Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Concept of Politeness In Face Threatening Acts

Sometimes in our daily lives, we can find acts that do not satisfy the “face wants” of the speaker and the hearer. The acts that threaten either positive or negative face of the hearer are called ‘Face Threatening Acts’ (Brown and Levinson). In other words, those acts infringe on the hearer’s need to maintain his/her self-esteem and are respected. Those acts that primarily threaten the addressee’s or Hearer (H’s) negative face want, by indicating (potentially) that the speaker (S) does not intend to avoid impeding H’s freedom of action, include orders, requests, suggestions, advice, reminding, threat, warning, offer, promise, compliment, and expression of negative emotion.
In contrast, there are acts that threaten H’s positive face such as expression of dissatisfaction, disagreement, criticisms, complaints, accusation, insults, out of control, irrelevance, bringing bad news about H or boasting about S, raising divisive topics, and blatant non-cooperation in an activity. All these acts indicate that the speaker does not care about the addressee’s feeling or want. For example, disagreeing with someone’s opinion also causes threat to his positive face, as it means that you indicate that he is wrong about something.

Presupposition in Pragmatics and Semantics

Grundy (2000: 121) divides presupposition into pragmatic presupposition and semantic presupposition. Pragmatic presupposition is cancelable where inconsistent with speaker or hearer knowledge about the world. Semantic presupposition is non-defeasible, contributes to the truth conditional meaning of the sentences. Brown and Yule (1983: 30) state that all of these presupposition are the speaker’s and all of them can be wrong or can be interpreted in other interpretation, since this sentences not speakers have entailment. Entailment means a term taken from logic, thus what is conveyed in an utterance will typically consist of what is said or entailed on the one hand and what is implied (Grundy, 2000: 81). Then, he asserts that entailments are conventional or semantic meanings that cannot by definition be cancelled without creating contradiction.

Renkema (1993: 154) says that presupposition is used to denote a special type of implicit information. In addition, presupposition is about the existing knowledge common to the speaker or the hearer that the speaker does not therefore need to assert. So, when the speaker or hearer, because of certain knowledge between them, understands certain information, the speaker does not need to assert that information explicitly (Grundy, 2000: 119).

Presupposition in Pragmatics

When someone speaks to us, we typically make all sorts of assumptions about the background to their utterance which we presume to be mutually known before the utterances ever occurred (Grundy, 2000: 120). One further significant category of pragmatics phenomena is presupposition. Presuppositions are variously defined but in general constitute assumptions or inferences that are implicit in particular linguistic expressions. For example, in the following utterance:

The doctor managed to save the baby’s life.

It is assumed that the doctor tried to save the baby’s life. Moreover, this assumption is implicit in the meaning of the verb ‘managed’. Yet this assumption is in no way part of the semantic meaning of this verb (Cummings, 2001: 29-30).The defeasibility of presuppositions cannot be explained by any semantic treatment of this notion that is based on truth conditions – the contextual assumptions that override the presupposition normally attached to ‘manage’ are not part of the truth conditions of the sentence that contains this verb. In order to address issues such as defeasibility, theorists have proposed various pragmatic analyses of presupposition (Cummings, 2005: 32).

Furthermore, Givon in Brown and Yule (1983: 29) defines presupposition as the assumptions the speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge. While Stalnaker still in Brown and Yule (1983: 29) says that presuppositions are what is taken by the speaker to be the common ground of the participants in the conversation. Presupposition as is described by Yule (1996: 27) can be divided into potential and existential presupposition. Potential presupposition related to the use of large number of words, phrase and structures which can only become actual presupposition in context with the speaker. Existential presupposition is not only assumed to be present in possessive constructions, but also more generally in any definite noun phrase.

