Unspoken evaluation of impoliteness: The Javanese linguistic interaction example
Norwanto Norwanto | Universitas Islam Negeri Salatiga
This study aims at examining the evaluation of impoliteness not manifested in utterances or actions. The focus is on how speaker-hearers conceal their negative evaluation and the reasons underlying their behavior. The data were collected from a WhatsApp group conversation, from a Focus Group discussion with WhatsApp group members, and through questionnaires. The study approaches the data using relational work and rapport management theories. The study shows that hearers conceal the evaluation of impoliteness by affiliating with the topics evaluated positively instead of negatively evaluated utterances. The behavior can cause contested meanings of unmarked utterances between the hearers and the speakers. Although speakers perceive their utterances as politic or appropriate, the hearers observe them negatively. Furthermore, the Focus Group discussion showed that the WhatsApp Group members conducted the unspoken evaluation of impoliteness to maintain the equanimity of social relationships. The questionnaires indicated that concealing negative evaluation is a recurrent action of native speakers of Javanese.
Keywords: unmarked utterances/actions, relational work, im/politeness, rapport management, Javanese language
Article outline
1.Introduction
2.Relational work
3.Im/politeness evaluation
4.Rapport management
5.Related studies
6.Method
7.Result and discussion
8.Conclusion
References
Published online: 30 April 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22031.nor
References (62)References
Alba-Juez, Laura. 2021. “Fast and Slow Thinking as Secret Agents Behind Speakers’ (Un)Conscious Pragmatic Decisions and Judgements.” Journal of Pragmatics 1791: 70–76.
Bandelj, Nina. 2012. “Relational Work and Economic Sociology.” Politics & Society 40 (2): 175–201.
Baratta, Alex. 2014. “Military impoliteness as an (eventually) Unmarked Form: A Comment on Bousfield (2007).” Journal of Pragmatics 601: 17–23.
Barokah, Dwi Reka. 2019. “Kominfo: 83% Pengguna Internet adalah Pengguna Whatsapp.” [Kominfo: 83% of Internet Users are WhatsApp Users] Gatra.com. [URL]. Accessed 8 April 2025.
Berman, Laine. 1998. Speaking through the Silence: Narratives, Social Conventions, and Power in Java. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bertrand, Romain. 2008. “A Foucauldian, non-intentionalist analysis of modern Javanese ethics.” International Social Science Journal 59 (191): 75–93.
Blitvich, Pilar Garcés-Conejos. 2009. “Impoliteness and Identity in the American News Media: the ‘Culture Wars.’” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture 5 (2): 273–303.
Boellstorff, Tom. 2004. “Gay Language and Indonesia: Registering Belonging.” Journal of linguistic anthropology 14 (2): 248–268.
Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2015. “’Peter Is a Dumb Nut’: Status Updates and Reactions to them as ‘Acts of Positioning’ in Facebook.” Pragmatics 25 (1): 99–122.
Bousfield, Derek. 2007. “Beginnings, Middles and Ends: A Biopsy of the Dynamics of Impolite Exchanges.” Journal of Pragmatics 39 (12): 2185–2216.
Brenner, Suzanne A. 1995. “Why Women Rule the Roost: Rethinking Javanese Ideologies of Gender and Self-Control.” In Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia, ed. by Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press
Bresnahan, Mary Jiang, Sachiyo Morinaga Shearman, Sun Young Lee, Rie Ohashi, and David Mosher. 2002. “Personal and cultural differences in responding to criticism in three countries.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 5 (2): 93–105.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chang, Wei-Lin Melody. 2018. “Emotivity and Face: Displaying and Soliciting Emotivity in Chinese Mediation Interactions.” Lingua 2131: 43–62.
Chang, Wei-Lin Melody, and Michael Haugh. 2011. “Evaluations of Im/Politeness of an Intercultural Apology.” Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (3): 411–442.
