This research reports an analysis on how the characters in the movie entitled “The Great Gatsby” apply politeness strategies in the refusals they made. This research analyzed what, how and why a certain politeness strategy used by the characters in expressing their refusals.
This research is based on pragmatics approach. It is a descriptive qualitative research which takes purposive sampling technique. The data of this research are the dialogues in the film entitled The Great Gatsbythat contain refusal expressions. All of the data are collected by using Beebe, Takahashi and Uliss-Weltz's classification of refusal expression. And later all of the data found were analyzed withBrown andLevinson politeness strategies.
The findings are summarized as follow:
First, the all four politeness strategies suggested by Brown and Levinson (positive politeness, negative politeness, bald-on record and off record) were employed by the characters in expressing their refusals. As refusal is basically threaten the hearer positive face, the most of the politeness strategy applied by the characters in their refusals is positive politeness strategy.
Second, there are two different vocal characteristics used by the characters in expressing their refusals. They are normal vocal characteristics and high vocal characteristics. The normal vocal characteristics are used by the character to emphasize their politeness by not being dominant. The high vocal characteristics are used by the character when they are not caring about politeness strategy.
Third, the choiceof politeness strategiesmade by the characters is influenced by the demanding face wants, social status and relation between the characters and the emotional condition of the characters
