STUDENTS’ POLITENESS IN THANKING EXPRESSIONS AT

FOURTH SEMESTER OF ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF PASIR PENGARAIAN

Yeni Octaviani1), Eripuddin2), Wirda Jannatul Jannah3)

Octavianiyeni1@gmail.com, eripuddin85@gmail.com, wirdajannatuljannah@gmail.com
English Study Program, University of Pasir Pengaraian

ABSTRACT

This research described about the thanking expressions used by the students in responding to different
situations. The purpose of this research were to find out the kinds and the politeness of thanking expressions
used by the students. The data were collected from 29 fourth semester students of English Study Program of
University of Pasir Pengaraian.
This study used descriptive qualitative. Instrument of the research was discourse completion test (DCT).
The students were faced with situations and roles that were different from their lives and would be a limitation
for them to fill in the DCT.
The result of this research showed that there were 7 strategies of thanking expressions used by the students.
The strategies of thanking expressions are Thanking, Appreciation, Expressing positive feelings, Apology,
Expressing repayment, Other and Alerters. There were 290 responses, it divided into 7 kinds of thanking
expressions, such as: there were 162 responses of thanking (55,9%), there were 11 responses of appreciation
(3,8%), there were 19 responses of positive feelings (6,6%), there were 6 responses of apology (2%), there were
21 response of expressing repayment (7,2%), there were 15 responses of other (5,2%) last there were 56
responses of alerters (19,3%) and the scales of politeness in thanking expressions is absolute politeness scale.
Based on the data, it could be seen that students used thanking with absolute politeness scale in order to
responses the situation given by the researcher.

Keyword: Thanking Expressions, Discourse Completion Test, Descriptive Qualitative Method.

INTRODUCTION speaker in delivering conversation. Politeness

is influenced by cultural background, social
Thanking expression is the way for
background, historical, and geographical
someone to appreciate something to each
elements. It is important to pay attention to
other. Thanking expressions may be different
politeness since people live in a country that
from one language community to another
consists of different ethnic groups that have
depending on the contexts and cultures.
their own culture and norms regarding how
Students who learn English as a foreign
should interact with one another. Besides that,
language are already familiar with the phrases
the awareness of differences in social power or
for expressing gratitude, such as thank, thank
distance should be encouraged when
you, thank you so much, and thank you very
communicating with other people.
much and other. Eiseinstein and Bodman
Encouraging the students related to the
(1986) point that thanking phrases are often
importance of having politeness strategy in
preceded by or followed by other strategies or
communication will develop their awareness
speech acts such as apologizing, requesting,
not only in communicative competence but
promising, etc. depending on the context.
also cultural awareness, and build their
Thanking is always related to politeness
character values. Especially for students which
because it shows the level of politeness of the

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tend to get easily influence by their
environment either in the real or cyber world
in a positive or negative way.There are some
reasons why the existence of politeness in
thanking expressions is important. Firstly, in
order to become an excellent conversationalist,
that will show how to open and maintain as
well as close a conversation for example in
presentation.
There are several cases of language use in
students. In this case the researcher saw
students often communicating with others and
when they expressed their thanks, they did not
know what the way of thanking expressions of
politeness. They did not understand what the
expression of gratitude is related to language,
culture and context. For example in dailylife
such as after borrowing something to their
friends then return it back, they just said
“thanks” while throwing it and after being
given help from other they also just say
“thanks”. In delivering presentations at
opening like “thank you moderators for giving
me opportunity to present our material” or
“thank you to ms/mr for given the opportunity
to our group to present this material” and
closing the presentations like “thank you for
your attentions”. And also after delivering
questions and before answering questions just
said thanks. Then after the lecturer gives
instructions or gives assignments to students in
class directly or indirectly such as whatsApp
groups, text messages and so on, they also
usually just say “thanks”. The meanings of
thanks above are directly related to their use
both in written and oral variations. Seeing the
many interactions between the students and
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among them also lacks understanding of how
express the politeness of thanking, the
researcher is interested in conducting research
in fourth semester students of the English
Study Program entitle "Students’ Politeness in
Thanking Expressions at Fourth Semester
Students of English Study Program of the
University of Pasir Pengaraian".
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The Nature of Speech Acts
An utterance does not only have an
explicit meaning but also an implicit meaning.
From there emerged the theory of speech acts.
Donal (2015: p. 471) explained recognizing
the speech act that is being performed in the
production of an utterance is important
because speech act that to extent tells what the
speaker intends someone to do with the
propositional content of what he says. From
the definition above, the implicit meaning can
be known from the actions taken by a person
when he speaks it is called speech acts.
This speech act is a communication
activity (locutionary act) which contains the
intention to be conveyed while speaking
(illocutionary act) and the effect desired by the
speaker (perlocutionary act). According to
Austin (1965: 94) speech acts is "by saying
something, we do something". Austin defines
speech acts as fragments of speech produced
as part of social interaction. Saying something
is doing something, and language or speech
can be used to make events.
Locutionary act is speech act used to
state something. For instance, tree has leaves.
The speech acts committed by the speaker
related to the act in relation to something by
saying something (an act of saying something)
such as deciding, praying, blessing and
demanding.
Illocutionary act defined speech that
function to say or inform something also can
used to do something. On the other word,
speech act that do of the speaker related with
deeds of relationship by stating something.
Illocutionary speech acts are related to the
values in the proposition. For example, "I can't
come". This sentence by someone to a friend
who has just carried out his son's wedding
reception, not only serves to state something,
but also to do something that is to apologize
for not coming.
Perlocutionary act, is actions carried out
by saying something, making others believe in
something by urging others to do something,
etc. or influence other people (perlocutionary
speech act) For example: That place is far
away. It contains the message 'Don't go there!'
(In the minds of the partners there is a
decision) "I will not go there."
Therefore, in every speech event there is a
series of speech acts that are organized to
achieve a certain goal. Speech acts can take
the form of statements, orders, or statements.
According to Chaer and Agustina (2004),
speech acts are individual phenomena that are
psychological in nature and their survival is
determined by the ability of the speaker's
language to deal with certain situations by
paying attention to the meanings and meanings
of the speech. This speech act emphasizes the
meaning or meaning of the action in a speech.
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The Nature of Politeness
Politeness is defined by Geoffrey
Leech as “a form of behavior that establishes
and maintains comity.” In another words,
politeness is referring to the ability of the
people in a social interaction to engage in
communication with relative harmony. Leech
(2005) states that pragmatics is interested only
in communicative behavior, and politeness in a
pragmatic sense is a matter of conveying
meanings in accord (Politeness is an aspect of
goal-oriented behavior) with the Grand
Strategy Principle(GSP) which is evident in
common linguistic behavior patterns in the
performance of the polite acts such as
thanking, that is in order to be polite, S (self)
expresses or implies meanings which place a
high value on what relates to other O (other)
(major constraint), or place a low value on
what relates to S (minor constraint) (Leech,
2005:1).
All polite communication implies that the
speaker is taking into account both individual
and group values. According to Leech (2005),
there is no absolute division between cultures
in politeness. For example, in the East, the
group values are more powerful, whereas in
the West, individual values are more powerful
(Leech, 2005:3-4).
Leech (2005:6-7) adds that there are two
ways of looking at politeness:
i) Absolute politeness scale: we can order
utterances on a scale of politeness out of
context. For example, "Thank you very much"
is more polite than "Thanks", because it
intensifies an expression of gratitude, rather
than expressing gratitude in a minimal way.
So, it is a matter of degrees of politeness in
terms of the lexicogrammatical form and
semantic interpretation of the utterance.
(ii) Relative politeness scale: it is relative
to norms in a given society, for a given group,
or for a given situation. It is sensitive to
context. Hence, it is possible that a given form
is considered more polite on the absolute
politeness scale but it may be judged less
polite relative to the norms for the situation.
So Leech has the ways to looking at
politeness in expressing of thanking by using
absolute politeness scale. He adapts the terms
courteous instead of polite in referring to an
absolute politeness, i.e. a relatively high
position on the absolute politeness scale out of
context, and discourteous which means the
opposite. Politeness is important because it
shows that the participants have respect for the
person they're talking to, whether it is in a
formal or informal setting. From theory
proved, there is an inherent desire within a
conversational setting to be seen as being
polite.
The Nature of Thanking Expressions
Thanking expression is a part of speech
acts. Expressive speech act primarily focuses
on representing the speakers’ feelings. In the
same way, Eiseinstein and Bodman (1986)
point that thanking phrases are often preceded
by or followed by other strategies or speech
acts such as apologizing, requesting,
promising, etc. depending on the context. Two
statements above explained that there was a
strategy in expressing thanking expressions
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and also followed by actions from both the
speaker and the listener.
Therefore, expressions of gratitude, such
as complaints and apologies, are retrospective
or post-event actions, because they refer to the
past or ongoing action. Searle (1969: 65) also
refers to the positive aspects of thanks, he
define as an illocutionary act produced by the
speaker as a reaction to past actions performed
by a listener that is considered useful by the
speaker.
Strategies of Thanking Expressions.
There are 8 thanking strategies taxonomy by
Cheng (2005).
Thanking strategies Taxonomy (Cheng,
2005)
1. Thanking
Participants say “thank you” in three
ways:
a.Thanking only by using the word “thank
you” (e.g. Thanks a lot! Thank you very
much!)
b. thanking by stating the favour (e.g.
Thank you for your help!)
c. thanking and mentioning the imposition
caused by the favour (e.g. Thank you for
helping me collect the papers.)
2. Appreciation
a. using the word appreciate (e.g. I
appreciate it!)
b. using the word “appreciate” and
mentioning the imposition caused by the
favour (e.g. I appreciate the time you
spent for me.)
3. Positive feelings
a. by expressing a positive reaction to the
favour giver (hearer) (e.g. You are a life
saver!)
b. by expressing a positive reaction to the
object of the favour (e.g. This book was
really helpful!)
4. Apology
a. using only apologizing words (e.g. I’m
sorry)
b. using apologizing words and stating the
favour or the fact (e.g. I’m sorry for the
problem I made! )
c. criticizing or blaming oneself (e.g. I’m
such a fool!) d. expressing embarrassment
(e.g. It’s so embarrassing!)
5. Recognition of imposition
a. acknowledging the imposition (e.g. I
know that you were not allowed to give
me extra time!)
b. stating the need for the favour (e.g. I
try not to ask for extra time, but this time
I need it!)
c. diminishing the need for the favour
(e.g. You didn’t have to do that!)
6. Repayment
a. offering or promising service, money,
food or goods (e.g. Next time it's my turn
to pay!)
b. indicating indebtedness (e.g. I owe you
one! )
c. promising future self-restraint or self-
improvement (e.g. It won't happen again!)
d. praising
7. Others
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strategies. There are four subcategories
under the other strategy:
a. here statement (e.g. Here you are!)
b. small talk (e.g. Your face is very
familiar to me but I can’t remember
where I saw you. What do you study?)
c. leave-taking (e.g. Have a nice day!)
d. joking (e.g. Don’t forget to pay again
next time)
8. Alerters
In the thanking situations, alerters and
address term are likely to occur in the
same utterance. The alerters include:
a. attention getter (e.g. Hey, Hi, Well)
b. title (e.g. Dr., Professor! Sir!)
c. name (e.g. John, Mary).
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The researcher was design a descriptive
qualitative. Eripuddin (2017) stated descriptive
qualitative method that allows the researcher
to describe a phenomenon by presenting the
facts in rich detail without attempting to
interpret them. Qualitative research involves
asking participants about their experiences of
things that happen in their lives. It enables the
researcher to obtain insights into what it feels
like to be another person and to understand the
world as another experiences it.
Technique of Collecting the Data
The data of this study were the students
written responses collected by using the
Discourse completion task (DCT). DCT is a
type of language questionnaire whereby
participants are given descriptions of situations
and ask to elicit what they would say in a
given situation (O’Keeffe et. al, 2011). In this
study, the DCTs made the participants respond
with thanking expressions as much as or as
little as they wish. The participants will be
given 10 situations of different context and
they were instructed to write responses
showing the expression of thanking and
possible sets of thanking speech acts they may
think to write for each situation. Each situation
has different contexts or event settings in
which participants they often involve in the
context settings in their daily life. In other
words, participants faced daily experience of
all situations depicted in the DCT. The data
was collected at fourth semester students of
English study program in academic year
2020/2021.
Population of the Research
No Class Numbers of
Student
1 Class A 23
2 Class B 6
Total of the 29
Students
According to Sugiyono (2013:81) sample
is a part of the number and characteristics
