politeness strategies of indonesian diplomats’

POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF INDONESIAN DIPLOMATS’ SPEECHES IN THE 71ST AND 72ND UNITED NATIONS

GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN 2016 AND 2017

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

In English Letters

By ANGEL BRIGELLIA

Student Number: 164214132

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA

2020

PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI

ii

POLITENESS STRATEGIES OF INDONESIAN DIPLOMATS’ SPEECHES IN THE 71ST AND 72ND UNITED NATIONS

GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN 2016 AND 2017

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

Presented as a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra

In English Letters

By ANGEL BRIGELLIA

Student Number: 164214132

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS FACULTY OF LETTERS

UNIVERSITAS SANATA DHARMA YOGYAKARTA

2020


vii

Success comes from strong desire!

Do the best that you can do and God

will do what He has to do


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…

For my wonderful family:

My amazing parents, papa and mama

and a tribute for my beloved sister, Cicillia

Dewi Miranti Utami, who has already lived

with Him in Heaven

For all love that I get

I’ll share it back to everyone as a blessing!

…


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to put forward my gratitude to God

Almighty for giving me blessings, strength, and guiding me so that I can pass

everything that has happened during the process of writing this thesis and finally

able to finish my thesis.

I would like to thank my family, my parents: father and mother, my

sisters, especially my beloved one, Mbak Dewi , who have taught me about life,

how to pursue my dreams, be a modest person and care for others, and who have

also been always next to my side and keep on supporting me through their loves

and hopes.

Then, I would like to give my special thanks to my thesis advisor,

Wedhowerti S.Pd., M.Hum., who is always loyal, patient, and caring about me

and my condition while writing this thesis. All her advices and extensive

knowledge has guide me in completing this thesis very well. Also, to my co-

advisor, Dr.Francis Borgias Alip M.Pd., M.A., thank you for the constructive

suggestions and helpful evaluation that make this thesis better completed.

Last of all, to all my friends and those whom I cannot mention one by one,

thank you for accompanying and supporting me through my ups and downs, and

giving me the chance to feel loving and being loved between us. Without all

these, maybe I would not be able to be at the starting point of this maturity. Thank

you very much all for love and everything.

Angel Brigellia


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................ ii APPROVAL PAGE ...................................................................................... iii ACCEPTANCE PAGE ................................................................................. iv STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ............................................................ v LEMBAR PERNYATAAN PERSETUJUAN PUBLIKASI KARYA ILMIAH ...................................................................... vi MOTTO PAGE ............................................................................................. vii DEDICATION PAGE ................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................... ix TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................. x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................... xii LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................ xiv ABSTRACT ................................................................................................... xv ABSTRAK ..................................................................................................... xvi CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ................................................................ 1

A. Background of the Study ..................................................................... 1 B. Problem Formulation .......................................................................... 5 C. Objectives of the Study ....................................................................... 5 D. Definition of Terms ............................................................................. 5

CHAPTER II: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................ 7

A. Review of Related Studies .................................................................. 7 B. Review of Related Theories ................................................................ 10

1. Pragmatics ............................................................................... 10 2. Politeness Strategies ................................................................ 17 3. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies as

Sociological Variables for Relevant Circumstances ............... 23 4. English as a Political Language ............................................... 25

C. Review of Related Backgrounds. ......................................................... 27 D. Theoretical Framework ....................................................................... 30

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 31

A. Object of the Study .............................................................................. 31 B. Approach of the Study ........................................................................ 32 C. Method of the Study ............................................................................ 33

CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ................. 38

A. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran ................................................................................. 38

B. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran as Sociological Variables for Relevant Circumstances ........................... 65


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CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION ..................................................................... 96 REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 99 APPENDICES ............................................................................................... 102

Appendix 1: Data of Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia ..................................................................... 102 Appendix 2: Data of Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies employed by Ainan Nuran ........................................................................................ 111 Appendix 3: Data of Summary Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran ......................................... 117


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

FTA : Face Threatening Acts

UNGA : United Nations General Assembly

NMR : Nara Masista Rakhmatia

AN : Ainan Nuran

BLR : Bald on Record

OR : Off-Record

PPS : Positive Politeness Strategy

NPS : Negative Politeness Strategy


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LIST OF FIGURES

No. Figure Page

1. Figure 1. Politeness strategies and its possibilities

in creating FTAs 20

2. Figure 2. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness

Strategies Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan

Nuran 58


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LIST OF TABLES

No. Table Page

]. Table 1. Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Nara

Masista Rakhmatia 94

^. Table 2. Summary Types of Politeness Strategies

Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia 97

_. Table 3. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness

Strategies by Nara Masista Rakhmatia as Sociological Variables

for Relevant Circumstances 98

`. Table 4. Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Ainan

Nuran 102

a. Table 5. Summary Types of Politeness Strategies Employed

by Ainan Nuran 104

b. Table 6. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness

Strategies Applied by Ainan Nuran as Sociological Variables

for Relevant Circumstances 105

c. Table 7. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara

Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran 108

d. Table 8. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness

Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan

Nuran as Sociological Variables for Relevant Circumstances 109


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ABSTRACT

BRIGELLIA, ANGEL. (2020). Politeness Strategies of Indonesian Diplomats’ Speeches in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Language is the fundamental tool for people to live their life. It is not only to build communication but also to help people share knowledge and develop themselves. In achieving that purpose, language acquisition is needed in order to deliver everything clearly in a good way, for example delivering speech in International forum like this thesis’s concern on the speech of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran, Indonesian diplomats in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General Assembly on 2016 and 2017. In that case, when Rakhmatia and Nuran want to explain their speech, they have to do a good combination both in mastering their speech material and share their thoughts before the public, correctly.

There are two objectives in this research. The first objective is to find and identify types of politeness strategies used in the speech videos of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches on YouTube. The second objective is to figure out and to analyze the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran as Indonesian diplomats in their speeches.

This research used the theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987) to solve two speech texts’ matters spoken by those two Indonesian diplomats. The application of four types of politeness strategies namely bald on record, off-record, positive politeness strategy and negative politeness strategy helped them to avoid any negative risks coming from their speech which may affect Indonesia’s good image in global scale. By using the pragmatic approach for further speech video analysis and descriptive and qualitative method research as the method of the study, the present researcher provided evidences which shows the relation between politeness and diplomacy.

As the conclusion, the present researcher found that Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran used bald on record more frequent than other types of politeness strategies, namely off-record, negative politeness strategy and positive politeness strategy. For the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies, both diplomats used types of politeness strategies for the absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture more frequent as the main reason rather than the social distance between the speaker and the addressee and the relative power of the speaker and the addressee as the reason of their speech. Keywords: politeness, speech, diplomacy


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ABSTRAK BRIGELLIA, ANGEL. (2020). Politeness Strategies of Indonesian Diplomats’ Speeches in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017. Yogyakarta: Prodi Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata Dharma.

Bahasa adalah kunci dasar bagi manusia dalam kehidupannya. Hal ini tidak hanya berguna untuk menciptakan komunikasi tetapi juga membantu dalam membagikan ilmu pengetahuan dan mengembangkan kemampuan para penuturnya. Agar mendapatkan fungsi bahasa tersebut, maka penguasaan bahasa sangat dibutuhkan untuk menyampaikan segala sesuatu secara jelas dengan langkah yang tepat, contohnya berpidato pada forum internasional seperti pembahasan utama dalam tesis ini, yaitu Pidato dari Nara Masista Rakhmatia dan Ainan Nuran sebagai diplomat Indonesia pada Kongres Majelis Umum Persatuan Bangsa-Bangsa pada tahun 2016 dan 2017. Dalam hal ini, ketika Rakhmatia dan Nuran ingin menyampaikan pidato, maka mereka harus bisa melakukan kombinasi yang baik antara menguasai bahan pidato dan menyampaikan ide pemikiran mereka dengan baik di muka publik.

Penelitian ini memiliki dua tujuan. Tujuan pertama adalah untuk menemukan dan mengidentifikasi tipe-tipe strategi kesopanan yang digunakan dalam video pidato Nara Masista Rakhmatia dan Ainan Nuran. Tujuan kedua adalah untuk mencari tahu serta menganalisis alasan dari penggunaan tipe-tipe strategi kesopanan oleh diplomat Indonesia dalam pidato mereka tersebut.

Penelitian ini menggunakan teori kesopanan oleh Brown dan Levinson (1987) dalam memecahkan masalah bahasa berpidato oleh kedua diplomat Indonesia tersebut. Penerapan keempat tipe-tipe strategi kesopanan seperti, bald on record, off-record, positive politeness strategy, dan negative politeness strategy membantu mereka terhindar dari pencemaran citra baik Indonesia pada skala global. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan pragmatik untuk analisis lebih lanjut dan penelitian kuantitatif deskriptif sebagai metode penelitian, maka peneliti menyediakan bukti-bukti yang menunjukkan hubungan antara kesopanan dan diplomasi.

Sebagai kesimpulan, peneliti menemukan bahwa Nara Masista Rakhmatia dan Ainan Nuran menggunakan bald on record lebih sering bila dibandingkan dengan tipe strategi kesopanan lainnya, yaitu seperti off-record, negative politeness strategy, dan positive politeness strategy. Untuk alasan dibalik penggunaan tipe-tipe strategi kesopanan, kedua diplomat tersebut sepakat menggunakan strategi kesopanan dengan alasan utama yakni seberapa tinggi tingkat beban yang diberikan, dibandingkan alasan pragmatis lainnya seperti jarak sosial antara pembicara dan pendengar serta kekuatan relatif dari pembicara dan pendengar sebagai alasan dari kedua pidato mereka secara keseluruhan. Keywords: politeness, speech, diplomacy


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CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

Human beings are being created and destined as social living things. In

purpose to fulfill that goal, communication is one of the “fastest” media to reach

it. To meet that purpose, language is the only one tool that every human kind

should expert in. It does not only help in how to communicate but also it helps

humans become more civilized by the knowledge, opinions, experiences, ideas

and point of views that they share and get with each other through the language

that the speaker use. It is also not only just an oral and written one, but also it can

appear in many forms as long as it can create certain meaning. The more obvious

and common forms of language is through several media, such as sounds, signs,

gestures, symbols and so forth that is finally conceiving certain meaning. Looking

at those points, it is almost impossible for human to live without language.

Shortly, language is the media to enrich human thoughts, voice to produce

ideas, and expression to express human’s feelings (Mihalicek & Wilson, 2011, p.

2). Since many roles it does, language is the primary and vital tool to help humans

in communicating and interacting one another. Besides its first role, language is

not only a tool of communication but also a system to build social, economic, and

political relation on it. (Fairclough, 1989, p. 2). Because of how strong language

is, it becomes a very essential part of diplomacy, as diplomacy is the important

process in which states conduct their relations to other countries whether to create


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allies to cooperate and or to resolve conflicts peacefully (Griffiths & Callaghan,

2002, p. 79).

Language skills is important in negotiation, persuasion, and

communication for the effective conduct of diplomatic work. Language also

functions as a ‘sender’ to convey the meaning of our actions, such as suggest

something, agree on certain arguments, tell something and many more. Besides,

language is not only a means of fulfillment of country’s foreign policy but it also

as an important instrument for maintaining world order, balance and prosperity,

therefore it is a powerful weapon to win public standpoints and get their supports.

Due to the main role that language has, the speaker and the opponent should think

and consider the words or statement which they want to utter especially in the

diplomacy context through the official speech before the public to keep positive

face of the opponents and vice versa and avoid the negative face that might occur

(Penelope Brown, 1987, p. 61).

Unfortunately, speaker tends to unfollow the rules of Brown and Levinson

regarding politeness. As the consequences, some problems often occur on

political speeches, in particular, in an International discussion like United Nations

General Assembly, for instance, misunderstanding, misinterpretation, arguing the

truth and end with dislike one another. If the problems are not resolved, the effect

of those case is their diplomatic relations, include regional, bilateral and

multilateral whether between them or other countries. In which, later, their

countries credibility will likely to be doubted and questioned.


3

In terms of speech cases in pragmatic analysis, politeness takes an

important role. It aims to help the speakers by saving their face and prevent them

from the face threatening acts that may occur during or after the speech.

Many scholars agree that the major goal of using a certain phrase to express politeness is to strategically avoid conflicts and to shun devaluation by others (e.g. Kasper, 1990; Brown and Levinson, 1978, 1987; Fraser and Nolen, 1981; Leech, 1983; Reiter, 2000; Watts, 2003) (Song, 2012, p. 2).

What politeness says in pragmatic also quite the same with the perspective of

politeness in diplomacy, especially (Kazmi, 2012) says politeness as the part of

antiauthoritarian, a movement to confront the capitalist regime in the middle of

1790s, in which the political critics increased the use of politeness in their

language, briefly, politeness as the way to resist inequity and despotism as state’s

political agenda through the language used (p. 104). In fact, the relationship

between politeness in pragmatics and diplomacy is a series that unites one another

like something that cannot be separated even according to their respective fields.

Therefore, this study examines English speech videos of Nara Masista

Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General

Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches on YouTube.

It focuses on the language of the two diplomats when giving their reply speeches

to pacific countries such as Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Saint Vincent, and

Grenadines. The speeches aim to respond to their statement, question, and several

allegations toward the Indonesian Government regarding the injustice which

occurred in Papua and West Papua Provinces in which according to them as the


4

result of the lack of Indonesian government attention to those eastern regions in

Indonesia.

