A study of politeness strategies in request by the characters in the novel harry potter and the chamber of secrets

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITYSCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ---  ---NGUYEN THI THUY LINH A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN REQUEST BY THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL “HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBE

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

- 

 -NGUYEN THI THUY LINH

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN REQUEST

BY THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL

“HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS”

M.A THESIS Field:

English Linguistics Code:

8220201

THAI NGUYEN-2021

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

- 

 -NGUYEN THI THUY LINH

A STUDY OF POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN REQUEST

BY THE CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL

“HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS”

M.A THESIS(APPLICATION ORIENTATION)

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Dr Nguyen Thu Hanh

THAI NGUYEN-2021

ĐẠI HỌC THÁI NGUYÊN

TRƯỜNG NGOẠI NGỮ -   -

NGUYỄN THỊ THÙY LINH

NGHIÊN CỨU CHIẾN LƯỢC LỊCH SỰ TRONG LỜI THỈNH CẦU CỦA CÁC NHÂN VẬT TRONG PHẦN

THÁI NGUYÊN-2021

DECLARATION

I hereby certify that my thesis entitled A study of Politeness strategies in

requests by the characters in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” is the result of my own work and the substance of this research has not

been submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions

Thai Nguyen, June 2021Approved by Supervisor

Dr Nguyen Thu Hanh

Student

Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study cannot be completed without the help of many people Therefore,

I would like to show my great thanks to those who have given guidance, support,and encouragement to me during the whole period of this thesis

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratefulness to my supervisor,

Dr Nguyen Thu Hanh for her valuable assistance, sincere advice and great encouragement that she provided to me during the time this research conducted Besides, I would like to express my gratitude to all my lecturers and staff at School

of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University Thanks to their support and consideration, I can pursue and finish the course

Furthermore, I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all classmates

in class K3A for their support and encouragement

Last but not least, I owe a big thank to my parents and close friends whohave always encouraged me to complete this study and taken care of me all thetime

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABBREVIATION v

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES vi

ABSTRACT vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 3

1.3 Objectives of the study 3

1.4 Research questions 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7 Methods of the study 4

1.8 Design of the study 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 The speech act theory 5

2.2 The speech act of requests 7

2.2.1 Definitions of requests 7

2.2.2 A request sequence 8

2.2.1.1 The head act 8

2.2.1.2 The alerter 8

2.2.1.3 Supportive moves 8

2.2.3 Types of requests 9

2.2.3.1 Direct Requests 9

2.2.3.2 Indirect Requests 9

2.2.4 Request strategies 11

2.2.4.1 Direct requests 11

2.2.4.2 Conventionally indirect requests 12

2.2.4.3 Unconventionally indirect requests 12

2.2.5 Modification in performing a request 13

2.2.5.1 Internal modification 13

2.2.5.2 External modification 15

2.3 Politeness 16

2.3.1 Politeness theory 16

2.3.2 Politeness and indirectness 20

2.3.3 Politeness and indirectness in performing requests 21

2.4 Previous studies on politeness strategies in requests 22

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 24

3.1 Research Design 24

3.2 Analytical framework 24

3.3 Data source: “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” 26

3.4 Data collection procedure 27

3.5 Data analysis procedure 27

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS 28

4 1 The utilization of request strategies by the characters in “HPCS” 29

4.1.1 Differences in frequency of request strategies used in “HPCS” 29

4.1.2 Analysing politeness strategies in requests used in “HPCS” 30

4.2 The utilization of modifications by the characters in “HPCS” .33

4.2.1 The use of internal modifications 33

4.2.2 The use of external modifications or supportive moves 36

4.3 Discussions on request strategies in “HPCS” from S-H relationships .37

4.3.1 On the choice of strategies 37

4.3.2 On the use of internal and external modifications .42

4.3.2.1 The use of internal modifications .42

4.3.2.2 The use of external modifications or supportive moves 44

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 47

5.1 Major findings and concluding remarks 47

5.2 Implications 48

5.3 Suggestions for further research 49

REFERENCES 50

APPENDICES 54

CI Conventionally Indirect (Strategy)

UCI Unconventionally Indirect (Strategy)

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1 The categories of Alerters 8

Table 2 Types and strategies of requests 25

Table 3 The differences in the figures for request strategies in “HPCS” 29

Table 4 Polite request strategies by types in “HPCS” 30

Table 5 The use of DR, CI and UCI strategies in “HPCS” seen from S-H relationship 37

Table 6 The use of internal modifications in “HPCS” seen from S-H relationship 42 Table 7 The use of supportive moves in “HPCS” seen from S-H relationship 44

Figure 1 Brown and Levinson’s (1987) five politeness strategies 19

Figure 2 Directness level in the head acts of requests 21

Figure 3 Internal modification in the head acts of requests 26

Figure 4 External modification in the head acts of requests 26

Figure 5 The use of internal modifications in “HPCS” 34

Figure 6 The use of external modifications in “HPCS” 36

ABSTRACT

The speech act of request is a face-threatening act in human’scommunication because it threatens the face of both the speaker and the hearer Thestudy was done to find out how politeness strategies in requests are employed by thecharacters in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J K Rowling.All the requests carrying the illocutionary force of getting somebody to do an actwere collected for analysis The coding system was based on Blum-Kulka et al.(1989)’s coding manual The results indicate that the characters in “Harry Potter andthe Chamber of Secrets” primarily chose the Direct Strategies to form their requests,

in which the Mood Derivable was the most well-liked strategy In terms of InternalModifications, the speakers in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” used awide range of mitigating devices to reduce the requestive force, mostly the Modalform, Interrogative form and Repetition of request With respect to ExternalModifications, the speakers overwhelmingly opted for Grounders to give reasonsfor their requests The findings also showed that the relationships between thecharacters had an impact on the choice of request strategies and mitigating devicesused in the novel

Keywords: Politeness strategies, Request, Modification, Speech Act

According to Mey (2001), communicative competence refers to a languageuser’s knowledge of linguistic forms as well as social knowledge of when, how andwhen to use utterances appropriately In other words, linguistic competence, i.e.grammar and vocabulary is not enough for a language learner to avoid culturalshock, and misunderstandings Therefore, it is vital for language users to acquirepragmatic competence, the ability to use language appropriately in a social context.

