Impoliteness strategies used by the main character in the Hancock movie

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the impoliteness found in the utterances of the main character of the Hancock movie named John Hancock, a man who deserves to be called a superhero because of his efforts to reduce crimes but tends to be disliked by the public because of his impolite words and cause much damage while performing his heroic actions. The researcher is interested in investigating the impoliteness strategies used by John Hancock because, as far as the researcher knows, it is very little that researches on impoliteness strategies make use of action films the main study. Moreover, no study focuses on examining the utterances of one main character in the movie. There are two problems to be solved in this research, namely: (1) What are the types of impoliteness strategies used by the main character in the Hancock action movie and (2) How do interlocutors respond toward the main character’s impoliteness in the Hancock action movie. This study used a qualitative approach because it gathered non-numerical data. Specifically, this research employed descriptive research in textual analysis to analyze the utterance of the main character through the Hancock movie transcript. The data were collected by first transcribing the Hancock movie. The analysis began with highlighting the utterances that include impolite words and the responses toward the impoliteness, giving the certain code of each type of impoliteness strategies and strategies to counter the face attacks, and classifying them into a data card. The analysis was continued by identifying the impoliteness strategies used by the main character in the Hancock movie and identifying strategies to counter the face attacks used by the interlocutors. Finally, the researcher provides the explanations of why particular strategies were used by looking at the background and conversation situation of the main character with the interlocutors.This research reveals that the impoliteness strategy most used by the main character in the Hancock movie is a positive impoliteness strategy. Most of the choices of impoliteness strategies in the main character are influenced by his personality. The power factor, such as superman who can fly, strong, and bulletproof body that is not possessed by others, affects the main character in the use of impoliteness strategies. In addition, this research also reveals that the strategy to counter the face attacks that are most often found in the Hancock movie is the offensive escalation strategy. Most of the choices of strategy to counter the face attacks that applied by the interlocutors emerged because their disagreement that makes them strike back the main character’s statement. It can be concluded that the power factor is one of the factors that can influence the choice of impoliteness strategies, and strategies to counter the face attacks can emerge when a positive self-image has been attacked by the speaker

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