Functions of Indirectness in American Idol Judges Comments

Raynesta Mikaela Indri Malo(1*),

(1) Universitas Kristen Wira Wacana Sumba
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


Indirectness is one of the most efficient ways to communicate each other. People useindirectness in communication for different purposes. The most discussed and discovered purposeacross cultures is for politeness; people use language in indirect way to prevent hurting othersfeelings. In many cultures, indirectness is highly valued because saving face and harmony in socialrelationships are highly respected. This study is a descriptive study which is aimed at analyzing thefunctions or the purpose of using indirectness or indirect language in one of the rarely discussedrealm of language use, a TV show, specifically, American Idol. The findings also reveal the strategies
used in order to perform the functions. The data is limited to the audition of American Idol seasoneight (8) which was held in 2009. There were 7 recordings for the 8 cities of audition. The total
number of data used in this study was 50 indirect comments. The result shows that there were 3functions of the use of indirectness in the comments of the judges. The functions were (i) being ironic,
(ii) being polite, and (iii) giving hints.


Keywords: indirectness, politeness, judges comments


Full Text:

PDF

References


Culpeper, J., Derek B., and Anne W. 2003. Impoliteness re-visited: With special reference to dynamic and prosodic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics Vol. 35.

Hoye, L. F. 2009. Applying Pragmatics. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. 2nd ed. Ed. Jacob L. Mey. Oxford: Elsevier.

Huang, Yan. 2007. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.

Mey, Jacob L. 2006. Pragmatics: Overview. Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. 2nd ed. Ed. Jacob L. Mey. Oxford: Elsevier.

Srinarawat, Deeyu. 2005. Indirectness as a politeness strategy of Thai speakers. Broadening the Horizon of Linguistic Politeness. Ed. Lakoff, Robin T. and Sachiko Ide. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Thomas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. New York: Longman.

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v16i2.500

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Journal of Language and Literature (JOLL) is published by  Prodi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

JOLL is indexed in:

       


This journal is is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 

View My Stats