Politeness Maxims in Aristocratic Social Interactions in Bridgerton Season 4: A Pragmatic Analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v14i2.12186Keywords:
aristocratic social interaction; Bridgerton; context of situation; politeness maxims; pragmaticsAbstract
This study examines the realization of Leech's (1983) six politeness maxims in the fictional aristocratic social interactions portrayed in Bridgerton Season 4 by integrating Halliday and Hasan's (1985) Context of Situation framework. This study aims to identify the politeness maxims realized in the selected interactions and examine how Field, Tenor, and Mode help explain their realization. A descriptive qualitative method was employed. The data consisted of 63 utterances identified from selected interactions involving five major characters. The utterances were analyzed using Leech's (1983) Politeness Principle and Halliday and Hasan's (1985) Context of Situation framework, with each utterance assigned to one primary politeness maxim for frequency analysis. The findings show that all six politeness maxims are represented, with the Approbation Maxim occurring most frequently (33.3%), followed by the Generosity Maxim (19.0%), Agreement Maxim (14.3%), Tact Maxim (12.7%), Modesty Maxim (12.7%), and Sympathy Maxim (7.9%). The contextual analysis indicates that Tenor appears particularly salient because many interactions involve differences in social status, institutional roles, and interpersonal relationships. Field helps identify the activity or topic being discussed, while Mode provides information about the channel and rhetorical function of the interaction. By integrating Leech's Politeness Principle with Halliday and Hasan's Context of Situation framework, this study contributes a context-sensitive perspective to the analysis of politeness in hierarchical audiovisual discourse. The findings are specific to the fictional social world portrayed in the selected episodes and should not be generalized to actual aristocratic communication.
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