Politeness of Chinese-Javanese cross-ethnic communication in the Javanese Cultural Area, Indonesia

Abstract

The ethnic Chinese and Javanese have lived together in the Javanese Cultural Area for hundreds of years, and use the same languages in daily life, but their tendency to apply different politeness systems can cause problems. This article investigates the politeness of Chinese–Javanese cross-ethnic communication in the Javanese Cultural Area, Indonesia. Data were collected using  Discourse Completion Task and analysed using the theory of Scollon & Scollon (2001). The results show that the factors that cause differences in the application of politeness systems in the ethnic Chinese and Javanese are the realisation of strategies and the contexts of strategy use. Cross-ethnic communication that occurs in the contexts (=P–D) and (=P+D) is generally normal because both ethnicities apply the same politeness system. However, in the contexts (–P+D), (+P+D), (–P–D) and (+P–D), the two ethnic groups tend to apply different politeness systems. This is prone to cause politeness friction in cross-ethnic communication.