Cheng, Cecilia, Shu-Fai Cheung, Jasmine Hin-Man Chio, and Man-Pui Sally Chan. 2013. “Cultural Meaning of Perceived Control: a Meta-Analysis of Locus of Control and Psychological Symptoms Across 18 Cultural Regions.” Psychological Bulletin 139 (1): 152–188.
Çiftçi, Hatime, and Camilla Vásquez. 2020. “Co-Constructed Oppositional Stance and Facework in an Office Hour Interaction.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 16 (2): 193–216.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2012. “Politeness and Impoliteness.” In Pragmatics of Society, ed. by Gisle Andersen and Karin Aijmer, 393–436. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Handbooks of Pragmatics 5)
Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield, and Anne Wichmann. 2003. “Impoliteness Revisited: with Special Reference to Dynamic and Prosodic Aspects.” Journal of Pragmatics 351: 1545–1579.
Donaghue, Helen. 2018. “Relational Work and Identity Negotiation in Critical Post Observation Teacher Feedback.” Journal of Pragmatics 1351: 101–116.
Eelen, Gino. 2001. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Vol. 1. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing
Ellis, Carolyn, Christine E. Kiesinger, and Lisa M. Tillmann-Healy. 1997. “Interactive Interviewing: Talking about Emotional Experience.” In Reflexivity and Voice ed. by Rosanna Hertz, 119–149. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage.
Errington, J. Joseph. 1985. Language and Social Change in Java: Linguistic Reflexes of Modernization in a Traditional Royal Polity. Athens, O.: Ohio University Press
. 1988. Structure and Style in Javanese: A Semiotic View of Linguistic Etiquette. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Fukushima, Saeko. 2004. “Evaluation of Politeness: The Case of Attentiveness.” Multilingua 231: 365–387.
Geertz, Clifford. 1960. The religion of Java. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.
Geertz, Hildred. 1989. The Javanese Family: A Study of Kindship and Socialization. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. [originally, 1961].
Goffman, Erving. 2005. Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Pulishers. [originally, 1967]
Gunarwan, Asim. 2001. “The Speech Act of Criticizing among Speakers of Javanese.” In Papers from the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, ed. by Karen L. Adams and Thomas J. Hudak, 171–191. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona State University
Harb, Mustafa. 2021. “Disagreement among Arabic Speakers in Faceless Computer-Mediated Communication.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture 17 (2): 233–264.
Haugh, Michael. 2010. “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)Affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42(8): 2106–2119.
Irvine, Judith T. 1992. “Ideologies of Honorific Language.” Pragmatics 2 (3): 251–262.
Isosävi, Johanna. 2020. “Cultural Outsiders’ Reported Adherence to Finnish and French Politeness Norms.” Journal of Pragmatics 1551: 177–192.
Jauhari, Edy, Djatmika Djatmika, and Riyadi Santosa. 2020. “Criticism in the Javanese Arek Cultural Community: Its Expression Context and Strategy Use.” Pragmatics and Society 11 (4): 524 — 544.
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Michael Haugh. 2013. Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keeler, Ward. 1990. “Speaking of Gender in Java.” In Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, ed. by Jane Monnig Atkinson and Shelly Errington, 127–152. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.
Koentjaraningrat. 1985. Javanese Culture. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Locher, Miriam A. 2004. Power and Politeness in Action: Disagreements in Oral Communication. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. (Language, Power and Social Process, 12)
2020. “Moments of Relational Work in English Fan Translations of Korean TV Drama.” Journal of Pragmatics 1701: 139–155.
Locher, Miriam A., and Richard J. Watts. 2005. “Politeness Theory and Relational Work.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 9–33.
. 2008. “Relational Work and Impoliteness: Negotiating Norms of Linguistic Behaviour.” In Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, ed. by Derek Bousfield and Miriam A. Locher. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2013. “’Just Click Like’: Computer-Mediated Responses to Spanish Compliments.” Journal of Pragmatics 511: 47–67.
