CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

This chapter elaborates on the background of the study, problem statements, and objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope and limitation of the study and clarification definition of the key terms.
1.1 . Background of the Study
Since all of the people still exist or live in this world, they need significant tool to play their life. It is called a “language”. Human use it to transfer their ideas, thought, and messages. Meaning that they need a language as tool of communication. We can imagine how if there is no language or a tool to transfer an idea? Human can not develop their lives. Other wise, by transferring their ideas, thought, and messages, human can create a civilization. They can discuss what they think and feel through language.
However, not all of the languages can make our conversation (writers and readers, speakers and listeners) feel confortable. The speakers or writers should select their words by using politenes. Politeness is the expression of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another (Mills, 2003: 6). According to Brown and Levinson, politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations.
Then, semantics is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquistion (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language cahnge (how meanings alter over time). It is important for undrstanding language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding variesties of English and effects of style. It is one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, imterpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and pharaphrased. In short semantics and politeness cannot be separeted each other since they will influence the maintain of our conversation. .
In case of communication, the people will choose the strategy to have polite conversation. People use semantic politeness in order to get conversation run well and go smoothly. Brown and Levinsion (1978) state that recognize what people are doing in verbal exchange (e.g. requesting, offering, criticizing, complaining, etc) not so much by what they overtly claim to be doing as in fine linguistics details of utterances. It means that not only speaking in fine linguistics but also considering other’s feeling are important. In other word, speaking politeness involves taking account of other’s feeling and being polite person means that he should make others fell comfortable.
However, sematic politeness and culture have good relationship, so they cannot be separated each other. Msinambouw (1984) in Chaer and Agustin stated that a language has a function as communication among societies, so the people must ,really, understand the culture norms that play in that society. The norm system is called as languge etiquettes.
Meanwhile, language etiquettes really correlate with language choice, social norms, and the culture system itself that play in that society. Further more, language etiquettes will govern: a) what, where, and how we are talking about, we have to understand and know the culture and social level believed by the participants, b) what language that is proper to be used in that certain cultures, c) when and how to take turn during the conversation, d) when we should be silent, and d) we have to determine when we should speak loud and use our gesture
As explained above that semantic politeness is also influenced by culture and norm, different culture and people will have different semantic politeness and the way they speak. Yule (1983: 190) explains that two people growing up in the same geographical area, at same time, may speak differently because of number of social factors. It is important not to overlook this social aspect of language because, in many ways, speech is a form or social identify and is used, consciously or unconsciously, to indicate membership of different social groups or different speech communities.
Furthermore, S.I. Hayakawa (linguistic behaviorism) actually said that language that how we talk determines how we think (to paraphrase something the semanticist a kind of and that the structure of language creates the structure of the world) Wittgenstein convinced that If we talk with grammatical gender, so this goes, then this determines not only that we think in exactly the same way but that the grammatical structure is projected into the world
It is very interesting to study how speaker or writer can convince his or her audience and readers, how he or she can make people feel comfortable by his or her words even until people change their minds or attitudes in their lives. One of the examples is semantic politeness. In speech, the main goal of the speaker when he or she is delivering a speech in front of audience is to convince or to make people trust him or her. Further purpose is to change their attitude in accordance with what has been delivered.
So that, in this study, the researcher will investigate the phenomenon of semantic politeness used by among three leaders of English speaking countries. For, the researcher believes that among of English speaking countries will have different semantic politeness to deliver their speeches.
The researcher is going to choose Barack Obama’s, Rudd’s, and Elibeth”s speeches as the object of research. Therefore, will analyzes “ Cross Linguistic Study of Semantic Politeness on Leaders of There Speaking Countries”.
1.2 . Problem Statements
Based on the background of the study above, the research questions can be formulated as follows:
1. what are the kinds of semantic politeness used by Barack Obama’s, Rudd’s, and Elibeth”s speeches?
2. how do they use the kind of semantic politeness?
1.3 . Objectives of the Study
This study is aimed at describing techniques of semantic politeness which are used by Barack Obama, Rudd, and Elisabeth in their speeches and how Barack Obama, Rudd, and Elisabeth use semantic politeness in their speeches.
1.4 . Significance of study
This study is significance to enrich our understanding about semantic politeness in text of speech. In addition, this study will be valuable source or reference for those who concern in semantic politeness.
1.5. Scope and Limitation of Study
This study is focusing on analyzing the words, the utterances, or the expressions which have semantic politeness in Barack Obama’s, Rudd’s, and Elisabeth’s speeches. And the researcher will not analyze the gesture and face of them.
1.6. Definition of Key terms
Semantics : a branch of linguistics which studies meanings.
Politeness : the expression of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another
Cross Linguistics : the comparative study of language use.
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents some theories that are related to this study. The discussion covers politeness, semantics, and theory of politeness. The detailed explanation is described in the following sub-headings.
2.1 Politeness and Semantics
Politeness is the expression of the speakers’ intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another (Mills, 2003: 6). According to Brown and Levinson, politeness strategies are developed in order to save the hearers' "face." Face refers to the respect that an individual has for him or herself, and maintaining that "self-esteem" in public or in private situations.
The most important tenet of Brown and Levinson’s original text on politeness theory is that we change our language based on the hearer and thus our strategies for compliance gaining change depending on the audience. In everyday life, we design messages that protect face and achieve other goals as well. Politeness is the expression of the speaker’s intention to mitigate face threats carried by certain face threatening acts toward another.
Politeness consists of attempting to save face for another. Brown and Levinson begin with the idea of ‘model persons’, rational agents who think strategically and are conscious of their language choices. This influenced Brown and Levinson when examining Goffman’s version of face, where they agreed that rational agents have both positive and negative face. Simply put, they believe that model persons want to maintain others’ face, but nevertheless are often forced to commit face threatening acts. Thus, politeness strategies are developed in order to formulate messages in order to save the hearer’s face when face threatening acts are inevitable or desired. This means that the speaker avoids embarrassing the listener or making him feel uncomfortable.
Face needs are thought of as the desire to be appreciated and protected. Face is further broken down into two different categories: positive face and negative face. Positive face is the desire to be liked and appreciated. Positive politeness is designed to meet the face needs by performing an action like complimenting or showing concern for another person. Negative face is the desire to be autonomous and not to infringe on the other person. Negative politeness is designed to protect the other person when negative face needs are threatened. Thus there are different strategies to handle face threatening acts and these strategies are put into a hierarchy of effectiveness.
Then, semantics is the study of meaning. It is a wide subject within the general study of language. An understanding of semantics is essential to the study of language acquistion (how language users acquire a sense of meaning, as speakers and writers, listeners and readers) and of language cahnge (how meanings alter over time). It is important for undrstanding language in social contexts, as these are likely to affect meaning, and for understanding variesties of English and effects of style. It is one of the most fundamental concepts in linguistics. The study of semantics includes the study of how meaning is constructed, imterpreted, clarified, obscured, illustrated, simplified negotiated, contradicted and pharaphrased. In short semantics and politeness cannot be separeted each other since they will influence the maintain of our conversation