Besides, the purpose behind choosing those two videos as the sources of

data compared to the written text is to show that oral speech problems in

diplomacy context are commonly happening. It becomes a problem for several

people when they misinterpret that direct speech. However, it comes to be easier

to figure it out by applying politeness strategies, so that the addressees can

understand the actual meaning contained in that speeches. Since there are several

utterances that the two Indonesian diplomats used to tell their purpose and

disapproval toward several things using politeness strategies.

The study aims to find and identify types of politeness strategies used in

the speech videos of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and

72nd United Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right

reply speeches on YouTube. Moreover, also to figure out and to analyze the

reasons of the use of those types of politeness strategies by each of Indonesian

diplomats in their speeches. Using Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies as

well as Austin’s and Searle’s speech acts theories and classifications and the

pragmatic approach to lead this research, as the same as (Leech, 1983) which sees

politeness as the essential dimension of that area of language with which

linguistic pragmatic should deal. The researcher believes that by applying

politeness strategies, the speaker will become more aware and can speak politely

and respectfully towards others.


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B. Problem Formulation

Based on the background above, the analysis of politeness strategy

through the problems of two Indonesian diplomats speech language will be

formed by the research questions as follows:

1. What types of politeness strategies are used in the speech videos of Nara

Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations

General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches

on YouTube?

2. What are the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies by Nara

Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in their speeches?

C. Objectives of the Study

There are two objectives of the study that the researcher will achieve. The

first one is to find and identify types of politeness strategies are used in the speech

videos of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United

Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply

speeches on YouTube and the second one is to figure out and to analyze the

reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies by Nara Masista Rakhmatia

and Ainan Nuran as Indonesian diplomats in their speeches.

D. Definition of Terms

Yule (1996) Politeness can be defined as the means employed to show

awareness of another person’s face (p.60). Politeness is applied when there is a

social distant between the speaker and the addressee to show respect or deference.


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This study wants to figure out what Politeness is and then observe the impolite

expressions that have been uttered by the two young diplomats.

There are four politeness strategies, which are Bald on Record strategy

(direct strategy), Positive Politeness (solidarity strategy), Negative Politeness

(deference strategy), and Off record strategy (indirect strategy) (Yule, 1996, pp.

63-66). Politeness strategies in this study are dealing with the use of language of

Indonesia’s Young Diplomats by analyzing and considering these four strategies.

Based on the video, they have a purpose to threaten the hearer’s face especially

the hearer’s self-image example disapproval, criticism, complaints, accusations,

contradictions, disagreements.

Diplomats may influence policy, but their main task is to negotiate with

the representatives of other countries (Griffiths & Callaghan, 2002).


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CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

This part elaborates the relevant theories to be applied in this research. The

researcher will use pragmatics, theory of speech acts, politeness strategies, the

reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies as sociological variables for

relevant circumstances and English as political language to figure out the answers

for every problem that have been formulated in the research questions.

A. Review of Related Studies

There are two theses and two journal articles about Politeness Strategies in

Diplomacy relations as the related studies for this research. The first thesis is

interested in how politeness strategies are used in the debate as presented in a

presidential debate about A study of politeness strategies used by Hillary Clinton

and Donald Trump on the second presidential debate by Maharani (2018), a study

which is interested in how politeness strategies are used in a presidential debate

video of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as candidates of U.S. President.

A descriptive qualitative study applied as the methodology of this

research. As the result, she finds that the two candidates used almost all the

politeness strategies but the dominant strategy used by Donald Trump is bald on

record as much as seventeen while Hillary Clinton uses sixteen positive politeness

influenced by the payoffs and sociological aspect consists in social distance and

rank imposition (pp. 27-54).


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The second thesis about The politeness principle used in President Barack

Obama and Donald J. Trump’s inaugural speeches by Sitinjak (2019). She

describes how the politeness principles works in the speech-act by recognizing the

types and frequency of it uses in speech. This research uses Leech’s theory of

maxims and applying six types of maxims towards this research such as tact

maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement

maxim, and sympathy maxim with the type of this study is descriptive and the

data were collected from the officials’ website of both speakers.

From this research, she finds that the approbation maxims and agreement

maxims are mostly found in Obama and Trump’s inaugural speeches because both

leaders have different style and ways in applying the politeness principle to

convince the hearers. Meanwhile, the similar result on agreement maxim

frequencies revealed that both Obama and Trump used the same strategy in

gaining the support and building the trust of people (pp. 24-79).

Meanwhile, the first journal is about Verbal politeness as an important tool

of diplomacy by (Yapparova, Ageeval, & Pavol, 2019) taken from Journal of

Politics and Law. This journal article examines the notion of diplomatic courtesy

and analyzes the ways of its language expression in Russian diplomatic

intercourse on the example of the speeches delivered by the Minister of Foreign

Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.

The research uses the analysis of the typewritten speeches to identify the

most typical speech formulas as the statements of the minister during the meetings

also to identify those evaluative tools act as euphemisms to allow the


9

communicants express their opinion on political issues without violating the

diplomatic protocol and observing the norms of diplomatic courtesy. They find

that a positive result in diplomacy is achieved by applying the principle of

politeness which involves the use of etiquette speech formulas as to respect the

interlocutor and demonstrate the importance of communication and its ultimate

goal for the speaker (pp. 57-60).

The second or the last journal is about Politeness in President Donald

Trump’s speeches wrote by (Alavidze, 2018) taken from International Journal of

Multidisciplinary Thought. In this journal article, she states that the political

discourse and its problems take an important part in political situations of today’s

modern time. The most recently example is the problem of politicians’ public

image. By applying the lingo semiotic and anthropocentric-communicative

methodology and used the concrete method such as context-semantic, socio-

cultural, pragmatic aspects and stylistic interpretation of linguistic units to see

how politeness work in real life, she suggests that they have to follow the maxims

of politeness to be able not to lose his/her image as what she finds that lots of

negative politeness which exist in President Donald Trump’s speeches for

emphasizing his strength (pp. 122-124).

Those studies have helped the researcher in researching the problems of

speech language in diplomatic interactions: at politeness perspective effectively as

the response to politeness strategies used. The similarity between those studies

and this research is analyzing the politics world such as debate and speech

through the politeness perspective. The difference with other studies is most


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researchers have analyzed politeness cases in certain and famous speaker’s speech

or debate such as president, prime minister, minister of foreign affairs and other

popular public figures, while this study wants to give new point of view about

politeness case in Indonesian diplomats’ speech, one of the most important person

in a state that is almost forgettable by the people and the diplomacy world just

because they are lack of popularity.

B. Review of Related Theories

This part contains four theories that will be used in this research. The

review theories are below.

S. Pragmatics

Language has become the basis and necessity of human life. It usually

presents in various forms with various meanings contained therein but behind its

nature there is a problem that is when the language used has an implied meaning.

A receiver, a person who gets the message and will interpret the meaning of the

message (Leech, 1983) must define the meaning of that “unspoken” meaning

(p.13). It is not only mentioned by leech but also by Yule (1996) as well that

pragmatics as the approach aims to give the chance to the listeners to make

inferences about what is said to get the interpretation of the speaker’s intended

meaning (p.3).

The example of those explanation is:

“can you pass the sugar?” Literal meaning: Are you physically able to do this task? Literal response: “Yes” (Pragmatic meaning: Will you pass me the sugar? Pragmatic response: Pass the sugar to the speaker)


11

Because of how important the application of theory of pragmatic is, Yule

shows it twice as he mentions in his second edition book that pragmatic is the

study of speaker meaning (Yule, 1996, p. 3) and being explained again in his

fourth edition book as he mentions that pragmatic is the study of “hidden”

meaning or how the receiver can understand what is meant by the speaker even if

it is not spoken or written (Yule, 2010, p. 128).

To minimize misunderstanding, Yule suggests the speaker to know the

background of the receivers, so that the receiver will not just know the literal

meaning but also can understand the purpose of that utterances (Yule, 2010, p.

128). In order to do that, the speaker and the receiver have to work together to get

the goal of the communication that both of them are involved in. Both of the

speaker and the receivers have to know, understand and agreed on the context of

the communication so that it can be agreed with the direction and the goal of the

communication, whether in speech, debate, conversation, and or other forms of

verbal communication.

Leech and Yule agreed that context is needed in communication so that it

can produce the desired result. Leech (1983) says that the speaker’s and the

receiver’s context can help the receiver in interpreting the meaning of the

speaker’s utterance (p.13). Pragmatics is the study of the contextual meaning

(Yule, 1996, p. 3). Furthermore, Yule elaborates again what he meant by

contextual meaning in his fourth edition book, by saying that whatever the

situation is, every moment has its contextual meaning in which both the speaker

and the receiver find the linguistic expressions (Yule, 2010, p. 130).


12

In conclusion, pragmatics is the fundamental reference in communicating

with a one purpose which is to avoid the misunderstanding that might occur

during or after the communication between the speaker and the receiver.

a. Theory of Speech Acts

Language is like a tool in communication for human being in helping them

communicate with others. However in using language, they do not just utter some

words with no reason but there is a purpose for doing something behind it whether

to ask something, to convey something, to offer and so on. Searle (1969) states

that speech acts is not about to tell something and or to give information but also

to perform actions in accordance to the words, such as assertion, asking a

question, giving an order and expressing a wish or desire (pp. 22-23). It is not

only mentioned by Searle but also several linguists, that speech acts is the

fundamental thing in linguistic interaction or a sentence (literal) which describe

the action (Griffiths P. , 2006, p. 148) or simply, people define speech acts as an

action performed by the speaker through utterance (Yule, 2010, p. 133).

In speech acts, there are three types of utterances which commonly

perform actions, namely an act of uttering something, an act of performing

something and an act of achieving something from someone. Those acts are

commonly known as:


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i. Locutionary, Illocutionary and Perlocutionary acts

1) Locutionary act

The basic of act from the other two types of acts, illocutionary and

perlocutionary act. As the basic and the beginning of the speech acts, locutionary

acts meaning is an act in which the speaker utters a certain sentence that creates

certain meaning (Austin, 1962, p. 108), in other words means a sentence which

consists a meaning. For example, if your little brother tells you that “I am so

hungry”, the meaning in locutionary is your little brother (he) is indeed want to

eat soon.

2) Illocutionary act

In saying something, certainly people have a certain purpose behind it.

Something that the speaker has in his/her minds that they know their addressee or

the interlocutor will perform what are they saying after listen to them. For the

illocutionary act, Searle says that utterances which have particular (conventional)

force which consist of act to inform something, ordering, warning, doing and or

for other communicative purposes (Yule, 1996, p. 48). For example, if there is

somebody who says “It is 38 degree in this room. Do not you feel it?”. The

meaning in illocutionary can be explained as the indirect illocutionary act

(request) which ask someone or people around him/her to turn on the air

conditioner or open the window in that room.

3) Perlocutionary act

When uttering something, the speaker does not just simply do it. There

must be a function in that utterance to pursue certain effect of that. This type of


14

speech acts also known as an act in which the speaker, depends on the

circumstances saying something with an assumption that the addressee will

recognize the intended effect or purpose that the speaker meant (Yule, 1996, pp.

48-49) or in other words the effect that the addressee achieve from the speaker’s

utterance (more about the addressee). There are several effects consists of

convincing, persuading, deterring, surprising or even misleading (Austin, 1962, p.

108). For example, when your friend says to you,” It is rain outside!”, the

perlocutionary effect of that utterance is whether the hearer will use umbrella if

she or he goes outside or the hearer will not go outside and keep stay in the room.

ii. Types of Speech Acts

There are five types of general functions performed by the speech acts

(Yule, 1996, pp. 53-54), as mentions below:

1) Declarations

This type of speech act classification aims in changing the reality or the

world of the addressee through the utterance because of the special institutional

role of the speaker (Yule, 1996, p. 53). For example:

“Judge: You are required to get 5 years in prison”

“Queen: I announce you now as the Duchess of Cambridge”

In this type, the speaker can declare something appropriately towards the

addressee because of their position. Declaration also means appoint, christen,

consecrate, declare, denounce, excommunicate, endorse, name, resign (Searle,

Grewendorf, & Meggle, 2002, p. 95).


15

2) Representatives (Assertives)

The kinds of speech acts in which the speaker portraying the world as what

she or he believes as it is. It is a statement of truth, conclusion, and description

(Yule, 1996, p. 53). For example:

“There is another “earth” which human can live in there when this earth

cannot hold global warming and rapid population growth”

“People can do teleportation since many years ago”

When uttering something, the speaker looks so self-assured with his or her

beliefs. Assertives also known as an act to inform, state, assert, aver, predict,

deny, testify (Searle, Grewendorf, & Meggle, 2002, p. 95).

3) Expressives

The types of speech acts in which the speaker express his or her feeling,

such as happy, sad, upset, satisfy, likes, dislikes, as it can be caused by something

that the speaker does or the addressee does yet, it is more about the speaker’s

experience (Yule, 1996, p. 53). For example:

“Congratulation, I am so happy for you!”

“We are sorry for that”

“Oh, really? What a great news it is!”

Expressive also known as an act to compliment, apologize, congratulate,

condole, greet, praise, protest, thank (Searle, Grewendorf, & Meggle, 2002, p.

95). In expressives, the speaker chooses words that fit with their psychological

feeling.


16

4) Directives

The types of speech acts in which the speaker say something to get the

addressee to do something. It expresses the speaker wants through several kinds

of communication, such as commands, orders, requests, and suggestions (Yule,

1996, p. 54). For example:

“There is a lot of sugar in this coffee. Make a new one.”

“That is my new car. Do not touch it.”