Analysing Implicature in A Dialog of Bahwa Cinta Itu Ada The Movie

A dialog from ‘Bahwa Cinta Itu Ada’ The Movie.
Suatu siang di kampus ITB, para anak muda berbaris untuk registrasi penerimaan mahasiswa baru di tahun ajaran baru, Seorang laki-laki bernama Poltak berpura-pura mengambil pena yang jatuh di tanah untuk menyerobot barisan. Ia mendekati seorang gadis manis yang sedang asyik mengisi form pendaftaran.
Part 1
Poltak    : “Namaku Poltak. Poltak Saut Hutabarat. Asal Pematang Siantar. Masih keluarga dekat dengan Adam Malik, wakil presiden Republik Indonesia.” Ia mengenalkan diri pada si gadis sambil mengambil kesempatan untuk memajukan urutan  antriannya.
Pria Bertopi        :  “Hei-hei..ada orang nehh…”
Poltak            : “Apa seh kau??” (ia menatap sebal ke si pria bertopi)
Giliran si pria bertopi memperkenalkan diri ke gadis itu
Pria Bertopi        : “Saya Fuad dari Surabaya, ”
Si gadis cuek aja, tetap asyik dengan formulirnya.
Pria bertopi    : “Mahmoud Fuad Juriatno lengkapnya. Tonggoe Bung Tomo dan para pahlawan yang menurunkan bendera di Hotel Oranye.” Ia lalu menyodorkan tangan untuk berjabat
Si gadis menyambut uluran tangan dan berjabat dengan si Fuad, pria bertopi dari Surabaya tadi. Setelah aksi si Fuad, giliran seorang pria berkacamata tebal mendatangi si gadis tersebut.
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Part 2
Pria berkaca mata    : “Gun..Gun….Gunarakan, dari USA.” (Ia memperkenalkan diri)
Beni            : “Wah, lu dari USA? (Pronounced ju-es-ei)
Gunar            : “yu-es-ak!!??”
Beni            : “eh, iya Ju Es Ei??”
Gunar            : “Urang Sunda Asliii…” (tertawa cekikikan)
Beni            : “iyaah, terserah deh…
    Hai.. Beni rozali, dari jakarta.” (berkenalan dengan si gadis)
Si gadis hanya memandang sepintas, lalu kembali asyik dengan formulirnya.
Fuad            : “Wah,  Jakartaaaa. .” (seakan kagum karena ketemu orang Jakarta)
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Part 3
Fuad lalu berdehem sambil melihat ke arah laki-laki berbaju resmi ala kantor yang berdiri tak jauh dari kerumunan mereka. Si laki-laki yang lagi diam saja baru paham maksud Si Fuad setelah didehem tiga kali. Si laki-laki itu bernama Slamet.
Slamet    : “Ssss,, saya Slamet, Slamet Hartono dari Trenggale.” (Ia menunjukkan a clumsy expression in his introduction)
Fuad            : “Wuiiihh, Keturunane Empu Sendhok iki, ” (Fuad tertawa)
Poltak menimpali    : “Antik!?.” (Sambil tertawa juga)
Slamet hanya diam saja melihat tingkah mereka. Saat itu Slamet mengantri sambil membawa dua kardus berlapis koran yang ditali dengan raffia.
Gunar            : “Mau daftar atau mau transmigasi neh??, hey, hey, hehehe. . .”
Yang lainnya pun tertawa.
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Part 4
Poltak menanyai si gadis: “Kau pasti Jennifer Miles kan? Yang main di film plastian itu kan?”
Si gadis        : “Aku Ria dari Padang. Ria Marcelina.”
Poltak    : “Orang seberang? Sama kita. (tersenyum)  Kapan kau datang? Naik bus apa kau ke sini?”
Ria            : “Garuda.” (masih tetap cuek)
Poltak            : “Mana ada bis lintas Sumatera yang namanya Garuda?” (tertawa)
Fuad    : “Tak, kuwi pesawat,Tak. Udhuk bis Garudha. Aku yo kampungan tapi enggak ndheso koyo kowe."