In addition, it deals with the use of appropriate grammatical forms for differentcommunicative functions in different sociolinguistic contexts

In recent years, there have been remarkable changes in the course of teachingand learning English in Vietnam, especially when the communicative approachbecame a hot topic among people in the fields of language education As a result,the English curriculum has been geared more toward communication andcommunicative competence is also paid more intention However, the development

of linguistic competence still plays a remarkable role in teaching and learningEnglish Consequently, Vietnamese learners are likely to have difficultycommunicating with English native speakers and leaners of English as well It is the

fact that a large number of Vietnamese learners are said to be able to masterlinguistic forms, yet a few can produce natural and appropriate English speechwhich makes themselves understood because they do not have a perception ofsociocultural rules of use, i.e knowing how to use and respond to languageappropriately The appropriateness depends on the setting of the communication,the topic, and the relationships among the people communicating It also relies onknowing what the taboos of the other culture are, what kind of politeness indices areused in each situation.

A request is “illocutionary whereby the speaker (requester) conveys to thehearer (requestee) that he or she wants the requestee to perform an act which is forthe benefit of the requester” (Trosborg, 1995:187) The act may be a request for anobject, an action or some kind of service or it can be a request for information.Basically, request is a face threatening act (FTA) which commonly put threats onrequestee' s negative face Because of this, many problems will certainly appear ifculture and politeness factors are not taken into account The cultures have theirown politeness standards, so an utterance in general and a request in particular may

be interpreted differently across cultures Moreover, some utterances which areconsidered right and acceptable, or wrong and unacceptable in one country may bejust the opposite in the other The speech act of request has been widely discussed

in pragmatic research by a number of researchers such as Wichmann (2004),Martinez-Flor (2009), Mohammed (2012) Although previous studies haveinvestigated requests in numerous aspects, the use of politeness in request has beenseldom examined, especially in literature which is considered as a reflection ofsociety and culture (Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, 2010) Therefore, the researcherchooses the minor thesis, namely “A study of Politeness strategies in requests by thecharacters in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” by J K Rowlingwith the hope of supporting the aforementioned studies and filling the gap in thearea

1.2 Aims of the study

First of all, the research aims at studying the performance of politenessstrategies in the requests by the characters in the novel "Harry Potter and theChamber of Secrets" In addition, modification devices in requests employed by thecharacters in the novel will be explored

1.3 Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are:

- To discover the choices of politeness strategies in requests employed by thecharacters in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”

- To discover the choices of modification devices in requests employed bythe characters in the novel “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”

1.4 Research questions

The following two main research questions will be addressed:

- What polite strategies are employed by the characters in “Harry Potter andthe Chamber of Secrets” in their requests?

- What modification devices in requests are employed by the characters in

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”?

1.5 Scope of the study

The study focuses entirely on the verbal aspect communication Otherimportant factors such as non-verbal aspects (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.),paralinguistic factors (intonation, pause, speed of speech, etc.) are not taken intoconsideration in this study Theories of speech acts and politeness are applied.Moreover, the study uses the theoretical framework which is based on Blum-Kulka

et al (1989) All the requests made by the characters in “Harry Potter and theChamber of Secrets” are the data source

1.6 Significance of the study

This study is carried out in order to contribute to a better understanding ofspeech acts, especially the speech act of requests in English Moreover, speakersfrom different cultures have different perceptions and norms of the cultures incommunication, which can lead to miscommunication, confusion and culturalconflicts,

so the findings of the study can help to raise Vietnamese learners and teachers’awareness of the use of request strategies in English Consequently,Vietnamese learners could know how to adopt politeness strategies in requests which

is considered one of the most face threatening Aside from that, the results of theresearch could be useful for those who are interested in politeness strategies inrequests

1.7 Methods of the study

The method used in this research is mainly the quantitative method thatemphasizes more on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistic Thestudy makes use of utterances in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” as themajor data source, so counting and measuring are commonly used The results ofthe studies are generally presented in tables and charts or figures

1.8 Design of the study

The thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1 Introduction mentions the rationale of the study, aims of the

study, objectives of the study, research questions, scope of the study, significance ofthe study, methods of the study, overview of the novel and design of the study

Chapter 2 Literature review reviews the literature on speech acts, the

speech act of request and politeness theory

Chapter 3 Methodology outlines the data collection, data analysis, and

analytical framework

Chapter 4 Data analysis gives an overview on “Harry Potter and the

Chamber of Secrets”, an investigation of polite request strategies which provides acollection of examples and detailed to uncover how the characters in the bookmanage their requests politely on their choice of modifications

Chapter 5 Conclusion presents the conclusion of the study, implication, and

suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter which is divided into three sections provides an overview of thetheoretical background of the research First, it discusses the theory of speech actand the speech act of requests Then it mentions the main issues of politeness theoryand indirectness in requests Finally, the chapter reviews some of previous studiesconducted on the speech act of request

2.1 The speech act theory

The theory of speech acts has been studied for ages by numerous researcherssuch as Austin (1962), Grice (1957, 1975), Hymes (1964), Searle (1969, 1975,

1976, 1979), Levinson (1983), Brown and Yule (1983), Yule (1996), etc

Austin’s book How to Do Things with Words (1962) condenses the basic

idea of the speech act theory: saying something means doing, or is part of doing,something, i.e words are (part of) deeds - hence the term speech act In addition,Austin distinguishes a speech act into three levels First, the speaker performs alocutionary act which “is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with acertain sense and reference, which again is roughly equivalent to ‘meaning’ in thetraditional sense” (Austin, 1962:105) The second act we perform is illocutionary,these are “utterances which have a certain (conventional) force” and finally there is

“perlocutionary act: what we bring about or achieve by saying something” (Austin,1962:109) Furthermore, Austin suggested that speech acts are classified into fivecategories: verdictives, exercitives, commissives, behabitives and expositives