“Could you pass me that glass, please?”

In the directives, the speaker tries to fit the world with the words through

the addressee. It is also known as an act to ask, command, plead, order, request,

require, direct, entreat (Searle, Grewendorf, & Meggle, 2002, p. 95).

5) Commissives

The types of speech acts in which the speaker promise themselves for

several future action. The words consist of threats, promises, pledges, refusals to

express the speaker’s intend (Yule, 1996, p. 54). For example

“I will be back soon.”

“We are going to visit this town next month.”

“I promise to buy that bicycle for you, my little brother.”

In commissives, the speaker tries to fit the world with the words through

the speaker. It is also known as an act to promise, threaten, vow, bet, pledge,

refuse (Searle, Grewendorf, & Meggle, 2002, p. 95).


17

\. Politeness Strategies

Communication is an interaction that happens in between the two speakers

or more, whether to talk casually or to achieve certain decision. However,

communication does not always run smoothly, the most commonly happened is

debating a difference which exists in the similarity. It happens when one person

and others have different interpretations toward the same utterances. To reduce

the negative risks such as miscommunication, arguing and even hurt someone’s

heart, then politeness is the right method of avoiding all of those possibilities. A

consideration before uttering some word are necessary to prevent the speaker

from any kind of actions which had never been imagined before. The use of

politeness strategies is adjusted to the concept of politeness and the context of the

communication (Watts, Ide, & Ehlich, 2005, p. 80). Even though they applied

politeness strategies, it is still possible that there will be an action specifically

utterances which may hurt the speaker and or the receiver (Brown & Levinson,

1987, p. 65). As mentioned previously, face threating act happens if a speaker

says something that represents a threat to another individual’s expectations

regarding self – image (Yule, 1996, p. 61).

In order to see that cases and identify what types of politeness is violated

by the speaker, then people should know and understand first the types of

politeness strategies to avoid the same mistake happen twice. The four politeness

strategies are: first, bald on record. This strategy is known as a direct statement

that the speaker utters directly to the others as a means to express the needs of the

speaker (Yule, 1996). To categorize the statements as bald on record, the


18

researcher should grasp the sub strategies of it, such as the first one is great

urgency or desperation, speaking as if great efficiency is necessary in attention–

getters, task oriented or paradigmatic form of instruction, sympathetic advice or

warning, granting permission for something, invitations, welcoming and the last is

greetings and farewells (Brown & Levinson, 1987, pp. 95-99). The examples of

bald on record is when the “A” speaks to the “B” as a means of expressing he or

she needs to “B”, by saying “Lend me your notebook”. This direct utterance is

categorized as the most direct approach using imperative forms through the word,

“lend”, so that the addressee can get the purpose of the speaker’s utterance

directly.

Second, positive politeness strategy, means when the speaker talks to the

interlocutor and want to ask something, the speaker will not directly mention what

they need but tend to build a good conversation even friendship (Yule, 1996, p.

64). Besides, the same as bald on record, the researcher should know and

understand the sub strategies of positive politeness so that it can be easier to

determine which type of utterances belong to certain types of politeness strategies.

The sub strategies of positive politeness (Brown & Levinson, 1987) are notice,

attend to a hearer (his or her wants, interests, needs, goods), exaggerate (interest,

approval, sympathy with hearer), intensify interest to a hearer; making good story,

draw the hearer as a participant into the conversation, (use in–group identity

markers); address form, in–group language or dialect, jargonor slang, contraction

and ellipsis, seek agreement, avoid disagreement, presuppose/raise/assert common

ground, joke, assert or presuppose speaker’s knowledge of and concern for


19

hearer’s wants, offer, promise, be optimistic, include both a speaker and a hearer

in the activity, give (or ask for) reasons, assume or assert reciprocity, give gifts to

a hearer (goods, sympathy, understanding, cooperation) (p.102). The example of

positive politeness is when there is a short conversation between the “A” as the

speaker and the “B” as the addressee ended up with A’s saying, “How about

letting me use your highlighter?”. In this short utterance, the “A” reduces the risk

of face threatening act toward the B’s face. Even though, “A” can ask for B’s

highlighter directly, but he or she tends to say it softer and smoother, so that it

looks like they maintain a good friendship.

Third, off–record, the speaker tends to tell something to the others but do

not directly mention their purpose to the receiver. In casual descriptions, they

might be referred to as ‘hints’ (Yule, 1996, p. 63). The sub strategies of off–

record, such as giving hints, giving association clues, presupposing, understating,

overstating, using tautologies, using contradictions, being ironic, using metaphors,

using rhetorical questions, being ambiguous, be vague, over–generalizing,

displacing hearer, being incomplete, using ellipsis (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p.

214). The example of off-record is when the situation of the conversation is in the

elementary school and the speaker forget to bring his or her pencil, then saying,

“Uh, I forgot my pencil” but the speaker does not intend to borrow the addressee’s

pencil. This saying will have two interpretation, the first one is the addressee will

think that the purpose of the speaker’s utterance is to lend his or her pencil to the

speaker. Meanwhile, the second interpretation is the addressee can pretend to not


20

hear the utterance of the speaker, so that there is no effort comes out of him or her

toward the speaker.

The last, negative politeness strategy, categorized as a face saving act

which the form of this strategy is in questioning, means when the speaker wants to

ask something to the receiver, they will use question rather than tell directly, or

tell it implicitly (Yule, 1996, p. 64). Another negative politeness sub strategies are

be conventionally indirect, question, hedge, being pessimistic, minimize the

imposition, give deference, apologize, impersonalize a speaker and a hearer, state

the FTA as a general rule, nominalize, and go on record as incurring a debt, or as

not indebting a hearer (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 131). The examples of

negative politeness are:

“I’m sorry to bother you for a moment, but can I ask you for help?”

“I know you are busy, but could you buy some groceries for our dinner?”

In those two utterances, it looks very clear that face saving act is performed

through negative politeness. The face saving act reflected in the two opening

words, “I’m sorry to bother you for a moment”, and “I know you are busy”, to

respect the time and activity of the addressee. Another aspect that is clearly seen

is question contain a modal verb becomes the most typical form of negative

politeness.


21

Figure 1. Politeness strategies and its possibilities in creating FTAs

In that figure above, it is explained that when the speaker speaks, its

utterance can create the face threatening acts or not at all. If the statement contains

of the face threatening acts, then there are two types, namely on record, mostly

telling something directly in order to commit speaker’s self in front of people

other than the addressee, and off record, in which the speaker commonly applies

metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions, understatement, tautologies, and any

kind of hints to express what the speaker wants to communicate. These two types

can affect how severe the level of the threat created and the impact on the face of

the addressee.

If the speech from the speaker is on record, then the statement contains

two meanings, namely without redressive action, baldly and with redressive

action. In which in the without redressive action, baldly the speaker doing the face

threatening acts in the most direct, clear, and unambiguous ways. It happens


22

because this meaning follows the Grice’s maxims of cooperation or known as

flouting of maxims, in which the conversational cooperation between the speaker

and the people whom they are talking to has been broken on purpose by the

speaker (maxim of quantity, maxim of quality, maxim of relation and maxim of

manner).

The other meaning is with redressive action. In this meaning, the speaker

“gives a face” to the addressee to avoid the possibility face damage of the FTA by

making various efforts that indicate there is no such face threat intended or

desired by the speaker against the hearer. One of the most obvious precautions is

when the speaker generally acknowledges the addressee’s face wants and himself

wants them to be achieved.

Then, there are two forms of redressive actions, namely positive politeness

and negative politeness. For the positive politeness, it leads to the positive face of

the hearer and it is approach-based. The speaker guarantees the speaker’s desire to

be liked, appreciated, and approved, so they can be connected and the potential of

the FTA can be minimized.

Basically, negative politeness is avoidance-based. The speaker recognizes

and respects the addressee’s negative face wants. Those negative face wants are

unimpeded or not obstructed by others, need to be independent, to have freedom

of action, and not to be imposed on by others. It means the speaker will not or will

only minimally interfere the addressee’s freedom of action (Brown & Levinson,

Politeness, 1987, p. 69).


23

]. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies as Sociological

Variables for Relevant Circumstances

According to Brown & Levinson, (1987), the reckoning of the seriousness

of an FTA (Face Threatening Acts) may affect in the sociological circumstances

(p.74). Furthermore, Brown and Levinson also assert that there are three types of

sociological circumstances which influence the choice of the types of politeness

strategies. Those are, the social distance, the relative power and the absolute

ranking of imposition in the particular culture.

a. The Social Distance of Speaker and The Addressee

The existence of the social distance assigns the choice of words when

applying politeness strategies in speaking. Social distance is a symmetric social

relation of similarity or difference within the speaker and the addressee (hearer)

who stand for this act determines the choice of words when apply politeness

strategies in speaking (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 76). This theory will occur

when the speaker communicate with other person who are not speaker’s relatives

(close friends or friends) because it is the time when the degree of politeness

through the words that indicated the social distance between the speaker and the

addressee appear more frequently rather than if the speaker have a conversation

with his or her friends which the degree of politeness that indicates the social

distance between them appear less frequently.

In other words, this strategy is known as, if the speaker and the addressee

have a close relationship, the speaker will use less polite expression by applying

positive politeness strategy and or bald on record. Otherwise, the speaker will use


24

more polite expression by applying negative politeness strategy and off-record if

the speaker and the addressee are not close each other.

b. The Relative Power of Speaker and The Addressee

Power in this theory means as an asymmetric social dimension or

circumstances of relative power (Brown & Levinson, 1987). In this relative power

of speaker and the addressee there are two sources in general of the power,

namely material control (over economic distribution and physical force) and

metaphysical control (over the actions of others) (p.77). In this strategy, if the

addressee has a greater power than the speaker, then the speaker will talk more

polite to the addressee. Furthermore, if the speaker has a greater power than the

addressee, he or she will talk less polite to the addressee.

c. The Absolute Ranking of Impositions in The Particular Culture

Ranking is a culturally and situationally characterized ranking of

impositions by the degree in which they are considered to obstruct with and

agent’s wants of self-determination or consent (his or her negative and positive

face wants). There are two ranking of impositions in proportion, namely services

including the provision of time and goods including non-material goods like

information (Brown & Levinson, 1987, p. 77). This means both impositions cause

face threatening acts. It occurs when the speaker shows more face threatening acts

in his or her utterances, then the imposition of the act is also become greater.

Hence, the speaker uses high standard politeness strategies in speaking and

or communicating. In the ranking of imposition, the speaker who want to impose

or drop the addressee’s negative face will say something more polite by applying


25

negative politeness strategy and off–record. However, if the speaker wants to drop

or impose the addressee’s positive face, then the speaker will say more threaten

words.

4. English as a Political Language

Nowadays, in the era of globalization and technology, language is the

major component that can support the realization of civilization progress. It occurs

because language is the media of communication which help one another to

convey and receive messages, intentions, or a specific purpose. One of the most

often language used in a long period of times is English. There are several reasons

of the role of English in non-English dominant countries in the world today,

which automatically make it as part of world progress, namely a form of linguistic

imperialism in most low-income countries, a vehicle for social and economic

mobility worldwide, and a global lingua Franca for global demos necessary to

achieve global justice (Ricento, 2015, p. 28). For the reasons of the role of

English as a form of linguistic imperialism in most low-income countries, it is

explained there that the expansion of England, as an English-speaking country to

several regions has created the linguistic impact, in which the society do not only

speak in their local language, but also they can speak English to blend more

broadly and then live in heterogeneity groups (Ricento, 2015, pp. 28-29).

Besides as the form of linguistic imperialism, there is English as a vehicle

for social and economic mobility worldwide. In this point of view, Ricento

describes as if all people around the world approve English as their main


26

language, they will have great social life and better economic mobility. All

guaranteed because they have learnt through other English-speaking countries that

they have a much better and prosperous social life and economic mobility

movement than those whose countries are not English-speaking countries

(Ricento, 2015, p. 30).

The last main point discussed in Ricento’s book is English as a global

lingua Franca for global demos necessary to achieve global justice. In this part, it

is explained that to achieve world stability, we need a primary language to

connect and unite all people in the world. Because English can make everyone

connected and understand one another, there is little possibility of social,

economic, and political gaps in society life. This can happen because English is

believed to be the unifying language that enables all levels of society, rich,

powerful, poor, and powerless to communicate, network, lobby, cooperate, and

demonstrate every need effectively across borders with one main goal, namely

justice (Ricento, 2015, pp. 31-33).

Language perspective through the lens of international relations according

to nonfoundationalist, people who do not believe to the existence of some basic

principles of knowledge base is that the language spoken by the speaker is not the

result of understanding the international relations in depth, but it is more about a

product of the speaker’s social life (Debrix, 2015, pp. 4-5). Thus, the

nonfoundationalist redescribe the understanding and role of language in the world

of International relations as the remobilization and transformation of language.

Whereby, language is no longer seen as the main key for the speaker to decode the


27

world encryption code to understand the purpose of the order and its meaning, but

rather to see language as a multifunctional device in human social life. Again,

language is a social product that is not created but produced by the speaker as the

agent (Debrix, 2015, pp. 8-19).

In the international relations world, there are interesting things about the

role of language, especially when language-games play their role in political

discussion. It happens when politicians disguise the intent and purpose of their

speech so that the truths and lies become cryptic in political sense, so that it

triggers debate and confusion about which statements state the truth and lies.

From the grammarians’ perspective, lying means when the speaker says

something wrong, but that at first, she or he thinks it is true (Docherty, 2019, p.