. 2015. “Jocular Mockery in Computer-Mediated Communication: a Contrastive Study of a Spanish and English Facebook Community.” Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2): 289–327.
Mapson, Rachel, and George Major. 2021. “Interpreters, Rapport, and the Role of Familiarity.” Journal of Pragmatics 1761: 63–75.
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2004. “Class, Gender and Politeness.” Multilingua 231: 171–190.
Oakes, Michael P. 2009. “Javanese.” In The World’s Major Languages, ed. by Bernard Comrie. New York: Routledge.
Omura, Mieko, Teresa E. Stone, and Tracy Levett-Jones. 2018. “Cultural Factors Influencing Japanese Nurses’ Assertive Communication. Part 1: Collectivism.” Nursing & Health Sciences 20 (3): 283–288.
Poedjosoedarmo, Soepomo. 1969. “Wordlist of Javanese Non-Ngoko Vocabularies.” Indonesia (7): 165–190.
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. “Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life.” Language and Communication 23 (3): 193–229.
Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. 1988. “Women and politeness: The Javanese example.” Language in Society 17 (4): 535–554.
1989. “A Social History of Language Change in Highland East Java.” The Journal of Asian Studies 48 (2): 257–271.
2009. “Language Shift, Gender, and Ideologies of Modernity in Central Java, Indonesia.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology Vol. 19 (1): 57–77.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2008. “Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Terkourafi, Marina. 2005. “Beyond the micro-level in politeness research.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (2): 237–262.
Triastuti, Endah. 2021. “Indonesian Women Bloggers: The Role of Bahasa Gaul in Negotiating Public/Private Connections.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 22(1): 1–21.
Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolff, John U., and Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo. 2002. Communicative Codes in Central Java. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University. (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications.)
Zayts, Olga, and Stephanie Schnurr. 2013. ““[She] said: ‘take the test’ and I took the test”. Relational work as a framework to approach directiveness in prenatal screening of Chinese clients in Hong Kong.” Journal of Politeness Research 9 (2): 187–210.
Zelizer, Viviana A. 2000. “The Purchase of Intimacy.” Law & Social Inquiry 25 (3): 817–848.
2005. The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
About us | Disclaimer | Privacy policy | | | Antiquariathttps://benjamins.com
2.Relational work
3.Im/politeness evaluation
4.Rapport management
5.Related studies
6.Method
7.Result and discussion
8.Conclusion
References
Published online: 30 April 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.22031.norReferences (62)References
Alba-Juez, Laura. 2021. “Fast and Slow Thinking as Secret Agents Behind Speakers’ (Un)Conscious Pragmatic Decisions and Judgements.” Journal of Pragmatics 1791: 70–76.
Bandelj, Nina. 2012. “Relational Work and Economic Sociology.” Politics & Society 40 (2): 175–201.
Baratta, Alex. 2014. “Military impoliteness as an (eventually) Unmarked Form: A Comment on Bousfield (2007).” Journal of Pragmatics 601: 17–23.
Barokah, Dwi Reka. 2019. “Kominfo: 83% Pengguna Internet adalah Pengguna Whatsapp.” [Kominfo: 83% of Internet Users are WhatsApp Users] Gatra.com. [URL]. Accessed 8 April 2025.
Berman, Laine. 1998. Speaking through the Silence: Narratives, Social Conventions, and Power in Java. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bertrand, Romain. 2008. “A Foucauldian, non-intentionalist analysis of modern Javanese ethics.” International Social Science Journal 59 (191): 75–93.
Blitvich, Pilar Garcés-Conejos. 2009. “Impoliteness and Identity in the American News Media: the ‘Culture Wars.’” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture 5 (2): 273–303.
Boellstorff, Tom. 2004. “Gay Language and Indonesia: Registering Belonging.” Journal of linguistic anthropology 14 (2): 248–268.