Cohen (1996) agrees on Austin’s (1962) theory of speech acts: In attempting toexpress themselves, people do not only produce utterances containing grammaticalstructures and words, they perform actions via those utterances He states thatspeech acts are actions performed via utterances They may be given someparticular labels such as apology, complaint, compliment, invitation, promise orrequest and apply to the speaker’s communicative In fact, the speaker performs alocutionary act which “is roughly equivalent to uttering a certain sentence with acertain sense and reference, which again is roughly equivalent to ‘meaning’ in thetraditional sense” (Austin, 1962:105) The second act we perform is illocutionary,

these are “utterances which have a certain (conventional) force” and finally there is

“perlocutionary act: what we bring about or achieve by saying something” (Austin,1962:109).Therefore, speech acts have to be seen from interactions in real life For

example, in a conference, when the host says “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have

your attention, please?”, it is a request more than a question It is obvious that there

is difference between what is said and what is meant; besides, the multiple layers ofmeaning between the literal meaning of utterance and the act which it performs incontext are very distinct Some utterances are neither statements nor questions aboutsome piece of information, but are actions In this case, it is really a request whichasks the audience to be quiet

The classification of speech acts is developed by Searle (1976), who presentstypology of speech acts which are divided based on the following four dimensions:illocutionary point (force), direction of fit between words and world, expressedpsychological state and propositional content (Searle, 1979:12-20) Hisclassification of speech acts according to their illocutionary point includes fivetypes of general functions:

(i) Representatives (statements of facts, claims, conclusions)

(ii) Directives (requests, orders, commands, questions, advice)

(iii) Commissives (offers, pledges, promises, refusals, threats)

(iv) Expressives (apologies, blames, congratulations, praises, thanks)

(v) Declarations (institutionalized performatives)

In speech act theory, a distinction between direct and indirect speech acts isalso made Huang (2007) states that an utterance is seen as a speech act wheneverthere is a direct relationship between a structure and a function For instance, when

someone says “Close the door”, it has a literal meaning that he/she wants you to

close the door On the contrary, an indirect speech is one that is “performed bymeans of another” That means that there is an indirect relationship between theform and the function of the utterance For example, an interrogative is used to

make a request: “Could you pass the salt?”.

2.2 The speech act of requests

2.2.1 Definitions of requests

Requests are one of the most important speech acts because they occur veryfrequently in everyday situations Hence, out of the speech acts, the speech act ofrequest has continuously drawn much attention in the study of pragmatics

A request is defined as a directive speech act which counts as an attempt toget H (the hearer) to do an act which S (the speaker) wants H to do, and which Sbelieves that H is able to do; and which it is not obvious that H will do in thenormal course of events or of H’s own accord (Blum-Kulka et al., 1984, 1989) To

be more precise, Konakahara (2011) and Chang (2009) define request as anutterance or segment(s) that may include (a) address terms (Alerter), (b) head act,(c) and adjunct(s) to head act The head act is the core part of a request sequencewhich realizes a request independently of other elements (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989)

In other words, the head act is the core element and refers to the request itself or to

the main strategy employed to make the request For example, in “Hi, excuse me,

can

I b o rrow your ne w spaper t o rea d ?”, the head act is the underlined section The

Alerter is an opening element preceding the actual request, used primarily to draw

the hearer’s attention (e.g Pardon me, Mrs Smith, ) Supportive moves are

modifications preceding or following the head act and serving the purpose ofmodifying the intensity of requests

Request, according to Trosborg (1995) and Jalilifar (2009), is a speech actexpressed in order to enable the respondent to react in a way that benefits theindividual making the request Therefore, this speech act has been considered one

of the most threatening speech acts in communication since it fundamentallythreatens the face of the hearer (Brown & Levinson, 1987), and that they involve avariety of interlocutors (ranging from equal status individuals, e.g friends orcolleagues to higher status individuals, e.g professor or manager), requests call forredressive action and require mitigation to compensate for this impositive effect onthe hearer (Fukushima, 1996) The speaker can mitigate the imposition by choosing

an indirect strategy to a direct one, i.e by activating choice on the scale of

indirectness In addition, there is also a range of verbal means available within a given technique to manipulate the degree of imposition involved (Blum-Kulka,1987).

In conclusion, a request has three outcomes First, the speaker says his/herrequest and wants the hearer to do the desired act Second, the hearer may performthe desired act Third, it is unsure that that the hearer will perform the desired act

2.2.2 A request sequence

2.2.1.1 The head act

The head act is the core part of a request sequence which realizes a requestindependently of other elements (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989) In other words, the headact is the core element and refers to the request itself or to the main strategy

employed to make the request For example, in “Hi, excuse me, can I borrow yo u r newspaper to rea d ?”, the head act is the underlined section.

2.2.1.2 The alerter

The alerter is an opening element preceding the actual request, used

primarily to draw the hearer’s attention (e.g Pardon me, Mrs Smith, )

Blum-Kulka et al (1989) categorize the alerters into the following categorization:

Endearment term Honey

Offensive term Stupid cow

Pronoun You

Attention getter Hey, excuse me, listen

Table 1 The categories of Alerters

2.2.1.3 Supportive moves

Supportive moves are modifications preceding or following the head act andserving the purpose of modifying the intensity of requests Færch and Kasper (1989)examined request head acts in terms of their external and internal modifications

Internal modifications are lexical and syntactic modifications that are made into the

request head acts themselves (e.g Could you possibly lend me your notes?).

External modifications, on the other hand, are optional supportive moves that

precede or follow request-carrying sentence to modify them (e.g Look, I was sick a few

days a nd mis s ed s o me class s e ssion s Can I borrow your class notes?)

2.2.3 Types of requests

Request can be divided into several types which can be either DirectRequests or Indirect Requests (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989; Fukushima, 1996;Matrtinez-Flor, 2009; Trosborg, 1995; Wichmann, 2004)

2.2.3.1 Direct Requests

Direct request is often perceived as being aggressive and demanding and it is

often preceded by the use of personal pronouns such as “I ” or “You …” followed

by verbs that express the speaker’s wish or desire such as “like”, “want”, and other verbs of action like “give”, “take” and “make.” For example, “I want my pen back.”