possessed by the population. If the population
is large, and the researcher may not learn
everything in the population, for example
limited funds, manpower and time, then the
researcher can used samples drawn from the
population. In this research, the researcher
6
used total sampling. There are 29 samples in
this research.
Technique of Analyzing the Data
After the data were collected, the students
responses to the DCT were be analyzed in the
following steps: firstly, the researcher read the
students responses carefully. Secondly, the
researcher was clasification that the write
responds to determine the kinds and scale of
politeness in thanking expresssions will be use
by the students. Then the researcher was
analyzed and presented the strategies of
thanking based on Cheng (2005) and the scale
of politeness of thanking expressions based on
Leech (2005) that write by the students.
FINDING AND DISCUSSION
Findings
In this part, the researcher presented the
findings of the strategies of thanking
expressions and the scale of politeness used
by the students, in the research at fourth
semester students of English study program of
university of Pasir Pengaraian, the researcher
found that there were 7 strategies of thanking
expressions used by the students. The
strategies of thanking expressions are
Thanking, Appreciation, Expressing positive
feelings, Apology, Expressing repayment,
Other and Alerters. There were 290 responses,
it divided into 7 strategies of thanking
expressions, such as: there were 162 responses
of thanking (55,9%), there were 11 responses
of appreciation (3,8%), there were 19
responses of positive feelings (6,6%), there
were 6 responses of apology (2%), there were congratulating, offering) are intrinsically polite
21 response of expressing repayment (7,2%), or courteous. The convivial acts take the form
there were 15 responses of other (5,2%) last of positive politeness by which the speaker is
there were 56 responses of alerters (19,3%). adhering to the listener’s positive face. So,
The scale of politeness in thanking they are not in the interest of the speaker, and
expressions used by students is absolute they are achieved by boosting, using
politeness scale because this scale is intensifying adverbs, or by using prosodic
determined by utterances. This research only devices.
used DCT as instrument that students show
However, according to Leech in Hussein
their expressions thanking by response the
(2014) Since politeness is situational, speech
situations. So, it could be concluded that most
acts cannot be characterized as intrinsically
of the students used thanking expressions
polite or impolite. It can be said that politeness
caregorized as absolute politeness scale in
application varies according to both situational
order responses the situation given by the
and cultural variability. Thanking was required
researcher.
in certain situations to achieve politeness.
Based on the findings above, the
DISCUSSION
researcher found some kinds of thanking
This section presented the discussion expressions and analyzed the scale of
based on the research finding above, Thanking politeness. The researcher gave 10 of
expressions was something important, because descriptions situation that is related to the
it showed and appreciated to others who have students daily life and the students gave
done something for us or helped us. Einstein response to the situations. From the research,
and Bodman (1993) pointed thanking is a the researcher obtained 290 responses in 10
complex act, potentially involving both situations and it can be divided into 7
positive as well as negative feelings on the part strategies of thanking expressions used by the
of the giver and receiver. How we choose to students. The strategies of thanking
express gratitude or thanking expressions can expressions are Thanking, Appreciation,
depend significantly on the social context. Expressing positive feelings, Apology,
While some other acts are non-polite such as: Expressing repayment, other and Alerters.
ordering, insisting , advising, etc. Polite speech There were 290 responses, it divided into 7
acts largely correspond to Leech’s convivial kinds of thanking expressions, such as: there
class. Leech (1983:104) states that the were 162 responses of thanking (55,9%), there
convivial class involves acts in which the were 11 responses of appreciation (3,8%),
illocutionary force (goal) works together with there were 19 responses of positive feelings
the social goal. He believes that the convivial (6,6%), there were 6 responses of apology
acts (e.g. inviting, greeting, thanking, (2%), there were 21 response of expressing

7
repayment (7,2%), there were 15 responses of
other (5,2%) last there were 56 responses of
alerters (19,3%) and the scales of politeness in
thanking expression used by the students is
absolute politeness scale. The calculation was
taken from students responses in Discourse
Completion Tests. And the data from the
sample analyzed by using the formula by
Sugiyono (2009).
In this research, most of students realized
mixed speech act sets of thanking when the
contexts are concerned with the following
conditions such as social status (between a
lecturer and a student). For example in
situation 9 and 10 (between a lecturer), the
response given must also be different in
compared when talking to friends or talking to
other people.
CONCLUSION
After conducting the research, the
researchers found 7 strategies of thanking
expressions and absolute politeness scale used
by fourth semester students. These kinds
proposed by Cheng (2005) theory and scale of
politeness by Leech (2005). In this research,
there there were 7 strategies of thanking
expressions used by the students. The kinds of
thanking expressions are Thanking,
Appreciation, Expressing positive feelings,
Apology, Expressing repayment, Other and
Alerters. And the scale of politeness in
thanking expressions there were used absolute
politeness scale. Based on the data analysis the
researcher concluded that the students
generally used thanking expressions with
absolute politeness scale by response the
situations.
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