Politeness Strategies of Javanese Woman Characters in Novel ‘Gadis Pantai’ Written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

Employing the concept proposed by Brown and Levinson, this study aims to unfold politeness strategies used by Javanese women characters in novel ‘Gadis Pantai’ written by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Furthermore, it is significant to recognize the motivation of the use of politeness strategies by the Javanese women characters in dialogues as it will reveal the way they resort to particular politeness strategies in certain circumstances of relation of power, distance, and imposition in the novel that chiefly depicts the social life of Javanese women in the colonial era. It is a qualitative research with a case study approach. The result shows that the women characters in the novel resort to positive, bald-on record, and negative politeness, in order from the highest frequency to the lowest. Positive politeness is embodied in assertive, directive, expressive and commissive speech acts. Next, bald-on record politeness is found in directive, assertive and expressive speech acts. Last, Negative politeness is represented in directive, assertive and expressive speech acts. The study concludes that the use of politeness strategies is motivated by various power and distance relations. The Javanese women characters are found to opt for a particular type of politeness strategy in the circumstance of a certain power and distance relation with the partner of conversation.