in children communication at Indonesian religious kindergarten

Abstract

Politeness is a sociolinguistic phenomenon related to speaking manner that exist around the world. This paper aims to analyze the politeness strategies in children communication which focuses on linguistic responses by children both male and female students in range age of 4 to 6 years old. It employs a descriptive qualitative study which is based on theory of politeness strategies by Brown and Levinson (1987). It was applied in analyzing the politeness strategies which children used in speaking at the classroom communication while they were doing assignment. The subject of the research is students of Indonesian Religious Kindergarten of TK AisyiyahMannuruki, Makassar. Voice recording and observation were chosen as the instruments for collecting the data which were then analyzed using sociolinguistic discourse analysis approach. The result of the study demonstrates that 1) Types of politeness strategies in children communication at Indonesian Religius Kindergarten are positive and negative politeness, particularly the use of address forms in-group identity markers, joke, seeking agreement, the first plural inclusive pronoun –ki and second person pronoun –ko, answering question by saying iyo, and confirming statement. 2) Factors influencing the use of those politeness strategies are the listeners’ status, age and behavior as well as the topics of conversation. This paper is expected to be useful information for teachers in recognizing children’s characteristics in learning process, particularly children linguistic politeness strategies.