In this example, the speaker declares that he/she asks the hearer to get his/her pen The type of direct request is applied in the strategy of statement of obligation and necessity, the strategy of performatives and the strategy of imperatives, for

example, “Get me the car!” In the sentence, the speaker says his/her request in a

clear and direct instead of saying it unclearly so that the request can be conveyed successfully

2.2.3.2 Indirect Requests

The person is making a request to others in implicit way A person whomakes a request indirectly is perceived more highly than one who makes a directrequest Indirectness displays respect, courtesy and good breeding, for example,

“This place is quite hot.” By saying so, S implicitly wants H to turn the air

conditioner on In this research, the researcher wants to identify the types of request

According to Blum-Kulka et al (1989), Fukushima (1996) and Trosborg,

1995, there are two sub- types of requests based on the direction levels They areUnconventionally Indirect Requests and Conventionally Indirect Requests

* Unconventionally Indirect Requests

When employing an unconventionally indirect request, S indirectly implies adiscrepancy between what he/she said as well as their true intentions because therequest itself is not explicitly stated As a result, S and H are supposed to pay moreattention on the situation which the utterance produced or usually called as speechevent in order to get the point of request The type of unconventionally indirect

request itself can only be applied by using hints, for example, “This place is so hot.”

By telling the situation, S wants to indirectly tell H to turn the air conditioner onsince the weather is hot

* Conventionally Indirect Requests

Requests which are hearer-oriented simply that H is in a position of control

to decide whether or not to comply with the request Hence, “hearer-oriented”requests are generally more polite than requests formulated on “speaker-basedconditions” (Trosborg, 1995:197) However, by employing this strategy, therequester has already shown that he/she does not take compliance for granted H isallowed the option of politely refusing by stating that the condition in question, or

some other condition, is not fulfilled In the example “Could you tidy up the

bathroom soon?”, S asks H’s willingness to clean the bathroom In this case, H is in

the position whether the request should be complied or not

Requests which are formulated as speaker-based convey that S puts his/herown desires in order to make H do the desired act By placing S’s interests aboveH’s, the request becomes more direct in its demand S’s statement of his/her intentmay be expressed politely as a wish or more bluntly as a demand On behalf of therequester, H who responds in a non cooperative way is bound to act in disagreementwith S’s wishes and desires This makes it more difficult for H to refuse The type

of indirect request is applied with the strategy of statements of S’s wishes and

desires and the strategy of statements of S’s need and demands, for example, “I

want you to clean the bathroom.” In this type of request, S’s desire is the focal point

of the interaction Therefore, the request sounds more direct and blunt

2.2.4 Request strategies

According to Blum-Kulka et al (1989), head acts refer to the request proper

or the main strategy employed to make the request To better account for thestructure of requests, request head acts are classified according to increasingindirectness Blum-Kulka et al.’s (1989) lists nine sub-levels of request strategytypes

2.2.4.1 Direct requests

The direct strategy refers to utterances in which the illocutionary act isexplicitly stated There are five sub-strategies, ordered on a scale of directness fromthe most direct to the most indirect: (1) mood derivable, (2) explicit performative,(3) hedge performative, (4) obligation statement, and (5) want statement strategies

- Strategy 1: Mood derivable:

Mood derivable strategies are utterances in which the grammatical mood of the verbsignals illocutionary force Among all request strategies, mood derivable is regarded

as the most direct strategy

For example: Leave me alone.

Clean up the kitchen.

- Strategy 2: Explicit Performative

Performative strategies refer to utterances in which the illocutionary force is explicitly named

For example: I am asking you to move your car.

- Strategy 3: Hedge Performative

The illocutionary verb denoting the requestive intent is modified, such as by using modal verbs or verbs expressing intention

For example: I must/have to ask you to clean the kitchen right now.

- Strategy 4: Obligation statement

Through this strategy, the illocutionary intent is directly derivabe from the semantic

meaning of the locution It seems from the use of modal “have to”, “should” in the

sentence The function is to create politeness and derive the semantic meaning ofrequest

For example: You will have to/ should/must move your car

- Strategy 5: Want statement

The speaker can make a request using utterances which state the speaker’s desirethat the hearer carries out the act In this strategy, the speaker uses the modal verb

“want, like, wish” after the main verb to express his/her desire for the requested

action to be undertaken by the hearer

For example: I would like you to clean the kitchen.

I really wish you’d stop bothering me.

2.2.4.2 Conventionally indirect requests

A conventionally indirect strategy refers to utterances in which theillocutionary act is indirectly stated There are three sub-strategies: (1) suggestoryformulae, and (2) query preparatory sub-strategies

- Strategy 6: Suggestory formulae

The speaker may request someone to do something indirectly by giving suggestion

It has a minimal power of request, so the hearer does not do it forcedly

For example: How about cleaning up?

Why don’t you come and clean up the mess?

- Strategy 7: Query preparatory

The strategy refers to utterances containing reference to preparatory conditions(e.g., ability, willingness) as conventionalized in any specific language

For example: Could you clean up the kitchen, please?

Would you mind moving your car, please?

2.2.4.3 Unconventionally indirect requests

An unconventionally indirect strategy features an utterance in which theillocutionary act is implicit The speaker may mention only a part of the act In otherwords, an unconventionally indirect request gives a hint to the hearer With hints,the speakers do not make their requests known explicitly; they only refer tosomething related to the requested act The context helps with the interpretation ofthe request

- Strategy 8: Strong hints

Giving a strong hint provides a strong clue for the hearer to do the requested action,but the intention of the request is not overt.