2.2 Brown and Levinsion’s Theory of Politeness strategies
Brown and Levinson outline four main types of politeness strategies: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and off-record or indirect strategy.
First, bald on record strategies do not attempt to minimize the threat to the hearer’s face. This strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their audience. With the bald on record strategies there is a direct possibility that the audience will be shocked or embarrassed by the strategy. For example, a bald on record strategy might be to tell your sister to “do the dishes. It’s your turn.”
The second strategy is positive politeness and this strategy attempts to minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face. This strategy is most commonly used in situations where the audience knows each other fairly well. Quite often hedging and attempts to avoid conflict are used. For example, a positive politeness strategy might be the request “It would be great if you could do the dishes for me.”
The third strategy is negative politeness which presumes that the speaker will be imposing on the listener. The potential for awkwardness or embarrassment is greater than in bald on record strategies and positive politeness strategies. Negative face is the desire to remain autonomous. Thus, a request without consideration of the listener’s negative face might be uncomfortable: “I need $5” is awkward if five dollars is outside the listener’s financial capabilities. But if the speaker, knowing that the listener wants to maintain their autonomy, adds an out for the listener like “I know you’ve been kinda strapped for cash, but could I borrow $5?”, the listener is more likely to give them that money because the request showed a respect for their ability to maintain autonomy.

The final politeness strategy outlined by Brown and Levinson is the indirect strategy; This strategy uses indirect language and removes the speaker from the potential to being imposing. For example, a speaker using the indirect strategy might merely say “wow, it’s getting cold in here” insinuating that it would be nice if the listener would get up and turn up the thermostat without directly asking the listener to do so.
2.3 Previous study
There are some previous study that have similar field with reseach, but having differnt object discussion. Those are
Lailiyah (2003) is from the State Islamic University og Malang. She investigated positive and negative politeness strategies are used by farmers in Ngronggot Nganjuk. It is known that Nganjuk farmers used Krama Inggil when communicating wiht elders people to respect them and it is used in formal situation. They used Ngoko with their younger or their friends. The result, Nganjuk farmers often use positive politeness while communicating with others. Such as seeking argreement; giving and asking for reason; using given name (in-group identity markers); noticing to hearer’s wants/needs exaggreting sympathy or approval with hearer; intensifying interesting.
Subiyanto anf Allein (2005) are two persons who studied about the used og linguistic politeness in Javanese. Their researchers are about thye Javanese speech level, which are Krama, Madya, Ngoko. Krama and Madya often used to show respect to elders or superior or someone who has higer status than us, wheter Ngoko often used to our juniors or our freinds. From this reseach is known that Javanese people tend to to use positve politeness in respecting to the elders.
Although the present study is quiet similar with those previous studies, the researcher hopes that it can be also lead the next researcher as references in conducting research in linguistics field, especially who studies in the same framewrok that is semantic politeness.

CAHPTER III
RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Research Design
In conducting this research, the researcher uses the descriptive qualitative research. The researcher uses this method because he wants to get a brief description including the semantic politeness and its kinds used by Barck Obamas’, Rudd’s, and Elisabeth’s speeches.
3.2. Research Subject
The research subject of this study is the words, utterances, or the expressions which are used by Barack, Rudd, and Elisabeth in their text of specches. Then the researcher will categorize the words, utterances, or the expression which belong to semantic politeness.
3.3. Research Instruments
In this research, the researcher is the main instrument in obtaining and analyzing the data. To get the data, the researcher takes the text of the speeches of Barack, Rudd, and Elisabeth After that, the researcher searches the words or the expressions which are categorized as semantic politeness in that speeches.
3.4. Research Procedure
Data is collected by finding out the words, the utterances, or the expressions which are categorized as semantic politeness. The researcher will investigate the data related to the study by reading the text. Then, the researcher will look for the words or phrases used differently the Barack, Rudd, and Elisabeth’s speeches.



3.5. Data Analysis
After obtaining the data, the researcher comes to the analysis steps. The data area analyzed as the following steps. First the researcher classifies the words or phrases considered semantic politeness used by Barack, Rudd, and Elisabeth’s speeches. Then , those data is going to be presented and analyzed by explaining it deeply related to the reason of using it, the alternative word substituting it, etc. Then the researcher will try to compare semantic politeness used among Barack, Rudd, and Elisabeth’s speeches. And finally the researcher makes the final conclusion.