______________Thank You and Happy Analyzing______

Kita ngumpul kapan? Ntar kalo ngumpul, tolong udah bawa hasil analisis masing-masing yah..ntar tinggal ditambal kurang-kurangnya ajah.
Adapun bagian masing2:
Part 1: semua analisis dhewe-dhewe sek, engko ketemu digabung. Part 2: Badrul kamal As Salimi. Part 3: Yessiana El Mufidah. Part 4: Siti Anisah Nayyiroh.
Silahkan  mengajukan enaknya kapan? Sepertinya aku prefer hari Senin, kalau malam aku nggak bisa.
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Pidgin and Creoles

A pidgin is a language with no native speakers; it is no one language but is a contact language. It is the products of a multilingual situation in which a simple code of communication is a need. A pidgin is sometimes regarded as a ‘reduced’ variety of a ‘normal’ language, with the simplification of grammar and vocabulary of that language, considerable phonological variation, etc.  In contrast to a pidgin, a ‘creole’ is just a normal language in just about every sense. Like a normal language, creole has native speaker. But similar to pidgin, a creole has a complex relationship to the usually standardized language to which it is associated.

Pidgin and Creole arises from the basic needs that people who speak different language have to find common system of communication which is often known as lingua franca. UNESCO (1953) defines lingua franca as ‘a language which is used habitually by people whose mother tongue are different in order to facilitate communication between them’. A lingua franca can be spoken in a variety of ways. Not only is it spoken differently in places but also individual speakers vary widely in their ability to use the languages.

Conversational Implicature

Conversational implicature is any meaning implied by or understood from the utterance of a sentence which goes beyond what is strictly said or entailed. For example it is raining might, in specific context, implicate (alternatively, whoever says might implicate) we cannot go for picnic, we had better close the windows and so on (The Concise Oxford dictionary of linguistic, 1997: Online www.yahoo.com).

Grice as quoted by Levinson (1992:126) distinguished conventional implicature into generalized and particularized conventional implicature. He asserts that generalized conversational implicature is implicature that arise without any particular context or special scenario being necessary in addition, Gruncy(2000:81-82) says that generalized conversational implicature arise respective of the context in which it occurs and it has little or nothing do with the most relevant understanding of an utterance; it derives entirely from the maxims, typically from the maxims of quantity and manner. Therefore, generalized conversational implicature is inferable without reference to a special context.

In contrast with the generalized conversational implicature, particularized, conversational implicature require such specific context (context-bound). Besides, all implicature that arise from the maxim of relevance are particularized for utterance whichare relevant only with respect to the particular topic or issue at hand. In addition, most of the exploitation or flouting maxims can be categorized as particularized implicature (Levinson, 1992; 126).

In short, those implicature have a special importance for linguistic theory, since, it is in particular will be hard to distinguish from the semantic content of linguistic expression, because such implicature will be routinely associated with the relevant expression in all ordinary context.

Implicature in Discourse Analysis

 Sometimes, when we are talking with other people, the problem happened is easy to express an idea but it is difficult to interpret it because every utterance needs to be interpreted based on its context. It means that what is uttered depends on who, where, when, and in what occasion the utterance appears.

Brown and Yule (1983:1) explain that discourse analysis is committed to an investigation of what and how that language is used so that we can utter everything to another people with the same interpretation. The term implicature is used by Grice (1975) to account for what a speaker can imply, suggest or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literally says.

Yule (1996:36) adds that implicature is a primary example of more being communicated than is said but in order for them to be interpreted, some basic cooperative principle must first be assumed to be in operation. Furthermore, Grice as quoted by Levinson (1992:127) explains that the term of implicature to be a general cover term to stand in contrast to what is said or expressed by the truth condition of expression, and to include all kinds of pragmatic (non-truth-conditional) inference discernible.

The theory of implicature, which is proposed by Herbert Paul Grice, is the one particularly used to analyze the words or utterances. Grice divided implicature into conventional and conversational implicature, and further he distinguished conversational implicature into generalized and particularized implicature.

Conventional implicature is non-truth-conditional inferences that are not derived from super ordinate pragmatic principles like the maxims, but are simply attached by convention to particular lexical items or grounds that it had colored stripes in it and the legend on the tube said, “Actually fight decay”. The lexical item “actually” has a literal meaning or entailment – it means in reality or in actuality, because it is closely associated with the particular lexical item, so, it can be said ad conventional implicature (Grundy, 2000:84).