For example: You have left the kitchen in a right mess (Intent: getting the hearer to

clean the kitchen)

- Strategy 9: Mild hints

Giving a mild hint provides fewer clues for the hearer to do the requested action.The speaker may refer to only one related component, and the interpretation is left

to the hearer

For example: We don’t want any crowding (Intent: getting hearer to move the car)

2.2.5 Modification in performing a request

2.2.5.1 Internal modification

Internal modifications refer to the linguistic elements which occur within thesame head act Specifically, they are linguistic or syntactic devices that are used byspeakers to modulate the illocutionary force of their request In the CCSARP codingmanual (Blum-Kulka et al., 1989), internal modifications are subcategorized asdowngraders and upgraders Furthermore, downgraders fall into two classes:syntactic and lexical/phrasal downgraders

- Syntactic downgraders: are the devices that function as downgraders which

mitigate the imposition of request utterances The classification of syntacticdowngraders as follows:

+ Interrogative Form: an actual request but its impact is decreased: Will you

help me?

+ Modal Form: Some modal verbs can be used to reduce the speaker’s

authority on the hearer: Could you help?

+ Negation Preparatory: negation can be a mitigation device which is used to

provide the hearer with more optionality: You couldn’t give me lift, could you?

+ Subjunctive: Might be better if you were to leave now.

+ Aspect: I was wondering if I could audit the class.

+ Past tense: using the past form of a verb instead of the present one with out

changing the meaning of the utterance: I wanted to ask you to present your paper a

week earlier.

+ Conditional clause: the speakers to make themselves less involved in the

request by using conditional clauses: I wanted to know if…

- Lexical/Phrasal downgraders: Apart from syntactic downgraders, lexical

downgraders which are words and expressions are also employed by speakers todecrease the illocutionary force of a request Their classification according to Blum-Kulka et al (1989) as follows:

+ Politeness marker: lexical items like ‘please’, ‘kindly’, etc which can be

added to a request to bid for cooperative behavior: Could you close the window,

please?

+ Hedges: devices like “somehow”, “kind of”, “sort of”, “more or less”

used to show hesitancy, possibility and avoid a precise specification: It would really

help if you did something about the kitchen.

+ Downtoners: adverbials or modal particles such as ‘possibly’, ‘perhaps’,

etc., which are used by a speaker in order to modulate the impact of his or her

request on the hearer: Will you be able to perhaps drive me?

+ Understaters: elements such as ‘a bit’, ‘a little’, ‘sort of’, ‘kind’ which can

be used by the speaker to minimize parts of the imposition: Could you tidy up a

bit before I start?

+ Subjectivizers: elements such as ‘I wonder’, ‘I suppose’ in which the

speaker expresses his or her subjective opinion directly related to the state of affair,

thus lower the force of the request: I wonder if you would give me a lift.

+ Cajolers: devices such as ‘You know’, ‘you see’ which are employed to

make things clearer to the hearer and invite him or her to figuratively participate in

the speech act: You know, I’d like you to present your paper next week.

+ Appealers: devices such as ‘is that alright?’ ‘ok/right?’, ‘will you’ used

by the speaker to appeal to the hearer’s benevolent understanding: Clean up the

kitchen, dear, will you?

- Upgraders: are words and expressions are also employed by speakers to increase

the illocutionary force of a request Typical upgraders consist of :

+ Intensifiers: The speaker over-represents the reality: The kitchen in a

terrible mess.

+ Expletives: The speaker directly expresses negative emotions: Why don’t

you clean that bloody mess up?

+ Repetition of request: Get lost! Leave me alone!

+ Time Intensifiers: You’d better move your car right now/ immediately!

2.2.5.2 External modification

External modifications or supportive moves are composed of elements thatare external the Head act and can either precede or follow it They are also optionalstatements whose function is to indirectly modify a request’s illocutionary force bymitigating or aggravating it Some categories are offered by Blum-Kulka et al.(1989) are as follows:

- Preparator: short utterance that the speaker uses to prepare the hearer for the

request: “I’d like to ask you something…” “May I ask you something?”

- Getting precommitment: the speaker checks on a possible rejection before

performing the request by trying to get the hearer to commit: “Could you do me a

favor?”

- Grounder: a clause allows the speaker to gives reasons, explanations and

justifications for the request: “Could I borrow your notes? I missed class

yesterday”

- Disarmer: a phrase with which the speaker attempts to remove any potential

objection the hearer might raise: “I know you don’t like giving extensions, but…” “I

realize this is an unusual favor I am asking…”

- Promise of reward: the speaker offers a reward to enhance the hearer’s

enforcement: “Could you give me a lift? I’ll pitch in for gas”.

- Imposition minimizer: the speaker tries to reduce the imposition on the hearer by

the request offered: “Would you mind reading my paper, but only if you have the

time, of course.”

2.3 Politeness

2.3.1 Politeness theory

In everyday life, people communicate with each other to build relationshipfor different purposes such as giving information, making comments, invitations,greetings, compliments, apology, complaints, or requests Besides, the degree ofcloseness or how well we know the speaker/hearer has an effect on the way wecommunicate Yule (1996:59) states that “that much of what we say, and a greatdeal of what we communicate, are determined by our social relationships” Thismeans that we need to give careful consideration to the language we use, theexpressions we choose, and the attitude we show while transferring our massages tothe hearers through communication This situation is related to what is calledPoliteness Many researchers have been trying to define what politeness is so thatcommunicative goals can be most successfully achieved

According to Yule (1996:60), “Politeness, is in an interaction, can be defined

as the means employed to show awareness of another person’s face.” The term

“face” is also acknowledged by him and defined as “the public self-image of aperson” Furthermore, politeness is recognized as “the idea of polite social behavior,

or etiquette, within a culture.” To be more specific, politeness is “a number ofdifferent general principles for being polite, in social interaction within a particularculture.” Watts (2003: 97,119) argues that the assessment by the addressee of thebehavior of the speaker, rather than the behavior or intention of the speaker, is whatdetermines whether or not politeness arises Politeness is recently considered “as asociocultural phenomenon, roughly to be defined as showing, consideration ofothers” (Wang, 2014: 271) Accordingly, politeness can be interpreted as areference to the language user’s attention to appropriate use of that language in view

of the speaker/ hearer/ context requirements or demands of the face-to-faceinteraction

Many researchers have been interested in the field of politeness with variouspoints of view and from different aspects The most influential theories of politeness

are those of Lakoff (1975), Leech (1983), Brown and Levinson (1987), Barron.(2003).

Lakoff (1975) sees politeness as a structure of interpersonal relationshipsaimed at reducing potential conflict and possible confrontation in humaninteractions The purpose of this system is to promote human interaction and itconsists of three rules

(1) Don’t impose (Distance) It is involved in distance and formality This rule ofpoliteness is usually applied when there is much social distance between the speakerand the hearer For example, when a worker and his manage is having a mealtogether and he wants some salt, he uses the expression “I’m sorry to bother you,but could you pass me the salt?”

(2) Give option (Difference) It is used for cases in which we give options to ourhearer in giving response either to refuse or accept For instance: “I wonder if youcould open the window”

(3) Make audience feel good (Camaraderie) It is associated with the case in whichthe requester makes the requestee feel appreciated For example: “I would reallyappreciate if you lend me your book”

Leech (2005) introduces politeness by anlyzing illocutionary acts and forces

He asserts that an illocutionary act is a speech act or more precisely an act thatpredicts something An illocutionary act may therefore be a request, an order or anapology He also categorizes illocutionary acts into four distinct types according tohow they relate to the social goal of establishing and maintaining comity as follows:(a) Competitive: The illocutionary goal competes with the social goal; e.g orderingasking, demanding, begging;

(b) Convivial: The illocutionary goal matches with the social goal; e.g offering,inviting, greeting, thanking, congratulating;

(c) Collaborative: The illocutionary goal is indifferent to the social goal; e.g.asserting, reporting, announcing, instructing;

(d) Conflictive: The illocutionary goal conflicts with the social goal; e.g.threatening, accusing, cursing, reprimanding

Leech (Ibid) affirms that the first two acts involve politeness The former isrelated to negative politeness, while the latter calls for positive politeness.Moreover, Leech (2005) suggests a set of maxims to form the Politeness principlesuch as:

(1) Tact maxim: “minimize the expression of beliefs which imply cost to other;maximize the expression of beliefs which imply benefit to other”

(2) Generosity maxim: “minimize the expression of benefit to self; maximize the expression of cost to self”

(3) Approbation maxim: “minimize the expression of beliefs which expressdispraise of other; maximize the expression of beliefs which express approval ofother”

(4) Modesty maxim: “minimize the expression of praise of self; maximize the expression of dispraise of self”

(5) Agreement maxim: “minimize the expression of disagreement between self andother; maximize the expression of agreement between self and other”

(6) Sympathy maxim: “minimize antipathy between self and other; maximize

sympathy between self and other”

Brown and Levinson (1987) develop another theory of politeness which isalso regarded as the most influential work in politeness theory by many researcherssuch as Eelen (2001), Leech (2005), LoCastro (2012) In their model, politeness isdefined as the redressing of the affronts to face posed by face-threatening acts(FTAs) The basic notion of their model is “face” According to Brown and Leech(2005) and LoCastro (2012), “face” is the public self-image that every member ofsociety wants to claim for himself In their framework, face is divided into tworelated aspects One is “negative face” which is defined as the rights to beindependent, to have freedom and not to be constrained by others The other is

“positive face” which is the need to be accepted, appreciated and approved of by atleast some other people In social interaction, minimizing face-threatening to aminimum due to facial vulnerability is usually in the shared interest of theparticipants Brown and Levinson (1987) propose five politeness strategies that

interlocutors can use to avoid or minimize face threatening acts The strategies are presented as follows:

Figure 1 Brown and Levinson’s (1987) five politeness strategies

In their model of politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987) distinguish anumber of options and strategies available to the speaker for doing FTAs Theyclassify all the strategies into five broad categories, arranged from the least polite tothe most polite in politeness degree The least polite strategy is to do an act baldly,without redress It means doing it in the most direct, clear, unambiguous andconcise way possible By redressive action a speaker can give face to the addressee

to counteract the potential face damage of the FTA and therefore be more polite.Such redressive action takes the form of either positive politeness, which is orientedtoward the positive face of the hearer, the desire to be approved, or negativepoliteness, which is oriented toward hearer’s negative face, his basic want tomaintain claims of territory and self-determination If an interlocutor addresses theother directly and makes his communicative intention quite clear, then he is said to

go on recording doing an act The first three are therefore all on record strategies Incomparison, an off record strategy is often more polite as it means more than oneintention has been conveyed and the interlocutor does not need to commit himselffor one particular intention The fifth, which is not to do the FTA at all, is the mostpolite

In general, regardless of obvious differences in expressing, the aforementioned theories of politeness do supplement one another Politeness

strategies applied in utterances are paid much attention so that the speakers avoid the imposition on the hearers and then make them possible to achieve their goal.

2.3.2 Politeness and indirectness

There are many studies on the correlation between politeness and indirectness such as Ariel (2010), Bach (2004), Wang (2014), Watts (2003)

According to Ariel (2010), indirectness can be seen as the cases in which one illocutionary act is performed indirectly via the performance of another An indirect illocutionary act requires the shared background information of the speaker and the listener and the ability to make inferences on the part of the listener

Bach (2004) assumes a relationship between indirectness and politeness.According to him, indirect illocutions tend to be more polite because they increasethe degree of optionality and because the more indirect an illocution is, the morediminished and tentative its force tends to be” It means that indirectness implicitsoptionality for the hearer, and the degree of politeness can be increased "by using amore and more indirect kind of illocution

Wang (2014), in accordance with Leech’s perspective, affirms that there aresignificant parallels between the notions of politeness and indirectness Indirectness

is defined by them as a set of politeness strategies which can be used to minimizeimposition on the hearer and to establish solidarity between the speaker and thehearer

Unlike the aforementioned researchers, Watts (2003) views the relationshipbetween politeness and indirectness differently Although she approves thatpoliteness and indirectness are related, she argues that indirectness does not alwaysimply politeness and too much indirectness may be viewed as lack of clarity which

is a marker of impoliteness

To conclude, although there may be different perspectives on the relationshipbetween politeness and indirectness, it is acknowledged that politeness andindirectness seem to be closely related Indirectness is commonly used as a means

to achieve politeness, but it can be different in various social contexts

2.3.3 Politeness and indirectness in performing requests

As discussed, higher levels of indirectness may lead to higher levels ofpoliteness Leech (1983) states that direct requests seem to be inherently impoliteand face- threatening because they intervene in the territory of the addressee, andthey also argue that the preference for polite behavior is indirectness Furthermore,

