The implementation of politeness strategy is relevant with curriculum 2013 which emphase good character because politeness strategy deals with someone’s ability to show his good character. Therefore, the teacher is obliged to implement it in the language learning activities along with language usage. This study is aimed to investigate the types of politeness strategies used by teachers and students in interaction, to explain the reason why the teacher and students use those types of politeness strategy, and to find out the relation of the politeness strategies towards interactions in SMP Muhammadiyah 7 Semarang.

This research is attempted to find out the types of politeness used in SMP Muhammadiyah 7 Semarang. The data were collected from the utterances of the teacher and ninth grade students SMP Muhamamadiyah 7 Semarang. The researcher only took one of eight classes. The class which is taken as the research object is IX B which consists of 28 students. The data were found in the dialogues between participants containing the teacher’s utterances (declarative, interrogative and command) and the students’ responses. There were 30 samples of utterances from 365 utterances. Then the data are analyzed using Brown and Levinson politeness strategy (1987) consists of four strategies. They are: (1) bald on record, (2) positive politeness, (3) negative politeness, and (4) off record strategy.

The result of the study show (1) politeness was conveyed through five strategies, namely: bald-on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, off record, and saying nothing; (2); Positive politeness was used by the teacher to encourage students to use polite language in their interaction, while students mostly used positive politeness too in teacher-students interaction because of the power of teacher; and (3) The relation of the politeness with interaction are: create efficient interaction in the process of teaching and learning, respect communication, togetherness between teacher and students, cooperate interaction between teacher and students, create good condition and influence the students using politenes. Those aspects can motivate students and also develope a meaningful teaching and learning process.

Keywords: politeness, politeness strategies, speech acts, and classroom interaction.