Bolander, Brook, and Miriam A. Locher. 2015. “’Peter Is a Dumb Nut’: Status Updates and Reactions to them as ‘Acts of Positioning’ in Facebook.” Pragmatics 25 (1): 99–122.
Bousfield, Derek. 2007. “Beginnings, Middles and Ends: A Biopsy of the Dynamics of Impolite Exchanges.” Journal of Pragmatics 39 (12): 2185–2216.
Brenner, Suzanne A. 1995. “Why Women Rule the Roost: Rethinking Javanese Ideologies of Gender and Self-Control.” In Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia, ed. by Aihwa Ong and Michael G. Peletz. Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press
Bresnahan, Mary Jiang, Sachiyo Morinaga Shearman, Sun Young Lee, Rie Ohashi, and David Mosher. 2002. “Personal and cultural differences in responding to criticism in three countries.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 5 (2): 93–105.
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chang, Wei-Lin Melody. 2018. “Emotivity and Face: Displaying and Soliciting Emotivity in Chinese Mediation Interactions.” Lingua 2131: 43–62.
Chang, Wei-Lin Melody, and Michael Haugh. 2011. “Evaluations of Im/Politeness of an Intercultural Apology.” Intercultural Pragmatics 8 (3): 411–442.
Cheng, Cecilia, Shu-Fai Cheung, Jasmine Hin-Man Chio, and Man-Pui Sally Chan. 2013. “Cultural Meaning of Perceived Control: a Meta-Analysis of Locus of Control and Psychological Symptoms Across 18 Cultural Regions.” Psychological Bulletin 139 (1): 152–188.
Çiftçi, Hatime, and Camilla Vásquez. 2020. “Co-Constructed Oppositional Stance and Facework in an Office Hour Interaction.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 16 (2): 193–216.
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2012. “Politeness and Impoliteness.” In Pragmatics of Society, ed. by Gisle Andersen and Karin Aijmer, 393–436. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. (Handbooks of Pragmatics 5)
Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield, and Anne Wichmann. 2003. “Impoliteness Revisited: with Special Reference to Dynamic and Prosodic Aspects.” Journal of Pragmatics 351: 1545–1579.
Donaghue, Helen. 2018. “Relational Work and Identity Negotiation in Critical Post Observation Teacher Feedback.” Journal of Pragmatics 1351: 101–116.
Eelen, Gino. 2001. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Vol. 1. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing
Ellis, Carolyn, Christine E. Kiesinger, and Lisa M. Tillmann-Healy. 1997. “Interactive Interviewing: Talking about Emotional Experience.” In Reflexivity and Voice ed. by Rosanna Hertz, 119–149. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage.
Errington, J. Joseph. 1985. Language and Social Change in Java: Linguistic Reflexes of Modernization in a Traditional Royal Polity. Athens, O.: Ohio University Press
. 1988. Structure and Style in Javanese: A Semiotic View of Linguistic Etiquette. Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Fukushima, Saeko. 2004. “Evaluation of Politeness: The Case of Attentiveness.” Multilingua 231: 365–387.
Geertz, Clifford. 1960. The religion of Java. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press.
Geertz, Hildred. 1989. The Javanese Family: A Study of Kindship and Socialization. Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press. [originally, 1961].
Goffman, Erving. 2005. Interaction Ritual: Essays in Face-to-Face Behavior. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Pulishers. [originally, 1967]
Gunarwan, Asim. 2001. “The Speech Act of Criticizing among Speakers of Javanese.” In Papers from the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society, ed. by Karen L. Adams and Thomas J. Hudak, 171–191. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona State University
Harb, Mustafa. 2021. “Disagreement among Arabic Speakers in Faceless Computer-Mediated Communication.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture 17 (2): 233–264.
Haugh, Michael. 2010. “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)Affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42(8): 2106–2119.
Irvine, Judith T. 1992. “Ideologies of Honorific Language.” Pragmatics 2 (3): 251–262.
