Politeness Strategies used by Students in Communicating Through WhatsApp

Wardah Ismail; Mafarhanatul Akmal Ahmad Kamal; Aina Athirah Rozman Azram; Najwa Zulkifli; Nur Liyana Johari

doi:10.47405/mjssh.v8i10.2561

Wardah Ismail Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
Mafarhanatul Akmal Ahmad Kamal Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9216-478X
Aina Athirah Rozman Azram Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7486-4440
Najwa Zulkifli Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.
Nur Liyana Johari Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47405/mjssh.v8i10.2561

Keywords: Politeness, WhatsApp, Student, Face, Face Threatening Act

Abstract

Lack of politeness in society has begun to increase irrespective of the interlocutors in the communication process. There have been some concerns pertaining to the way people talk digitally, mainly because in today’s digital world there are massive ways of communication. Hence, certain communicators tend to apply distinct strategies when communicating, especially when using an advanced and instant platform such as WhatsApp. This is due to the differences in the nature of information exchange between the traditional oral and the online written communication. This research was conducted to identify the types of positive and negative politeness strategies used by students in WhatsApp conversations. Positive and negative politeness strategies refer to strategies which are implemented when interlocutors interact with each other regardless of the social distance they share. This research is based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness. This qualitative research was conducted in several stages. It involved collecting 50 WhatsApp conversations from students. The frequency and percentage of positive and negative politeness strategies were tabulated, and the type of positive and negative politeness strategies used by students in these WhatsApp conversations were identified. The major finding of the study indicates that students demonstrated more positive politeness strategies when sending WhatsApp messages to those they are close to such as family and friends, but used more negative politeness strategies when communicating with strangers. Therefore, this study may impact WhatsApp users particularly students with reference to decency even though this study is limited to only written form of data using WhatsApp application. However, the limitation is not prominent since maintaining politeness or decent manners may come from various platforms regardless written or verbal.

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Author Biographies

Wardah Ismail, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Wardah Ismail is a lecturer at the Academy of Language Studies, UiTM Shah Alam. She pursued her master’s degree in English Language Studies at the International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research interests involve politeness, sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology. She participated in both International e-Content Development Competition (e-ConDev) and International Invention, Innovation & Design Expo (INoDEx) which secured her gold and bronze medals.

Mafarhanatul Akmal Ahmad Kamal, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Mafarhanatul Akmal Ahmad Kamal is a lecturer at the Academy of Language Studies at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam, Malaysia. She received her Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics with TESOL from The University of Sheffield. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in English Language Studies specialising in Applied Linguistics and her research interests include Applied linguistics, English Language Studies, psycholinguistics, bilingualism, and eye tracking.

Aina Athirah Rozman Azram, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Aina Athirah Rozman Azram is a Masters holder in Applied Linguistics. Currently a lecturer at Akademi Pengajian Bahasa, Universiti Teknologi MARA teaching English language with keen interests in Teaching and Learning English as Second Language, Discourse Analysis and Pragmatic Politeness. She has published several articles in her field of interests.

Najwa Zulkifli, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Najwa Zulkifli is a lecturer at Academy of Language, University of Technology MARA, Shah Alam Campus, Malaysia. She received her master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) from the same university and has been teaching for more than 5 years. Her main areas of interest include psychology in communication and social behaviours.

Nur Liyana Johari, Academy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450, Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia.

Nur Liyana Johari, a Masters holder in Education, specialising in educational psychology, is currently a lecturer at Akademi Pengajian Bahasa, Universiti Teknologi MARA. She is active in school programs and module development focusing on English language learning. Among her research interests are teaching methodology, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, metacognitive strategies in language learning.

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