95). Based on that definition, the element of lies in the speech of the speaker aims

to increase their reputation purposely and directly in public. Meanwhile, another

definition of lying is when the speakers utter something against their conscience,

in other words they tell something opposite of what they understand to others.

One factor that must be remembered and considered in politics is that there is no

direct relations between what we know to be true and what we want to be true and

what we know and what we will believe (Docherty, 2019, pp. 100-115).

C. Review of Related Backgrounds

This part contains two biographies of Indonesian diplomats, namely Nara

Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran which will be discussed and elaborated in

this research. The reviews of their biographies are below.


28

S. The Biography of Nara Masista Rakhmatia

Nara Masista Rakhmatia (born in December 1982) is a well-known

Indonesian female diplomat after a speech video of her assertiveness in answering

the accusations of 6 Pacific nation leaders, Vanuatu, Solomon Island, Tonga,

Nauru, Marshall Island, and Tuvalu, regarding the suppression of human rights in

Papua at the UN General Assembly Session in New York, United States in 2016.

She is an alumnus of SMAN 70 Jakarta. After graduating, she became a Diploma

III majoring in media and mass communication at the Universitas Indonesia from

2000 to 2003. Then she took a bachelor's degree in International Relations at the

same university where she took her Diploma III in 2002-2006. There, she was

active as Head of Legislative Issues (2005-2006) in the Student Senate at the

Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, and had worked as a teaching assistant.

In 2009 Nara continued her Master’s Degree by attending University of St

Andrews, UK majoring in Peace and Conflict Studies. She graduated in 2010 with

a Master of Letters (M. Litt). In 2012, she took further studies majoring in

Communication and Media Studies at Georgetown University, United States.

She began her career as a research assistant at the Center for East Asian

Cooperation Studies (CEACS) and program assistant at the Center for Research

on Intergroup Relations and Conflict Resolution (CERIC) of Universitas

Indonesia on 2006-2007.

After completing her Masters level, in 2014 she worked at the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs and was placed in the Directorate of Inter-Regional Cooperation

at the Directorate General for Asia Pacific and Africa Affairs. She was elected to


29

serve as Secretary Three of the Permanent Representatives of the Republic of

Indonesia, PTRI at the United Nations from January 2014 to March 2016 and rose

to position as Secretary Two since April 2016. Rakhmatia has also held the

position of APEC Head of Section for Budget and Management Committee, BMS

before she was finally sent to the United Nations General Assembly in 2016

(Himawan, 2016, para. 1-9).

\. The Biography of Ainan Nuran

The video of a female diplomat from Indonesia who answered accusations

of human rights violations in Papua became viral, she is Ainan Nuran. A staff of

the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia, PTRI at the United

Nations. Nuran studied her bachelor's degree of International Relations at the

Universitas Indonesia specialized in transnational community studies until

graduated in 2009.

After earning a bachelor's degree, Nuran was an apprentice at a Non-

governmental organization dealing with human rights issues. She also taught

Saman dance for underprivileged children in Jakarta. In 2010, Nuran was an

employee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She believed to be a staff of

economic affairs at the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Indonesia,

PTRI at the United Nations. While she worked in there, she returned to study

precisely at Columbia University to study Political and Economic Development

(Arief, 2017, para. 2-6).


30

D. Theoretical Framework

In order to complete this research on Indonesian diplomats speeches in the

United Nation General Assembly meeting, the researcher uses several theories to

help the research. The theories are pragmatics, theory of speech act, theory of

politeness and the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies as

sociological variables for relevant circumstances. All of them have their role to

analyze every question deeply.

So that, to respond the first problem, the researcher uses the theory of

pragmatics which gives an idea that by using the pragmatics theory, all

misunderstanding can be minimalized, and theory of speech acts by J.L Austin

and Searle to understand the performed actions of the utterances, so the researcher

can find and identify the types of politeness strategies in the speech videos of

Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations

General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches on

YouTube. Then, to respond the second problem, the researcher uses the theory of

politeness strategies and the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies

as sociological variables for relevant circumstances to figure out and to analyze

the reasons of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in their speeches by

using Brown and Levinson’s theory.


31

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

This chapter is divided into three subchapters. The first subchapter

explains the object of the study in which the researcher describes the object that is

being analyzed. The second subchapter contains approach of the study to help this

analysis in answering the problems. In the last subchapter, there is method of the

study which includes data collection and data analysis which discuss more about

the data and the steps to answer the questions.

A. Object of the Study

The object of this research is two speech videos of Nara Masista


Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches. They give

their comments to the statements and questions which was coming from Mr.

Thomson from Fiji as the President in the 71st United Nations General Assembly

in 2016 and Mr. Lajčák from Slovakia as the President in the 72nd United Nations

General Assembly in 2017 and several allegations from several countries such as

Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Saint Vincent and Grenadines regarding the injustice

which occurred in Papua and West Papua Provinces as the result of the lack of

Indonesian’s government attention to several eastern regions in Indonesia,

especially those two provinces as they mentioned directly in the 71st and 72nd

United Nations General Assembly on 2016 and 2017 in New York, USA. The


32

researcher gets those from two links on YouTube, the first one is this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IQOFmMXEuw and this one as the last link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWAXols1FbU, downloaded on August,27th

2019. Those sources are really helpful because shares several information of the

speech videos in written text at the beginning of the video and at the description

box unlike other channels on YouTube which also share the same videos. Thus,

this study is a study about how language and its politeness strategies use in

politics that can expresses disapproval firmly but subtly at the same time.

B. Approach of the Study

The choice and use of language both in daily communication and in

international forums carry its functions and impacts. In expressing something,

people sometimes choose to utter it indirectly through parables or figurative

language. Related to that, pragmatics approach is a study about relation between

semantic knowledge and the meaning of the word in creating and shaping the

context of the communication (Griffiths & Patrick, 2006, p. 132). Pragmatics does

not only help the interlocutor to understand a speech that is clear in meaning and

context but also explains the meanings which are not overtly expressed

(Fairclough, 1989, p. 9). In other words, pragmatics helps the researcher to

categorize and mapping the types of politeness strategies that are being used by

Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations

General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches

whereby they tend to share their speech indirectly some times and the reasons of


33

their choice in applying those types of politeness strategies for their official

speeches.

C. Method of the Study

1. Data Collection

This study used descriptive and qualitative research method, a method

which the researcher examines the characteristics or the pattern of the research

object and relate it with the cognitive science or more of psychological aspects

(Bairagi & Munot, 2019, pp. 75-77) of the speech videos of Nara Masista


Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches on YouTube.

The researcher examined all utterances from the types of politeness strategies but

just studied several data to each of the types of politeness strategies in the analysis

as the data representative. There are total four paragraphs and five hundred and

ninety-one utterances in Nara Masista Rakhmatia’s speech whereas there are four

paragraphs and four hundred sixty-four utterances in Ainan Nuran’s speech.

In collecting the data, the researcher applied several steps to organize the

findings. The first step is the researcher downloaded the speech videos of Nara

Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and 72nd United Nations General

Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right reply speeches on YouTube

focused on their defense to several false allegations about Papua and West Papua

condition and watched the videos. After watched the video, the researcher looked

for the official transcript of those two videos on United Nations’ official website

and got it from the Digital Library of United Nations

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/848334?ln=en, went to the Meeting record


34

with the access code is A/71/PV.21 and then downloaded the transcript file in

English version, namely A_71_PV-21-EN.pdf for Nara Masista Rakhmatia’s

speech and https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/1482198?ln=en, clicked the

Meeting record with the code is A/72/PV.23, next downloaded the English

transcript, namely A_72_PV-23-EN.pdf for Ainan Nuran’s speech. Next, to

ensure those transcription from any error, the researcher read the transcripts some

times and paired it with the video version. Finally, the researcher found the

utterances of the diplomats containing types of politeness strategies in their

speeches as the focus of the research.

2. Data Analysis

In doing the analysis, the researcher read and comprehended the theory of

politeness strategies. After that, the researcher divided the utterances consisted of

words and discourse as the linguistic units into each of their types of politeness

strategies by pairing and matching the utterances with the functions of each types

of politeness strategies and related to the types of speech acts and their functions

(assertion, question, request, and order) based on Austin and Searle’s theory and

then the politeness maxims (tact, generosity, approbation, modesty, agreement

and sympathy) based on Brown and Levinson’s theory. It was purpose to focus in

deeper analysis and discussion. Subsequently, the researcher described and

explained them based on each of their types of politeness strategies. Then, the

researcher made the table consist of the list of their types of politeness strategies

to organize them based on the analysis that has done. Afterwards, the researcher


35

put the findings of types of politeness strategies combined with sociological

variables for relevant circumstances (Brown & Levinson, Politeness, 1987) to

categorize their utterances based on three types of sociological variables which

later to elaborate the reasons of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran behind

using types of politeness strategies in their speeches. The table consist of the list

of their types of politeness strategies as the conclusions as follows below,

Table 7. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista

Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran

The Speaker The Occurrence of Politeness Strategies

Bald on record Off - record Positive Politeness Negative Politeness

Nara Masista Rakhmatia

Ainan Nuran

Total

After gathering all the objects of first problem formulation and did the analysis

towards them, then the researcher combined them and made it into a pie

(doughnut) chart to show the percentage of the occurrences of diplomats’

utterances’ which directed to the reasons behind the use of the types of politeness

strategies as sociological variables for relevant circumstances in their speeches.


36

In order to make it more understandable in describing and understanding the

analysis, the researcher made each datum marked with this kind of code:

2/45/NMR/OR/POWER

2 : The number of paragraphs from one diplomat

45 : The number of line when politeness strategies occurs

NMR : Nara Masista Rakhmatia

OR : Types of politeness strategy

POWER : Reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategies as

sociological variables for relevant circumstances

The bold-typed words indicate types of politeness strategies appears in their

utterances, yet the unbold-typed words indicate the original utterances of them.

Later, the researcher analyzed the second problem which is the reasons

behind the use of the types of politeness strategies by Nara Masista Rakhmatia

and Ainan Nuran in their speeches. Politeness strategies as sociological variables

11%

26%

63%

SOCIOLOGICAL VARIABLESSocial Distance Relative Power Rank of Imposition


37

for relevant circumstances is used to figure out the reasons of Indonesian

diplomats in choosing certain types of politeness strategies in their speeches since

three factors of sociological variables namely, social distance, relative power and

the absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture share the seriousness

of an face threatening acts and the determination of politeness level in diplomacy

context as well as its relations with politeness strategies in pragmatics as one of

language point of view. For further explanations of each types will be presented

below.


38

CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter discusses the analysis of two main research problems. The

first research question is to find and identify types of politeness strategies are used

in the speech videos of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran in the 71st and

72nd United Nations General Assembly in 2016 and 2017 for Indonesian first right

reply speeches. In solving this case, the researcher applies politeness strategies by

(Brown & Levinson, 1987) and (Yule, 1996). The second research question is to

figure out and to analyze the reasons of the use of the types of politeness

strategies by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran as Indonesian diplomats

in their speeches. The researcher applies theory of politeness strategies as

sociological variables for relevant circumstances by (Brown & Levinson, 1987).

A. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and

Ainan Nuran

This part explains types of politeness strategies used by Rakhmatia and

Nuran in their official speech for Indonesia first right reply speeches. The

researcher finds out that both of them applied four types of politeness strategies,

namely bald on record, off–record, positive politeness strategy and negative

politeness strategy as the response towards the allegations of Vanuatu, Solomon

Islands, Tuvalu, St. Vincent and The Grenadines to Indonesia government about

Papua’s and West Papua’s condition. In their speeches, the researcher discovers


39

that there are total eight paragraphs and five hundred and ninety-one utterances in

Nara Masista Rakhmatia’s speech whereas there are six paragraphs and four

hundred sixty-four utterances in Ainan Nuran’s speech. In order to make it easier

to follow and more understandable, the researcher presents the data in a complete

table format consists of the amount of types of politeness strategies which the

researcher found and the occurrence of types of politeness strategies are applied

by both of them.

Table 7. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista

Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran


Bald on record Off – record Positive Politeness

Negative Politeness

Nara Masista Rakhmatia 15 1 2 0

Ainan Nuran 12 3 0 2

Total 27 4 2 2

As seen in the table, bald on record appears the most for twenty-seven

times, off-record for four times, positive politeness strategy appears for two times

and negative politeness strategy appears for two times. The use of politeness

strategies is adjusted to the concept of politeness and the context of the

communication (Watts, Ide, & Ehlich, 2005, p. 80). Based on that theory, the

explanation of politeness will be explained fully, as follows:


40

1. Bald on Record

Bald on record is one of the politeness strategies. This strategy is known

as a direct statement in which the speaker utters something directly to the others

as a means to express the needs of the speaker (Yule, Pragmatics, 1996). In this

speech, Nuran is seen very often in using bald on records. It looks like that to

explain the fact about Indonesia’s condition and the response of Indonesian

government towards Papua and West Papua provinces she tends to use directive

way, in other word, she chooses to use bald on record to tell directly what is

meant by her to avoid things that are unclear and to clarify all misunderstanding

like false allegations. Here are the evidences of bald on record that appears in

Nuran and Rakhmatia’s speech as follows:

a. Bald on Record in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 01/01/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Indonesia would like to exercise its right of reply to the statements

delivered by the representatives of the Solomon Islands (see A/71/ PV.18) and

Vanuatu (see A/71/PV.19), and the similar statements by the representatives of

Nauru (see A/71/ PV.13), the Marshall Islands (see A/71/PV.15), Tuvalu (see

A/71/PV.19) and Tonga (see A/71/PV.19), regarding matters concerning Papua, a

province of Indonesia.” In the opening statements, Rakhmatia does not want to

spend her time by saying some unnecessary thing, so to avoid that inefficiency,

she tells her purpose directly or on record, with the purpose that all the

participants of the forum will know and understand the flow of her speech and the

goal of that.