Isosävi, Johanna. 2020. “Cultural Outsiders’ Reported Adherence to Finnish and French Politeness Norms.” Journal of Pragmatics 1551: 177–192.
Jauhari, Edy, Djatmika Djatmika, and Riyadi Santosa. 2020. “Criticism in the Javanese Arek Cultural Community: Its Expression Context and Strategy Use.” Pragmatics and Society 11 (4): 524 — 544.
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Michael Haugh. 2013. Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keeler, Ward. 1990. “Speaking of Gender in Java.” In Power and Difference: Gender in Island Southeast Asia, ed. by Jane Monnig Atkinson and Shelly Errington, 127–152. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.
Koentjaraningrat. 1985. Javanese Culture. Singapore: Oxford University Press.
Leech, Geoffrey. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
Locher, Miriam A. 2004. Power and Politeness in Action: Disagreements in Oral Communication. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. (Language, Power and Social Process, 12)
2020. “Moments of Relational Work in English Fan Translations of Korean TV Drama.” Journal of Pragmatics 1701: 139–155.
Locher, Miriam A., and Richard J. Watts. 2005. “Politeness Theory and Relational Work.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 9–33.
. 2008. “Relational Work and Impoliteness: Negotiating Norms of Linguistic Behaviour.” In Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, ed. by Derek Bousfield and Miriam A. Locher. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen. 2013. “’Just Click Like’: Computer-Mediated Responses to Spanish Compliments.” Journal of Pragmatics 511: 47–67.
. 2015. “Jocular Mockery in Computer-Mediated Communication: a Contrastive Study of a Spanish and English Facebook Community.” Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2): 289–327.
Mapson, Rachel, and George Major. 2021. “Interpreters, Rapport, and the Role of Familiarity.” Journal of Pragmatics 1761: 63–75.
Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
. 2004. “Class, Gender and Politeness.” Multilingua 231: 171–190.
Oakes, Michael P. 2009. “Javanese.” In The World’s Major Languages, ed. by Bernard Comrie. New York: Routledge.
Omura, Mieko, Teresa E. Stone, and Tracy Levett-Jones. 2018. “Cultural Factors Influencing Japanese Nurses’ Assertive Communication. Part 1: Collectivism.” Nursing & Health Sciences 20 (3): 283–288.
Poedjosoedarmo, Soepomo. 1969. “Wordlist of Javanese Non-Ngoko Vocabularies.” Indonesia (7): 165–190.
Silverstein, Michael. 2003. “Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life.” Language and Communication 23 (3): 193–229.
Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. 1988. “Women and politeness: The Javanese example.” Language in Society 17 (4): 535–554.
1989. “A Social History of Language Change in Highland East Java.” The Journal of Asian Studies 48 (2): 257–271.
2009. “Language Shift, Gender, and Ideologies of Modernity in Central Java, Indonesia.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology Vol. 19 (1): 57–77.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2008. “Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, edited by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Terkourafi, Marina. 2005. “Beyond the micro-level in politeness research.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (2): 237–262.
Triastuti, Endah. 2021. “Indonesian Women Bloggers: The Role of Bahasa Gaul in Negotiating Public/Private Connections.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 22(1): 1–21.
Watts, Richard J. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wolff, John U., and Soepomo Poedjosoedarmo. 2002. Communicative Codes in Central Java. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University. (Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications.)
Zayts, Olga, and Stephanie Schnurr. 2013. ““[She] said: ‘take the test’ and I took the test”. Relational work as a framework to approach directiveness in prenatal screening of Chinese clients in Hong Kong.” Journal of Politeness Research 9 (2): 187–210.
Zelizer, Viviana A. 2000. “The Purchase of Intimacy.” Law & Social Inquiry 25 (3): 817–848.
2005. The Purchase of Intimacy. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press.
About us | Disclaimer | Privacy policy | | | Antiquariathttps://benjamins.com
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar