Politeness Strategies for Managing Conflict in The Beautiful Game
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v14i2.11977Keywords:
Pragmatics;, Politeness Strategies;, Conflict Management;, Brown and Levinson;, The Beautiful Game.Abstract
Conflict is an inevitable aspect of interpersonal communication that may threaten social relationships if it is not managed appropriately. This study investigates the use of politeness strategies in conflict interactions in The Beautiful Game (2024). Specifically, it aims to identify the types of politeness strategies employed by the characters and explain how these strategies function in managing conflict. While previous studies have primarily classified politeness strategies in film discourse, limited attention has been given to how these strategies function as communicative resources for managing conflict. This study employed a descriptive qualitative research design. Seventeen utterances containing conflict interactions were identified in The Beautiful Game (2024) based on the presence of a face-threatening act within a clearly identifiable conflict episode, of which 8 were selected for in-depth analysis as representative instances of each politeness strategy. The data were analyzed using Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory. The findings reveal that bald-on-record is employed to manage conflict requiring urgent intervention, positive politeness functions to restore solidarity and group cohesion, negative politeness mitigates the imposition of face-threatening acts, and off-record allows speakers to express criticism indirectly while reducing interpersonal tension. Overall, the findings contribute to pragmatic studies by demonstrating that politeness strategies function not merely as classificatory categories but as context-sensitive communicative resources for managing conflict and negotiating interpersonal relationships in cinematic discourse.
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