Ashoorpour and Azari (2014) propose that the degree of politeness can beincreased by using more indirect illlocutions The connection between indirectnessand politeness in requests is further supported by Searle’s observation that

“politeness is the most prominent motivation for indirectness in requests, and

certain forms tend to become theconventionally polite ways of making indirect requests” (Searle, 1975:76)

By making a request, the speaker imposes on the hearer’s freedom andthreatens his/her negative face The hearer may feel that the request is an intrusion

on his/her freedom of action Besides, the speaker may hesitate to make requests forfear of exposing a need or out or threaten the face of the hearer (Blum-Kulka et al.,1989:11) In this sense, requests are face-threatening to both the speaker and thehearer As a result, there is a need for the speaker to minimize the effect ofimposition on the addressee There are different strategies when it comes to therealization of the request and the level of directness that will play a part in howpolitely the request is rendered The Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act RealizationPatterns (CCSARP) on requests and apologies by Blum-Kulka et al (1989)specified three levels of directness which could be considered universal: explicitlevel, the most direct form of request, which includes imperatives; conventionally

indirect level, which includes contextualized predictions that include could and

would in the request form; and nonconventional

indirect level in which the request will be made more as a hint as follows:

Direct request Close the door  Bald on record:

Please close the door  On record:

Conventional indirect request: Would you mind closing the door?  On record

Unconventional indirect request: I feel a bit cold here  Off record

Figure 2 Directness level in the head acts of requests

In summary, the link between indirectness and politeness are important inperforming requests While the scale of indirectness seems to follow similar pattern

in all languages, but the specific directness levels appropriate for given situationsmay differ cross-culturally

2.4 Previous studies on politeness strategies in requests

By far, there have been a lot of studies conducted on the relationshipbetween requests and politeness

A study by Abdul Majeed A Umar (2004) involved 20 advanced Arablearners of English The study uses Discourse Completion Test as a tool to collectdata related to the request strategies The findings show that Arab students ofEnglish, even at advanced levels, may revert to their cultural background whenformulating their requests strategies

Another study carried out by Hilbig (2009) investigates the request strategies

in Lithuanian and British English based on the principles from Blum-Kulka et al.’s(1989) CCSARP The results demonstrate that both groups used conventionallyindirect requests, but the Lithuanians used more direct strategies (e.g., imperatives)and Unconventionally indirect strategies (e.g., hints) Additionally, positivepoliteness strategies were more popular among Lithuanian speakers

Until now, speech acts in general and requests in particular have been represented in pragmatics literature in Vietnam Vu Thi Thanh Huong (1997, 1999)conducted a research on requests and politeness in Vietnamese She collectednatural requests from a group of Vietnamese native speakers when they werecommunicating in different social contexts The findings reveal that Vietnamesespeakers are more concerned with a high degree of directness in making requests.They also prefer to use supportive elements with politeness effects rather than useindirectness For expressing politeness, indirectness is often used as a politenessdevice though it does not rank as high as mitigated directness on politenesscontinuum

under-Another study to be mentioned was carried out by Dau (2007), focusing onthe relationship between politeness and indirectness used in the speech acts of

making requests in English and Vietnamese The study shows some primary differences in making requests in English and Vietnamese.

Luong Thanh Hong (2012) did research on the politeness strategies inrequest in the movie series “Harry Potter” for her minor M.A thesis at University ofLanguages and International Studies, Vietnam National University The researchfollows the framework of Brown and Levinson (1987) According to the results, thecharacters in the movie series use positive politeness strategies in their requestsmore often than negative politeness and the use of positive politeness strategiesrelying on social relationship The characters having close relationship tend toemploy more positive politeness strategies than the other groups and those whohave neutral relationship are more in favor of using negative politeness strategies

Overall, these studies examined the relationship between politeness andindirectness related to requests Additionally, they also provided a relatively fullunderstanding in single language, interlanguage, and cross-culture pragmatics

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the research method including research design would use bythe researcher Then, this research explained the data and the source data, the key ofinstrument, the data collecting techniques and the data analysis techniques

3.1 Research Design

Qualitative research is a mean for exploring and understanding the meaningindividuals or group ascribe to a social or human problem The process of researchinvolved emerging questions and procedures, the data typically collected in theparticipant’s setting, the data analysis inductively building from particulars togeneral themes and the researcher making interpretation of the meaning of data(Kasper, 2000)

This research used qualitative research because the data was not analyzed bystatistical procedures Qualitative researcher as a human instrument to determineresearch focus, choosing informant as data sources, doing the collecting data,evaluating the availability of data, interpreting and making conclusion Thisresearch could be taken to the research that was based on descriptive data that didnot make (regular) statistical procedures

In brief, a descriptive qualitative method was used by the researcher becausethis research only consisted of the utterances or expression of each character in

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”

Based on the previous studies on the speech act of request (Blum-Kulka etal., 1989; Fukushima, 1996; Matrtinez-Flor, 2009; Trosborg, 1995; Wichmann,2004), there are three main types of request namely direct request, unconventionally

indirect request, and conventionally indirect request; and there are nine strategies ofrequest such as mild hints, strong hints, questioning hearer’s ability and willingness,suggestory formulae, statements of speaker’s wishes and desires, statements ofspeaker’s need and demand, statement of obligations and necessities, performatives,and imperatives The following table will illustrate the types and strategies ofrequests.

Request types

Request strategies (presented at levels of decreasing directness)

Situation: Speaker requests to Hearer to clean the kitchen

Direct requests

Str 1: Mood derivable Clean up the kitchen!

Str 2: Explicit performative I ask you to clean the kitchen.

Str 3: Hedge performative I must ask you to clean the

kitchen

Str 4: Obligation statement You have to clean the kitchen.

Str 5: Want statement I would like you to clean the

kitchen.

Conventionally

indirect requests

Str 6: Suggestory formulae How about cleaning the kitchen?