41

ii. 02/02/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia is shocked to hear that, at this important stage, where leaders

are gathered in the General Assembly to address the early implementation of the

Sustainable Development Goals, the transformation of our collective action, and

other global challenges, such as climate change — whose severest impact is felt

by Pacific countries — the State leaders chose instead to violate the Charter of

the United Nations by interfering in another country’s sovereign affairs and

attempting to violate its territorial integrity.” Here, in her speech, she tries to

differentiate between Indonesia and those countries in which not being

professional by utilizing the moment to attack Indonesia. The forum and moment

in which should talk about the sustainable development goals issue turns into

other countries domestic affairs. It is a disrespectful action which Rakhmatia

opposes by embarrassing their faces through her bald on record statement.

iii. 03/03/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“We categorically reject the continuing insinuations in their

statements, which clearly reflect an unfortunate lack of understanding of the

history, current situation and progressive developments in Indonesia, including in

the provinces of Papua and West Papua.” There are no countries which want be

attacked and blamed by other countries that basically know nothing about their

statements. Every diplomat will stand for their country if it is in a threatened

position. In addition, all false intended statements proposed by them are

imaginative, in which the truth cannot be proven clearly. In this circumstance, it is

a must for diplomats to state some defense sentences for their countries through


42

bald on record statement to declare that they will not let such hazard threaten their

country which might later demolish the sovereignty of Indonesia as an

independent country.

iv. 03/04/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Couched in unfriendly rhetoric and smacking of a political manoeuver,

those politically motivated statements were designed to support separatist

groups in the State provinces, groups that have persistently engaged in inciting

public disorder and in conducting armed terrorist attacks on civilians and security

personnel.” Rakhmatia realizes that all the statements from them has political

intention behind it. To make it clear in front of Mr. President, she tells it directly

that the content of their speech is almost about how bad Indonesia government

treatment is toward those two provinces, how all Papuans treated unfairly and

several false allegations about Indonesia with the purpose of none other than to

drop Indonesia’s good image and change the world’s view towards Indonesia.

Because it is a great urgency, so Rakhmatia is pretty sure to say it on-record.

v. 04/05/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The statements made by those countries clearly violate the purposes

and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the principle of

international law concerning friendly relations among States, as well as the

sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.” Crime is a crime, as well as a

violation is also a violation. Because of the increasing number of sentences that

demean and bring down the dignity of Indonesia expressed by those countries, it

clearly has an impact on violations of the laws, so-called the principle of


43


sovereignty and territorial integrity of States that have been mutually agreed upon.

Things like this are better voiced loudly through bald on record statement in order

to get the solution from the United Nations, directly.

vi. 04/06/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“I reiterate that it is a violation of the sovereignty and territorial

integrity of States.” In a particular situation, if the diplomat repeats what they

meant in a big forum, it means that things mentioned repeatedly must get attention

and an immediate response from the United Nations council. Those statements

which contain accusation regarding the sovereignty of a country and the truth that

could not be proved has counted as a serious violation, automatically. This kind of

actions should not be tolerated because there is no accusation toward a sovereign

country specifically like what Indonesia faces is tolerable and cogitable, the same

thing also must be done by another countries. The thing when they also try to

protect their home country. Thusly, to warn them Rakhmatia chooses to express it

through her bald on record utterance, known as one of politeness strategies in

which the speaker does not need to reduce the impact of FTA as the effects of the

utterance toward the addressee in which the point is it can be expressed directly.

vii. 04/07/NMR/BLR/POWER

“It is highly regrettable and dangerous for States to misuse the United

Nations, including the Assembly.” This bald on record utterance shows the

actions of those pacific countries which has weakened the interests of the United

Nations forum into politics especially the political issue of their countries into this


44

important forum. Through their action, it seems like they do not worry and care

about what they have done, even consider the impacts, whether for themselves or

for the credibility of the United Nations, which might later can be judged by other

states as an institution that cannot create some initiatives to solve such cases like

that. By means of that, Rakhmatia wants to remind the United Nations that there

is no one who can dwindle the dignity of the United Nations include the assembly,

also to warn that they cannot and not permitted to use the agenda of the important

forum arbitrarily, no matter what the reasons are even if it is a white lie.

Every meetings conduct by the United Nations must have their own topics

of agenda to be discussed, if such things happen as what the six pacific countries

done, it means they have taken the valuable moment and time of all delegates

which supposed to discuss about some significant and substantial topics switch to

their “personal” matters. Therefore, to decrease such things happens further,

Rakhmatia considers bald on record utterance as the effective way to express what

is supposed to be meant purposely and directly.

viii. 04/08/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Those countries are using the Assembly to advance their domestic

agenda and, in some cases, in an attempt to divert attention from political and

social problems at home.” The bald on record in this utterance appears because

Rakhmatia wants to tell that those countries are not join the meeting for an

agreement, otherwise they have another mission along with their political agenda.

A mission which is to bother the comfort and tranquility of a state, in this case is

Indonesia. By mentioning the case of the provinces of Papua and West Papua,


45

they have succeeded to hide their own domestic problems and point out that they

have succeed to manage their countries perfectly. Strictly speaking, besides give

those fallacious statements and accusations, they also support the separatist

movement in the provinces of Papua and West Papua to separate from the

Republic of Indonesia. All of that was done by them so that all problems,

shortcomings, mistakes and negligence in governing their own country would not

be known by the council and all members of the United Nations. Thereby, hiding

behind accusing and blaming a party is their step to stay safe, in which this step

has been predicted by Rakhmatia, so in order for everyone to know that secret, she

chooses to reveal it as a truth in public, right at that moment.

ix. 04/09/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Those countries mentioned are also using false and fabricated

information as the basis for their statements.” This statement shows that

Indonesia’s treatment to those two mentioned provinces, Papua and West Papua

are not as bad as what they have described. If it is true, then Indonesia will admit

everything that they have said, but the facts are those countries apply false

allegations and unverified news as the fundamental of their speech. Everything

that is said by them is baseless, since it is made of their own that aims to give as

much invalid information and data as they could do during the time of forum. By

knowing that purpose, Rakhmatia tries to inform Mr. President to not believe

something just from one side and should avoid misconception which means it

must be clarified, so according to her in order to clarify it, the United Nations

must listen to the storyline from both parties to consider the next steps that should


46

be taken. Thusly, this message is better to be explained directly through bald on

record statement, so that Mr. President and all representatives will not believe

them right away and will be waiting for the response and explanation of

Indonesia.

x. 04/10/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The conduct of those countries undermines the Charter of the United

Nations and is detrimental to the credibility of the Assembly.” This statement

wants to emphasize that what was done by those countries has dishonored the

image, credibility, and value of the United Nations. The forum which is supposed

to discuss the cooperation and strengthen the relations with each other turns into a

mutual blame. What is meant by Rakhmatia as undermines the charter of the

United Nations and is detrimental to the credibility of the Assembly is those six

pacific countries indeed has violated chapter IV about the general assembly article

11 point 2 which says, “The General Assembly may discuss any questions relating

to the maintenance of international peace and security brought before it by any

Member of the United Nations, or by the Security Council, or by a state which is

not a member of the United Nations in accordance with Article 35, paragraph 2,

and, except as provided in Article 12, may make recommendations with regard to

any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to

both. Any such question on which action is necessary shall be referred to the

Security Council by the General Assembly either before or after discussion”

(Charter, 1945, p. 14). It is obvious that, the United Nations, especially in the

general assembly, all the members are allowed to only give questions relate to the


47

international peace and security not to blame a country and spread misleading

news about the negligence of Indonesia government in managing its territory and

taking care of its society across the globe.

Because of Rakhmatia’s disagreement about that and a clear violation

done by them, she chooses to make those countries feel not comfortable by

expressing her rejection towards her bald on record statement. This

pronouncement is not only focus on the protest declared by Indonesia but also a

reminder to Mr. President of the seventy-one-general assembly (UNGA 71)

especially as the part of the United Nations council to open his eyes and see the

reality that one of the United Nations charters which has agreed by all the

members, in fact its meaning has been broken by some of its own official

members for the sake of fulfilling their personal and group interests.

xi. 05/11/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia’s commitment to the protection of human rights is beyond

question. Indonesia is a founding member of the Human Rights Council.

Indonesia has already served as a member of the Council for three terms and is

currently serving a fourth term. Indonesia initiated the Intergovernmental

Commission on Human Rights of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and

the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of

Islamic Cooperation.” Another sub strategy of bald on record are to shock people

to be addressed and make them feel a bit uncomfortable. This utterance has shown

it. Those sub strategies appear when Rakhmatia open this utterance by saying the


48

commitment of Indonesia about the protection of human rights is beyond

question.

Things that is surprising and makes people who hear it feel uncomfortable

is the evidences as the prove of the sentence, “beyond question” of what Indonesia

has done as the commitment to the issues of human right both at national and

international levels. It seems this statement wants to emphasize the works of

Indonesia so far to those pacific countries that a country like Indonesia which has

understood and respected the concept of human rights has a very low likelihood of

committing violations in this regard.

xii. 05/12/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION

“Indonesia has ratified eight out of nine core international human

rights instruments, which have all been incorporated into its national legal

system — compared with just four by the Solomon Islands and five by

Vanuatu.” This utterance meaning in other words is “without further ado, let’s

see and accept the fact”. Bald on record is known as a strategy in embarrassing the

addressee’s face as one of its sub strategies. This sub strategy looks when

Rakhmatia was doing comparison in ratifying the international human rights’

charter both in Indonesia and some of those pacific countries, namely Solomon

Islands and Vanuatu. Neither directly and indirectly, the decoding facts has

silenced them coupled with mention the nominal amount of the ratification. The

purpose of Rakhmatia in doing so is to tell Mr. President and all delegates that

everything said by Rakhmatia is true and facts, that is a concrete data of

Indonesia’s commitment toward human rights, eight out of nine core is a serious


49

evidence that Indonesia government never doubt the importance of human rights

equality, no matter what their province is. Because everyone is human and has

their own human rights, then Indonesia totally appreciates and respects it by

guaranteeing their rights based on the United Nations Human Rights charter

which modulates the personal rights in full, regardless of their races, religions,

nations, and languages.

xiii. 06/13/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Indonesia is among the few countries that have an ongoing national

plan of action on human rights; it is currently working with the fourth iteration

of the plan, which is for the 2015-2019 period.” This is a reply of Rakhmatia

addressed to the pacific countries and some countries which still believe that there

is an injustice for human rights in the province of Papua and West Papua. By

sharing the fact that Indonesia was having an ongoing national plan of action on

human rights in that period through bald on record statement, everything has

become undeniable that Indonesia government really put a high attention on

human right’s issue. There is nothing could be questioned and all at once their

faces have been humiliated again.

xiv. 06/14/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION

“Indonesia has had an active and robust National Commission on

Human Rights since 1993, as well as a vibrant civil society and free media.

Indonesia is a country with a full-fledged, functioning democracy. In such a

vibrant national democracy, where there is the highest commitment to the

promotion and protection of human rights at all levels, it would be nearly


50

impossible for any human rights allegations to go unnoticed or

unscrutinised.” This utterance is clearly stating that Indonesia has no problem

with human rights issue actually, proved by those evidences. To tell the fact, it

would be better if the speaker applies bald on record as this utterance done, so

everyone will understand it directly without ask the meaning of this utterance.

Besides that, Rakhmatia knows the only way to convince all delegates of the

forum include Mr. Thomson as the president of UNGA 71st and other councils of

the United Nations is just by sharing the reality which in other words is

mentioning the facts of what Indonesia has done towards human rights. By doing

so, it is a right of the representatives to consider the truth of that statement,

whether they want to believe the statement of those six pacific countries or

Indonesia side.

xv. 08/17/NMR/OR AND BLR/IMPOSITION

“Let me conclude with a saying from our Asia-Pacific region, namely,

that when one points the index finger at others, the thumb automatically

points to one’s own face.” This saying is an interesting thing, because a saying

which should be something that is not mentioned directly is not applicable in this

context. The choice of this proverb actually shows that a proverb can also be a

sentence that attacks directly, means it is not longer to be a hint which let the

addressee to interpret the meaning, if the speaker can directly state the meaning

and purpose of that closing statement, then it would be better to make them get

the point. The use of bald on record in this utterance can be an indication that

every diplomat has their own way to tell the message they bring, if it is


51

categorized as an important case which everything should be clear, then there is

no time to listen and later understand those words, slowly. Indonesia wants to say

that those pacific countries should be careful with their own words, if this time

they blame Indonesia which clear can accuse them back with the proof of the

Indonesia government’s work, then there will be the time when their deception

can be exposed soon or late.

b. Bald on Record in Nuran’s Speech

i. 01/01/AN/BLR/POWER

“The delegation of Indonesia is compelled to exercise our right of

reply to respond to the statements made by the representatives of Vanuatu and

Solomon Islands and echoed by the representatives of Tuvalu and Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines, concerning Papua and West Papua.” Nuran shows to all

delegations that to speak clearly and deliver the speech, the opening statements

should not be so complicated. By saying it directly, all the attention will

immediately be directed at us. It is also to shows the firmness of Indonesia which

will not tolerate any interference coming from another countries. Those words

which reflect the existence of bald on record means to make them feel a bit

uncomfortable, directly and intentionally.

ii. 02/03/AN/BLR/POWER

“Time and time again, the same fabricated and false accusations are

thrown at us.” Instead of saying, “many times over” to be more polite, Nuran

chooses to say “time and time again” which is so obvious that it is not a polite

sentence to be uttered in an International forum, especially in the United Nations


52

General Assembly. The reason of Nuran to act like that is she feels that every

misleading news that those countries mentioned in the forum is just for the sake of

their political will along with the people who are join in separatist group in Papua

and West Papua. Their motivation is just to “force” Indonesia slowly by dropping

the image of Indonesia government in an appropriate forum, so that the

International will ask Indonesia to release Papua and West Papua as a new

independent nation. By knowing that scheme, Nuran chooses to apply bald on

record, be direct and at the same time also undermine their position also.

iii. 02/04/AN/BLR/POWER

“Those countries are sadly blindfolded.” It is a very obvious, firm and

proper utterance as the implementation of bald on record strategy uttered by

Nuran. They deny all facts and truths about Indonesia, then choose to distort them

and create “new facts” based on their point of views. A point of view of countries

which support the separatist movement not in their own country but in other

country. The desire to own and control everything that exist in those two

provinces make them try so hard to blame Indonesia. Interestingly however, their

efforts are seen from their state leader’s speeches who “campaign” the freedom of

those two regions and utilize the main goal of UNGA 72 by evaluating Indonesia

Government’s works at that time, purposely not in the appropriate forum namely

periodic review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human Rights Council. They

have been blinded by their personal desires without consider the impact of their

actions.


