Impoliteness Strategies and Power Used by European in This Earth of Mankind

Abstract

This Earth of Mankind is a novel written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. From the story in this novel, the researcher is interested in investigating the types, functions, and purposes of impoliteness strategies and power used by European characters in This Earth of Mankind novel. This research used the descriptive qualitative research method because the data in this research are in the form of qualitative data in the form of conversation and then analyzed in the form of descriptive. The data used in this study are conversations between Europeans and Indigenous people that contain the elements of impoliteness and power contained in the novel. There are four theories used in this research. The first theory belongs to Culpeper (1996) to identify types of impoliteness. The second theory belongs to Culpeper (2011) to identify impoliteness functions. Furthermore, Beebe's (1950) and Bousfield's (2008) theories are used to understand the purpose of using power through impolite language. The first result, of this research, shows that European characters in the novel use all kinds of impoliteness according to Culpeper (1996). The types of impoliteness used are (1) direct impoliteness (Bald on record impoliteness), (2) positive impoliteness, (3) negative impoliteness, (4) sarcasm or mock politeness, and (5) withhold politeness. From the 40 data there are negative impoliteness as the most frequently used number with a total of 17 conversations. The second result of this research, according to Culpeper's theory (2011) found two impolite functions, namely affective function with a total of 22 conversations and coercive with a total of 11 conversations. The entertaining function was not found because this function usually occurs in the world of entertainment such as talk shows that use impoliteness through jokes.