Str 7: Query preparatory Could you clean up the kitchen,

Table 2 Types and strategies of requests

Apart from strategies of request, modification can be used to perform arequest Specifically, modification refers to linguistic or syntactic devices that areused by speakers to modulate the force of their request Below is the summary ofmodification in performing a request which was used as a guideline for the datacollection There will be two groups of modification: Internal modification andexternal modification

Syntactic downgraders

Lexical downgraders

Upgraders

Interrogative form: Can I ask for a leave?

Past tense: Could you please turn down the TV?

Modal form: May I borrow your book?

Negation preparatory: You couldn ’t give me lift, could you?

Subjunctive: Mig h t be better if you were to leave now.

Aspect: I w as wo n der i ng if I could audit the class

Conditional clause: I w anted to know…

Politeness marker: Pl e ase close the door.

Hedges: It is som e how cold here.

Downtoner: Will you be able to p e rhaps drive me?

Understater: Could you tidy up a b it faster?

Subjectivizer: I w o nder if you would give me a lift

Cajoler: Y ou kno w , I’d like you to do it now

Appealer: Clean up the kitchen, dear, will yo u ?

Intensifier: The kitchen is in a te r rible mess

Expletive: Why don’t you clean that blo o dy mess up? Repetition of request: Get lost! L eave me al o ne!

Time intensifiers: You’d better clean it im med iately.

Figure 3 Internal modification in the head acts of requests

- Preparator: I’d like to ask you something…

- Getting precommnitment: Could you do me a favor?

- Grounder: I missed class yesterday Could I borrow …?

- Disarmer: I know you don’t like giving extensions, but can I …

- Promise of reward: Could you give me a lift? I’ll pitch in for gas.

- Imposition minimizer: Would you mind reading my paper, but only if you have

the time, of course.

Figure 4 External modification in the head acts of requests

3.3 Data source: “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” is a fantasy novel written byBritish author J K Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series Thebook was first published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 The edition which isused as the main material for this study was released in September 2014 by the samepublisher of the first

one which is Bloomslury The book received a lot of high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry.

The book revolves around Harry Potter’s second year at Hogwarts School ofWitchcraft and Wizardry After a horrible summer at home with the Dursleys, Harrycan not wait to return to Hogwarts for his second year although he is warned by anelf named Dobby that he must not return to the school, for great danger awaits himthere Finally, he is rescued from his bedroom prison with the help of Ron and hisbrothers in their flying car At school, some students are targeted by maliciousclassmates and persecuted emotionally for not coming from “pureblood” wizardingfamilies Several of these “mudbloods”, who are the students with non-wizardancestors, are petrified by the idea of a monster that is rumored to live deep beneaththe school in a secret chamber Harry and his friends must solve the mystery beforethe monster goes beyond petrifaction and kills again At the end of this story Harryagain meets and defeats Voldemort, his main enemy throughout the whole serieswhile questioning his own character and ancestry

3.4 Data collection procedure

The data source of this study was taken from a hard copy of “Harry Potter andthe Chamber of Secrets” (hereafter “HPCS”) Request utterances were chosen as datataken from the characters in the novel The instrument of the data was coveringmaterial by analytical thoughts The methods of data collecting techniques were asfollows:

1 Reading “HPCS” as the primary source of data form;

2 Re-reading “HPCS” several times to find the relevant data;

3 Identifying the requests by the characters in “HPCS” and marking them with the use of highlighter pens;

4 Cutting the highlighted requests out of the hard copy; and

5 Storing all the paper pieces containing requests in a clear bag

3.5 Data analysis procedure

The analysis of the data is based on a modified classification ofrequest strategies originally presented by Blum-Kulka et al (1989) Thestrategies were classified under three degree of directness: 1) Direct, 2)

Conventionally Indirect, 3) Unconventionally Indirect Besides the main strategiesknown as the “head act” (Blum-

Kulka & Olshtain, 1984) are examined, requests can also be coded in terms

of modifications, mainly in two groups: Internal modification and externalmodifications The result of the research was a then presented in tables and charts

In this study, the researcher applied referential analysis technique, in which thedata were analyzed referring to the employed techniques Meanwhile, the steps ofdata analysis were mentioned in the following

1 After the data were collected, they were categorized manually based on theclassification of the two objectives of the study and the analytical frameworksuggested by Blum-Kulka et al (1989) The data that werecollected would be transferred into categorization system that was drawn to atable which was illustrated below:

4 Fourthly, to circulate the percentage of the data, the researcher used thepercentage formula in Microsoft Excel after having counted the number ofrequests in each category

5 Finally, the conclusion of the research was made based on the result of theresearch

CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS

This chapter will give an overview of the novel “Harry Potter and theChamber of Secrets” (“HPCS”) and then investigate how the characters in the novelmake their requests politely by the frequency of using politeness strategies in theirrequests as well as how S-H relation affects their choice of politeness strategies.The request strategies presented in Chapter 3 will serve as an instrument for theclassification of the data

4 1 The utilization of request strategies by the characters in “HPCS”

4.1.1 Differences in frequency of request strategies used in “HPCS”

The characters in the novel “HPCS” employ a variety of polite requeststrategies which were categorized into three major types It is obvious from Table 3that the most frequently used request strategy types are Direct (DR) andConventionally Indirect (CI) ones, with the occurring rate of the former beingsignificantly higher than that of the latter The results show that 379 requestutterances (80.1%) out of 473 fall into the Direct category, and 75 (15.9%) belong

to the Conventionally Indirect ones The least common request strategies in

“HPCS” are Unconventionally Indirect (UCI) with the frequency of 4% (19

utterances) (See Appendix D, Figure A for illustration)

appearance (n) Percentage (%)

Table 3 The differences in the figures for request strategies in “HPCS”

As can be seen from the data, the characters in “HPCS” choose the DRstrategies to an enormous extent in making their requests This can be explained bythe fact that Western cultures give greater significance to directness which mayshow friendliness and concerns Additionally, in “HPCS”, emergencies and extremetensions appear with a relatively high frequency, so direct strategies need to be used