53

iv. 02/05/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“They fail to understand, or more precisely, refuse to understand.” Nuran

just tries to tell the fact that actually they know what Indonesia has done towards

the provinces of Papua and West Papua. They also know that it is not their right

and capability to criticize and meddle in domestic affairs of another country but

they pretend to forget it because they feel that they still “strong” when those five

pacific countries become “one” in defense of their desires. Since Nuran knows

that condition, without need to make small talk, she tells what the condition really

is to the representatives who attend that meeting, especially to Mr. President.

v. 03/06/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The provinces of Papua and West Papua have undergone massive

development and progress. During the past three years, 4,325 kilometres of

roads, 30 new seaports and 7 new airports were built; 2.8 million Papuans have

received free basic health care; 360,000 Papuan students have received free

education, while the economy has grown at a rate of 9.21 per cent. All of that

makes Papua and West Papua provinces the fastest growing regions in

Indonesia.” This bald on record statement is not just a collection of words

without evidences. Again, Nuran does not want if her country always being

blamed by them which later will interference the condition of national life, so at

first, she shocks them by sharing the recently condition of Papua and West Papua

which other delegates and Mr. President do not know about that. Frankly, she

proves that Indonesian government in fact put a special attention for them, with a

purpose that no more provinces are left behind because of the matter of education


54

quality and quantity, health, and public facilities and infrastructure. All of that is

done to achieve the ideals of the nation to live in prosperity and because of that,

the provinces of Papua and West Papua become the fastest growing regions in

Indonesia which the last statements indeed embarrass them.

vi. 04/07/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The provinces of Papua and West Papua are an integral and sovereign

part of Indonesia. They will always remain an integral part of Indonesia.” This

bald on record statement is a declaration of Nuran as Indonesia diplomat and

become something that cannot be contested. It also to show to the other countries

that Indonesia’s sovereignty is absolute. No one can disrupt and revoke the fact

that the provinces of Papua and West Papua will always be the part of Indonesia.

By knowing the urgency of this statement, Nuran understands that wordy sentence

is not needed, but a simple and clear sentence is pretty much better to shock and

“wake up” their mind.

vii. 04/10/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“If Indonesia had anything to hide concerning human rights issues in

this day and age of open technology, by now everybody would know if such

accusations even existed.” Nuran wants to say that in this modern and a moment

of rapid technological development, it is nearly impossible if everyone cannot

access or get news from their gadget or smartphone anytime and anywhere. Since

the fact is nowadays, everything can be a great news in mass media, start from a

simple thing to the most complicated cases. Therefore, by speaking as if great

efficiency is necessary in attention–getters as her sub strategy in bald on record,


55

she wants to state that if it is true that Indonesia has treated the provinces of Papua

and West Papua badly then surely it will become the main headlines in

everywhere which means everybody will know that.

viii. 05/11/AN/BLR AND NPS/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia fails to understand how countries continue to support

separatist activities in other countries. Is that a way to hide from one’s own

domestic problems? Do those countries have a perfect human rights track

record?” It is obviously confusing for everyone to understand a case when

countries support the separatist activities exist in another country. When they

uphold justice and peace, they will not do such actions like that. Nevertheless, on

the contrary, if they do that, it means everything that they have said about peace,

human rights, justice and so on become meaningless. In other words, all

statements coming from them should be questioned either the truth and the

originality. Thus, great urgency as the sub strategy of this bald on record is

applied by Nuran.

ix. 05/12/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Obviously, their motivation in this body is to dismember the territorial

integrity of a sovereign and independent nation.” If at first, everything they did

become a question for Indonesia government, now it is no longer a question but

rather a conclusion for everyone who join the United Nations debate that what

five pacific countries have done clearly pose a dangerous threat to the Republic of

Indonesia. It seems through their accusations given to Indonesia and their full

support towards the separatist movement in the provinces of Papua and West


56

Papua which has shown that they want to tear apart the sovereignty of Indonesia

through those two mentioned provinces. Thus, it is considered as a great urgency

as the sub strategy of bald on record strategy that is must be conveyed

straightforwardly to Mr. Lajčák from Slovakia as the President in the 72nd United

Nations General Assembly in 2017.

x. 05/13/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Such actions are illegal, must not be condoned and violate the

fundamental principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.” This

utterance is categorized as bald on record because the bold-typed sentences show

that they belong to two sub categories of bald on record such as speaking as if

great efficiency is necessary in attention – getters and warning. In this case, Nuran

wants to show to the President of the United Nations General Assembly at that

time, five pacific countries and other delegates, that the fact is those pacific

countries have made several fake accusations about the condition of Papua and

West Papua Provinces and have violated the value of that important moment

which is to share the truth condition of their own country not to question the

sovereignty of certain country. This statement also shows a warning coming from

Indonesia who will not tolerate those contemptible statement and want to remind

the United Nations as the official institution that unites the whole nations to take

certain action as a response towards that case. By doing that, the world will know

that Indonesia will not accept such action and act firmly in responding to that

urgent case.


57

xi. 05/14/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“We cannot let that happen. We cannot let it continue.” As the

representative of a state, absolutely a diplomat will not say something which

might create tension between one to other countries. Meanwhile if there is

something happen beyond “the relation”, then it is not a mistake of Nuran to warn

the consequences of what has done. It is a big mistake if several countries give

false accusation toward certain country without any facts behind that and support

separatist movements to break away from a country, especially in this case is

Indonesia. Therefore, it is an absolute right of Indonesia to give warning as one of

bald on record’s sub strategies, so they know that Indonesia will not be quiet and

accept all the false news and surely will stand and defend for its own sovereignty.

xii. 05/15/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia categorically rejects all accusations made by those countries

and the individuals with separatist agendas operating behind them.” This utterance

belongs to bald on record because it is a great urgency which is in accordance

with the sub strategies of bald on record. It is very clear that the three beginning

words, “Indonesia categorically rejects” shows that this is an urgency thing, a

problem that is need to be solved soon. Furthermore, Nuran does not want to

waste her time by using metaphors or other types of politeness strategy to say her

purpose indirectly since this sensitive matter is better conveyed directly so they

will get the point quickly.

From all bold utterances above, it can be figure out that both Indonesia

diplomats, Rakhmatia and Nuran will not tolerate any issue which question and


58

doubt Indonesian sovereignty. They will defend for their own country, so to prove

it they apply bald on record in their directive speech on that forum before the

President of the General Assembly and all the representatives.

2. Off-Record

In off–record, the speaker tends to tell something to the others but do not

directly mention their purpose to the receiver. In casual descriptions, they might

be referred to as ‘hints’ (Yule, Pragmatics, 1996, p. 63).

a. Off-Record in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 08/17/NMR/OR AND BLR/IMPOSITION

“Let me conclude with a saying from our Asia-Pacific region, namely,

that when one points the index finger at others, the thumb automatically

points to one’s own face.” This closing statement of Rakhmatia is divided into

two types of politeness strategies, namely off-record and bald on record. The word

which show the off-record is, “a saying” which have similar meaning with

proverb and parable. Because of so many clear and informative information that

Rakhmatia has mentioned before, so for the last statement she chooses to share a

saying in which also summarizes the overall objectives of her speech or in other

words apply a hint for conclusion.

b. Off-Record in Nuran’s Speech

i. 02/02/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

“This is one time too many that a hoax and false allegations are being

circulated by individuals who are economically motivated by the separatist


59

agenda of Papua and their supporters.” Nuran knows that a bigger issue would not

raise up if there are not many people who support it. However, it is not proper to

mention the perpetrators, specifically their name in such official forum like that

because what is asked by Mr. President is only a response not a counterclaim, so

Nuran chooses to apply “hints” for her off-record utterance. Unlike those five

pacific countries which do not put a respect towards this forum again, so that they

can directly say Indonesia is responsible for all matters and chaos happen in the

provinces of Papua and West Papua.

Those troubles which they cannot clarify and prove the truth, they have

unilaterally believed that as the truth. It is very obvious that the need of prosperity

and increased economic growth has encouraged them to do everything they can to

achieve all of these goals even by providing baseless recognition, reports, and

accusations against a country in an official world-class forum.

ii. 04/08/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

“Those countries have been foolishly deceived by individuals – I repeat,

individuals – with a separatist agenda to exploit the issue of human rights.”

Again, because this is a very important forum, so it is not appropriate if discussion

can cause a fight. In this case, Nuran thinks that it is not her authority to mention

who are the masterminds involved in that case. The most important thing that she

should tell is there are several people who initiate and motivate such actions and

those people who do not like if the provinces of Papua and West Papua still and

always remains as the integral part of Indonesia. It is a certain political desires and

interests which drive them to have these ideas. Because of Nuran position which


60

is just a diplomat, the representatives of Indonesia, so she lets Mr. President to

figure out who “individuals” she meant. Her off-record utterance shows her big

respect to Mr. President of this assembly.

iii. 06/16/AN/OR/DISTANCE

“I would like to conclude by quoting an old Indonesian proverb: if you

slap the water in a bucket, then be careful of the water splashing over your own

face.” The same with what Rakhmatia has done, Nuran also chooses to deliver a

saying, an old Indonesian proverb to conclude everything that she has said,

especially the main point of her speech that she specifically addressed to those

pacific countries. She thinks a proverb can answer all questions about Indonesia

and clarifies all fake news about Indonesia. Besides, it also becomes interesting if

the addressee interprets the meaning by their own way.

At the end, the researcher knows that even if Rakhmatia and Nuran use

bald on record more frequent in that forum but they also recognize that they bring

state’s reputation as they are the official representatives of Indonesia for that

discussion, then off-record becomes their second consideration in applying it to

their speech. Sometimes, the off-record appears when they do not mention

directly the name of the countries which always give false and fake allegations to

Indonesian’s government because they know that Indonesia is always put

negotiation and peace first to solve any problems that happen without create a

new case.


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3. Positive Politeness Strategy

Positive politeness strategy in politeness strategy means when the speaker

talks to the interlocutor and want to ask something, the speaker will not directly

mention what they need but tend to build a good conversation even friendship

(Yule, Pragmatics, 1996, p. 64).

a. Positive Politeness in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 07/15/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

“We reaffirm that there are domestic mechanisms in place at the

national level in Indonesia, as well as at the provincial level in Papua and

West Papua.” The word, “reaffirm” is a better choice because it is considered as

a more polite and obvious words rather than “restate”. In this case, Rakhmatia

wants to reiterate that in Indonesia every province has their own “central

government” which known as regional government. Both of them have the same

duties, the difference is just in their area of authority, capital and region.

Rakhmatia just wants to emphasize that several countries opinions are wrong

about Indonesia government system which only resides in the capital just like

other countries, so they cannot solve some regional problems. Because it is a

clarification and not create any tension also to seek agreement of the

representatives, so Rakhmatia applies positive politeness in her utterance.

ii. 07/16/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

“For our part, we will continue to maintain appropriate focus on the

development of the Papua and West Papua provinces in the best interests of all.”

In order to fulfill the need of those pacific countries who still feel unsatisfied with


62

the performance of Indonesia government, then Rakhmatia chooses to consider

and put all those statements as the advices for the best of Indonesia in the future.

By saying, “we will continue to maintain appropriate focus on the

development of the Papua and West Papua provinces in the best interests of all”

it is beyond doubt that this utterance shows Indonesia government commitment by

promising to protect and even keep improving development progress in the

provinces of Papua and West Papua. Directly, Rakhmatia’s utterance is in

accordance with the positive politeness sub strategy, namely promise.

b. Positive Politeness in Nuran’s Speech

In this speech, the researcher does not find any positive politeness

which the speaker applied in her utterances.

At the examples above, Rakhmatia especially wants to show even though

she is quite “angry” to the six pacific countries report but she tries to control it by

managing her language. By seeing at her utterance, specifically the bold one

which coming from her, the researcher can conclude that it is not always about to

keep the dignity and identity of Indonesia but also to keep the relations,

friendship, and good image that has been built for a very long time before there is

Papua cases. Another thing that is also seen is Rakhmatia was trying to announce

the fabric of friendship and peace between Indonesia and the five pacific

countries. Meanwhile, Nuran does not apply any positive politeness strategy in

her speech, since her purpose is to tell everything directly by applying bald on

record much more, so as to express all her intentions and disappointment.


63

4. Negative Politeness Strategy

Negative politeness strategy is categorized as a face saving act which the

form of this strategy is in questioning, means when the speaker want to ask

something to the receiver, they will question rather than tell directly, or tell it

implicitly (Yule, Pragmatics, 1996, p. 64).

a. Negative Politeness in Rakhmatia’s Speech

The researcher did not find any negative politeness in her speech.

b. Negative Politeness in Nuran’s Speech

This strategy is also appearing in Nuran’s speech. This can be seen from

the evidences found as follows:

i. 04/09/AN/NPS/DISTANCE

“If human rights are at the heart of the issue, why were those concerns

not raised in the appropriate forum, namely, the third cycle of the Universal

Periodic Review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human Rights Council?”

This is the best thing that can be found from Nuran speech script. A diplomat’s

shrewdness is very clear from the language strategy adopted by her. The

technique of questioning something but not hiding the intention of the question

make the meaning of the utterance that should be an attack turns into a subtle

attack that would not be considered painful for the addressee. This technique also

known as one of the sub strategy of negative politeness strategy, which is be

conventionally indirect, means the utterance is on record but the desires of the

speaker is off-record (being indirectly).


64

ii. 05/11/AN/NPS AND BLR/IMPOSITION




record?” This utterance uses the same technique as written above. Nuran’s

utterance is defined as on record, while her desire in uttering them is considered

as off-record (being indirectly) in order to save the face of the addressee. This

strategy mostly known as be conventionally indirect in the sub strategy of

negative politeness strategy. Instead of giving many face threatening acts (FTA)

toward the addressee’s face, it would be better to save their face once in a while,

so that the content of her speech is not just fulfilled with emotions and tensions.

This evidence (the bold utterance) in Nuran utterance has shown that

another strategy which is negative politeness strategy used to seek the attention of

the president of the United Nations General Assembly is quite effective because

the addressee (Indonesian diplomat) can transform the speakers’ (five pacific

coutries) mistakes by switching their statements into questions as one of

diplomacy strategy. Meantime, Rakhmatia does not use any negative politeness

strategy in her speech because she focuses only on tell everything directly through

bald on record as the politeness strategy.


65

B. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by

Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran as Sociological Variables for

Relevant Circumstances

In delivering their speeches in United Nations General Assembly 71 and

72 in 2016 and 2017 both Rakhmatia and Nuran directly and or indirectly have

their own reasons when apply the types of politeness strategies as sociological

variables for relevant circumstances. According to (Brown & Levinson,

Politeness, 1987), the reckoning of the seriousness of an FTA (Face Threatening

Acts) may affect in the sociological circumstances (p.74).

Figure 2. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies

Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran

According to Figure 2. Rakhmatia and Nuran apply all three sociological

variables as the reasons behind the use of those four types of politeness strategies

in their speech. In this pie chart, it shows that the frequency of social distance is

11%

26%

63%

SOCIOLOGICAL VARIABLES

Social Distance Relative Power Rank of Imposition


66

(11%) from 4 data of both diplomats, the frequency of relative power is (26%)

from 9 data of both diplomats, and the frequency of rank of imposition is (63%)

from 22 data of both diplomats. The importance of the percentage available in the

pie chart above is to show the frequency of the presence of the reasons behind the

use of the types of politeness strategies as sociological variables for relevant

circumstances in a speech text. All data collected by the researcher are findings

that will be further analyzed, especially the researcher will discuss and explain

those three sociological variables. Based on that, three factors as the sociological

variables will be elaborated along with the utterances, as follows:

1. The Social Distance of Speaker and The Addressee

Social distance determines the choice of words when applying politeness

strategies in speaking (Brown & Levinson, Politeness, 1987, p. 76). In this

strategy it is known that, if the speaker and the addressee have a close

relationship, the speaker will use less polite expression by applying positive

politeness strategy and or bald on record. Otherwise, the speaker will use more

polite expression by applying negative politeness strategy and off record if the

speaker and the addressee are not close each other.

a. Social Distance in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 07/15/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

“We reaffirm that there are domestic mechanisms in place at the

national level in Indonesia, as well as at the provincial level in Papua and

West Papua.” This utterance applies positive politeness to show social distance

factor when Rakhmatia utters it in United Nations General Assembly. It appears


67

from the word, “reaffirm” means she wants to restate and also clarify again the

misleading news which has spread about the condition of Papua and West Papua.

She does not use a more polite words because as it is known, Indonesia and

United Nations have a very close relations proved by several important positions

given to Indonesia. Thusly, this utterance is addressed to Mr. President of this

assembly not for the pacific countries.

ii. 07/16/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

“For our part, we will continue to maintain appropriate focus on the

development of the Papua and West Papua provinces in the best interests of all.”

This utterance also shows social distance factor in Rakhmatia’s speech. In this

statement, Rakhmatia chooses to apply positive politeness by promising that

Indonesia government will maintain the condition of the provinces of Papua and

West Papua to Mr. President and the representatives of every country who attend

this forum. Because of close relations between Indonesia, United Nations and

most member countries, Rakhmatia applies less politeness strategy to send on the

message and the purpose of Indonesia.

b. Social Distance in Nuran’s Speech

i. 04/09/AN/NPS/DISTANCE

“If human rights are at the heart of the issue, why were those concerns

not raised in the appropriate forum, namely, the third cycle of the Universal

Periodic Review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human Rights Council?”

Through this utterance, it is really clear that Rakhmatia shows a bit of anger at

irresponsible statements made by those countries. The rift in relations between


68

Indonesia and those countries has made Indonesia not closely related to them and

it becomes the reason of Rakhmatia to apply negative politeness in her utterance,

besides it also to emphasize their truth image as countries which worse than

Indonesia for several aspects of life. This purpose becomes greater when

Rakhmatia asks those two questions addressed to them.

ii. 06/16/AN/OR/DISTANCE

“I would like to conclude by quoting an old Indonesian proverb: if you

slap the water in a bucket, then be careful of the water splashing over your own

face.” In this expression, Rakhmatia wants to say that someday what we have

done will turn back and have an impact on ourselves. Do not interfere in other

people’s business because definitely there will be a time where people will take

care of our lives which it also becomes something that we do not like. Due to that,

Rakhmatia tells it “indirectly” and applies off-record as the hints of her purpose to

show that both of Indonesia and that problematic pacific countries are not close

each other.

2. The Relative Power of Speaker and The Addressee

Power means as an asymmetric social dimension or circumstances of

relative power (Brown & Levinson, Politeness, 1987). There are two sources in

general of the power, namely material control (over economic distribution and

physical force) and metaphysical control (over the actions of others) (p.77). In this

strategy, if the addressee has a greater power than the speaker, then the speaker


69

will talk more polite to the addressee. Furthermore, if the speaker has a greater

power than the addressee, he or she will talk less polite to the addressee.

a. Relative Power in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 01/01/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Indonesia would like to exercise its right of reply to the statements

delivered by the representatives of the Solomon Islands (see A/71/ PV.18) and

Vanuatu (see A/71/PV.19), and the similar statements by the representatives of

Nauru (see A/71/ PV.13), the Marshall Islands (see A/71/PV.15), Tuvalu (see

A/71/PV.19) and Tonga (see A/71/PV.19), regarding matters concerning Papua, a

province of Indonesia.” This opening statement wants to show the decisiveness

and serious side of Indonesia in responding to the issues which has spread about

the condition of Papua considers as the defamation of Indonesia’s name. Such

thing like that cannot be allowed to happen. Indonesia considers it as a very

serious matter. Because of Indonesia’s position is higher than those countries,

Rakhmatia immediately says the purpose of her speech by applying bald on

record to remind them to do not forget that they are not exceed Indonesia.

ii. 04/07/NMR/BLR/POWER

“It is highly regrettable and dangerous for States to misuse the United

Nations, including the Assembly.” This utterance is showing sympathy as well as

power stated in one of bald on record sub strategies and reasons behind the use of

bald on record as politeness strategy when sharing this as part of her whole

speech. It also a reminder towards those countries which have questioned and

fiddled the status of a certain area of a sovereignty country which has been clearly


70

recognized de facto and de jure. A meeting that aims to discuss global issue has

been misused by certain individuals for personal and group interests. The strength

and position of Indonesia and those countries can be seen from the word, “for

states” like higher is talking to lower.

iii. 04/08/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Those countries are using the Assembly to advance their domestic

agenda and, in some cases, in an attempt to divert attention from political and

social problems at home.” In this utterance, Rakhmatia uses bald on record to

convey those countries truly purpose in joining this forum which is to reach their

group’s interest. Because of their great desire, they no longer feel ashamed in

declaring it publicly. Indonesia as a country with a strength power that it has, also

do not reluctant to do as what they do, especially conveys everything as the facts

and truths, so that it can be taken into consideration by the United Nations.

iv. 05/12/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION




Vanuatu.” The fact of the data is this Rakhmatia’s utterance does not contain

only one reason behind the use of the types of politeness strategies applied by her

as sociological variables for relevant circumstances. There are power and

imposition that support this utterance’s goal. The power side that is shown by her

is through her first statement, “Indonesia has ratified eight out of nine core

international human rights instruments”, it is really clear that Indonesia who has a


71

higher power does not proud just because of that achievement, but the more proud

thing is Indonesia can validate almost all the core of international human rights

instruments which every country also cannot do that, include those pacific

countries. Therefore, to embarrass their positive face to emphasize the existence

of the rank of imposition, Rakhmatia shares the fact and shows the power directly.

v. 06/13/NMR/BLR/POWER

“Indonesia is among the few countries that have an ongoing national

plan of action on human rights; it is currently working with the fourth iteration

of the plan, which is for the 2015-2019 period.” Another straightforward

sentences through bald on record strategy which Rakhmatia does not hesitate to

show the power of Indonesia is this utterance. Without any doubt, she tells all the

participants of that forum that Indonesia is one of several countries which shows it

commitments about human rights issue through the ongoing national plan which

start from 2015 until 2019. By stating that, Rakhmatia clearly shows that

Indonesia does not only give reply to all false accusations which thrown at us but

also those statements are supported by the fact or the evidences. Evidences when

they may want to know, they can figure it out by searching on it or directly asking

to Indonesia representatives at the forum.

vi. 06/14/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION






72



unscrutinised.” Another evidences that show the existence of power in her

utterance is this declaration and her deeper emphasis lies in the last bald on record

sentence which is “in such a vibrant national democracy, where there is the

highest commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights at all levels,

it would be nearly impossible for any human rights allegations to go unnoticed or

unscrutinised”.

The intention of her in conveying all the evidences is to declare that

actually those pacific countries have their own motive in joining that official

forum. They do not want to discuss the concerns at that time which is the

sustainable and development goals matter, all they want is to blame Indonesia

government by mentioning those fake conditions of Papua through their leader’s

speech. That non–fundamental statement motivates Rakhmatia to refute it by

pointing out all the facts, so that Mr. President and all the representatives will not

believe every single word and sentence comes out of them.

b. Relative Power in Nuran’s Speech

x. 01/01/AN/BLR/POWER

“The delegation of Indonesia is compelled to exercise our right of

reply to respond to the statements made by the representatives of Vanuatu and

Solomon Islands and echoed by the representatives of Tuvalu and Saint Vincent

and the Grenadines, concerning Papua and West Papua.” This statement wants to


73

show that Indonesia is not like the five pacific countries mentioned above which

uses the forum as a moment to blame each other rather than find the way out of

the problems that every country is now facing together. Indonesia which considers

all the accusations as an act and a serious threat also expresses their disagreement

by sharing them in a retaliatory speech which was permitted by the United

Nations. The power possessed by Indonesia was directly addressed through the

opening sentence of Nuran’s speech which shows Indonesia’s complaints over

their inadvisable statements. That bald on record strategy as the opening statement

clearly states that Indonesia with a higher power in International forum will not

give any chance for anyone, especially them in endangering, tearing apart and

seizing territory and the supremacy from a sovereign republic. Thus, before take

any action, Indonesia will deliver the cases and discuss it as long as those

countries involved are opened for discussion.

xi. 02/03/AN/BLR/POWER

“Time and time again, the same fabricated and false accusations are

thrown at us.” Through this utterance, Nuran wants to emphasize that those

countries never feel bored to drop Indonesia’s image. They use the United

Nation’s forum intentionally to insult the unitary state of the Republic of

Indonesia. They can do that many times because they do not afraid the effect of

their action at all. Because of that, Indonesia determine its attitude by being

assertive and will not tolerate any actions which threaten the integrity and unity of

of the Republic of Indonesia.


74

The use of bald on record phrase, “time and time again” aims to ask the

United Nations to see that intolerable actions as something that have to be solved,

since the role of the United Nations is to unite all the nations around the world by

doing good things such as giving help to solve the problem, realizing justice and

peace and reducing conflict which might occur in the future. As the matter of fact,

Indonesia can solve it by its own because the power that Indonesia has, however

to minimize every possibility include conflicts which might exist, Indonesia

choose to give that to the United Nations as the most respected organization.

xii. 02/04/AN/BLR/POWER

“Those countries are sadly blindfolded.” A stronger power of Indonesia

from education, health, social life, art and culture, politics, law, human rights until

every aspects of everyday life has made Indonesia superior in all aspects. So that

it is clearly possible for Indonesia to show the true face, nature and position of

those pacific countries in a piece of Nuran’s bald on record statement which is,

“sadly blindfolded”. This sentence also shows that those countries become less

deterrent because the United Nations do not give firm responses in bridging the

resolution of this problem. Indonesia in this case clearly shows that those who

cannot be informed and explained are those who deliberately have a desire to

interfere peace in the territory of the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia.

3. The Absolute Ranking of Impositions in The Particular Culture

There are two ranking of impositions in proportion, namely services

including the provision of time and goods including non-material goods like


75

information (Brown & Levinson, Politeness, 1987, p. 77). This means both

impositions cause face threatening acts. It occurs when the speaker shows more

face threatening acts in his or her utterances, then the imposition of the act is also

become greater. Hence, the speaker uses high standard politeness strategies in

speaking and or communicating. In the ranking of imposition, the speaker who

want to impose or drop the addressee’s negative face will say something more

polite by applying negative politeness strategy and off–record. However, if the

speaker wants to drop or impose the addressee’s positive face, then the speaker

will say more threaten words.

a. Rank of Imposition in Rakhmatia’s Speech

i. 02/02/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia is shocked to hear that, at this important stage, where leaders

are gathered in the General Assembly to address the early implementation of the

Sustainable Development Goals, the transformation of our collective action, and

other global challenges, such as climate change — whose severest impact is felt

by Pacific countries — the State leaders chose instead to violate the Charter of

the United Nations by interfering in another country’s sovereign affairs and

attempting to violate its territorial integrity.” Indonesia has to faced and handled

various accusations given by those six pacific countries and with a certain purpose

mention all of them directly in the United Nations forum. Unfortunately, all

accusations made by them do not have any one basis of truth. This fact was

directly revealed by Rakhmatia through her speech by explaining them as

complaints and accusations based on real fact and situation to against them back.


76

In other words, the bold-typed statement above, “the state leaders chose instead

to violate” shows bald on record strategy and the imposition exists in the

addressee’s positive face self-image through the complaints and accusations

declared by Rakhmatia. Positive face, a desire to be accepted, agreed, valued,

approved has been dropped because of the actions they have done themselves. In

this imposition, Rakhmatia wants to relay that if you want to be respected, then

respect others first just like you treat yourself.

ii. 03/03/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“We categorically reject the continuing insinuations in their

statements, which clearly reflect an unfortunate lack of understanding of the

history, current situation and progressive developments in Indonesia, including in

the provinces of Papua and West Papua.” In this bald on record statement,

Indonesia obviously rejects all accusations mentioned by them. This rejection

indicates that Indonesia intentionally has dropped or imposed the positive face of

those six pacific countries immediately in that United Nations forum. Their desire

to be accepted has been refused by Indonesia because of their dishonorable and

disrespectful decision to blame Indonesia as if in reality Indonesia does not care

towards Papua and considers Papua as an Independent province who does not

belong to Indonesia anymore. For Indonesia it is just wasting time to tell people

the truth and the fact in which they do not want to agree about it either, therefore

to prevent this kind of things happen again, Rakhmatia chooses to drop their face.


77

iii. 03/04/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Couched in unfriendly rhetoric and smacking of a political manoeuver,

those politically motivated statements were designed to support separatist

groups in the State provinces, groups that have persistently engaged in inciting

public disorder and in conducting armed terrorist attacks on civilians and security

personnel.” When each of those six pacific countries leaders gave their speech,

most of the point was talking about poor conditions experienced by Papua such as

lack of attention from Indonesia government towards them, discriminating, until

human rights issues which were deliberately left by Indonesia without any

solutions.

They speak as if they really stand for truth, justice, humanity and

compassion, however, in truth, directly they have revealed that their statements

are aimed for the sake of freedom of Papua and indirectly speaking as the

representative of the separatist groups who is asking for the United Nations

permission to support for the freedom of Papua to separate from Indonesia and

become an independent nation. That is the reasons of Rakhmatia in this bald on

record utterance to show again the resistance of Indonesia by exposing

contradiction statements to reply their speech. Statements which proved who they

are, a group of people who plan to drop the credibility and endanger the

independency of Indonesia in international’s view. Consequently, before they

proceed further, it is a good decision of Indonesia when drop their integrity as

their public face in a big scale such as this United Nations forum.


78

iv. 04/05/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The statements made by those countries clearly violate the purposes

and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the principle of


sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.” This bald on record statement

contains imposition in it. The element of imposition is seen through Rakhmatia’s

first statement of this utterance which represents Indonesia complaints towards

violation that they have done and do not supposed to be done in a prestigious

meeting like this United Nations forum. This complaint is considered as an action

of dropping the positive face of the addressee, namely get the recognition and

approval from everyone.

By giving this reaction, Indonesia hopes that the United Nations and all the

representatives will consider and re-think again to trust every statement uttered by

the six pacific countries because it is impossible for complaints to appear if what

the pacific countries said are all true and sounds reasonable. Besides, to point out

that infringement, Indonesia as the member of the United Nations, an international

organization which aims to unite all nations through enhancing politics,

economics, humanitarian, and other various aspects of life, also wants to demand

and remind the promise as well as the commitment of the United Nations to

protect all nations as well as always being a mediator for every problems that

occur at any time.


79

v. 04/06/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“I reiterate that it is a violation of the sovereignty and territorial

integrity of States.” This bald on record expression really gives imposition to the

addressee’s image by evaluating positive face of pacific countries through the

expression of violent emotion by Indonesia represented by Rakhmatia as the

diplomat who attended the forum at that time. Specifically, the first part of this

utterance, “I reiterate that it is a violation” is a strong choice of words to show that

their words considered as a serious violation especially it concerns the

independency of the Republic of Indonesia. The United Nations in this case who

always act as a mediator for every problems that exist should respond to such

severe cases by not allowing them in expressing those contempt for a country,

especially Indonesia who has a highly commitment towards the human rights

issue and suddenly being questioned many times by them, in this way and in this

important moment. For that reason, Indonesia expressly expressed its objection to

the United Nations which still shows no sign to mediate the problem arises

between Indonesia and those countries.

vi. 04/09/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Those countries mentioned are also using false and fabricated

information as the basis for their statements.” According to Rakhmatia, conveys

all the reality is not enough to reveal the methods used by those countries, then,

she decides to directly reveals the facts behind the sources of data in their speech,

i.e. invalid, not guaranteed, inaccurate, and unreliable. By directly saying that

through bald on record statement addressed to them, they must immediately give


80

their attention by reacting either through facial expression or verbal denials

through their self–defense sentences. In this case, it means that Indonesia has

received their attention easily proved by those fact which successfully make them

feel uncomfortable and finally show their discomfort. At that point, dropping their

face through bald on record way by speaking frankly and expressing complaints is

an exact choice when no one of your addressee want to listen to the truths. At

least by doing that way, you have gotten your one step ahead by obtaining their

attention and reaction as the authentic evidence.

vii. 04/10/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The conduct of those countries undermines the Charter of the United

Nations and is detrimental to the credibility of the Assembly.” Obviously, this

piece of sentence shows a strong bald on record statement, a little bit warning and

threat. However, it aims to make the United Nations aware of that uncontrollable

action carried out by those countries in the official moment of this United Nations

forum. It is not only tarnishing the name of the Republic of Indonesia but also the

image and authority of the United Nations. This outrageous action should be

solved in particular because it is no longer concerns a country but the credibility

of an official international organization that has almost all countries in the world

as its official members. By imposing the positive face through the critics and

complaints raised by Indonesia, it must has degraded their image and they have to

willing accept it as one of the consequences. If Indonesia does not do that, they

will not be afraid and will think to do it again as long as there is no response that


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indicates an assistance to end this problem from the United Nations for mutual

good and peace.

viii. 05/11/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia’s commitment to the protection of human rights is beyond

question. Indonesia is a founding member of the Human Rights Council.

Indonesia has already served as a member of the Council for three terms and is

currently serving a fourth term. Indonesia initiated the Intergovernmental

Commission on Human Rights of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and

the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of

Islamic Cooperation.” Rakhmatia is dropping their positive face through

complaint, disapproval and bald on record statement uttered by her. The

disagreement is shown by her opening statement which is “Indonesia’s

commitment to the protection of human rights is beyond question” and it is being

emphasized again in the last words, which is “beyond question”. Then, the

complaint “element” appears in the next sentences until the last statement of this

utterance which aims at showing the evidences that verily Indonesia is not as bad

as what they have described at the United Nations forum.

Indonesia will not just receive all those baseless accusations in which at

the same time they cannot ascertain and demonstrate better aspects of life in each

of their regions such as in politics, education, health, economics, social and

culture better than Indonesia. The reason of Rakhmatia in elucidating those facts

is basically she recognizes that they cannot dispute the reality and the facts that

Indonesia’s commitment for a better life of its society is undeniable represented


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by the achievements, the national ongoing plans, and other projects of Indonesia

government in several important fields include human rights issues. They cannot

defend themselves because there is no evidence showing that they have acted and

behaved fairly and deserves to be called as a perfect country in achieving a decent

standard for social life.

ix. 05/12/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION




Vanuatu.” This statement has two reasons behind the using of bald on record as

the types of politeness strategies applied by Rakhmatia as sociological variables

for relevant circumstances, namely power and imposition. The explanation of

power has been explained above, so this section will explain the imposition point

of view for this utterance, specifically. In this utterance, she imposes their positive

faces through the critics and disagreements expression addressed to them openly

and directly. It is clearly appeared through the comparison that Rakhmatia does

about the validation of the international human rights instruments which has

agreed upon mutually by all nations who are the official members of the United

Nations between Indonesia and those six pacific countries.

Through that data which relies on the real situation and condition,

Indonesia expressly refuses to be equalized with those countries which have not

been able to solve their own domestic problems and take full responsibility for the

welfare of their society. By doing that comparison and revealing the fact about the


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ratification of eight out of nine human rights instruments, Indonesia also wants to

emphasize that Indonesia will not let any case of human rights befall the

Indonesia’s society. However, if there are human rights violations occur

unexpectedly, Indonesia government will not allow it to drag on and as a proof,

some matters that have been occurred in Indonesia has been responded quickly

and have been dealt with it directly, right after the report of that cases.

x. 06/14/NMR/BLR/POWER AND IMPOSITION







unscrutinised.” The case of this utterance is the same as the previous one

because they contain two reasons, i.e. power and imposition which is not every

statement have more than one reason. The imposition comes when Indonesia feels

that it is already sufficient to explain all the facts about human rights issue and

then decides that some firm expressions about the actual condition of Indonesia is

the right choice and step to evaluate the positive face of the addresses without

need to being care of their feelings.

Such criticism and complaints have been chosen as a way to drop their

positive image also those bald on record statement succeed to show the position of

those countries compare with Indonesia. Moreover, such a scathing sentence of


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criticism have been conveyed and emphasized at the end of the statement which

once again confirms that with Indonesia’s high commitment to human rights, it is

impossible to let cases of human rights violations occur in Indonesia.

xi. 08/17/NMR/OR AND BLR/IMPOSITION

“Let me conclude with a saying from our Asia-Pacific region, namely, that

when one points the index finger at others, the thumb automatically points to

one’s own face.” Even though, this utterance uses proverb to conclude every

statement that she made in her speech, but this utterance is not only considered as

an off-record as the types of politeness strategies which is commonly known as a

strategy which use hints, surprisingly, because of its too straightforwardness, it is

also categorized as a bald on record expression. Generally, proverb or saying is

known as an expression which is not telling something or the purpose of any

utterance directly, perhaps to trigger the readers or the addressee so that they can

be active in analyzing and seeking the meaning of them. Nonetheless, it is

different from the proverb used by Rakhmatia as the closing statement of the

entire content of her speech.

This proverb is not hiding its meaning and purpose at all, showed through

its sentence which is not asking the readers or the addressee to figure out the

point, on the contrary she does not let the addressee to interpret it in their own

way, she transfers the meaning, openly as if it is directly said from Indonesia to

those countries. Besides its types of politeness strategies, it is also consisting of

imposition as the reason of Rakhmatia in applying bald on record and off-record

which is to impose the positive face of the six pacific countries by showing the


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disapproval of Indonesia seen in the saying of fingers, even if the index finger and

thumb are on the same hands, but they can points at different directions which

means there must be a disagreement about something if one side is not agree with

a point of the other side. Therefore, to avoid the ambiguity or the unclear point of

her speech, she then decides to convey a firm saying.

b. Rank of Imposition in Nuran’s Speech

i. 02/02/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

“This is one time too many that a hoax and false allegations are being

circulated by individuals who are economically motivated by the separatist

agenda of Papua and their supporters.” This statement is categorized as an off-

record because the use of the term, “individuals”. As it is known that off-record

always use hints or being not directly in mentioning something as its strategy,

Nuran also shows that side in several part of her speech, one of them is this

utterance. Whether she knows the perpetrators and pretend as if she does not

know or she really does not know about that and uses the words, “individuals” to

tell and describe what she meant to Mr. President and all delegations at that

United Nations forum.

However, this utterance has discomforted the rights of the separatist

groups and the pacific countries to do their mission toward the province of Papua

without being bothered at all by anyone. This kind of method also has inhibited

the movement of them in continuing their goal to interfere the province of Papua

as a whole. Their negative face has been dropped by Indonesia through the threats

of their rights in being “safe” or not being menaced for their personal freedom.


86

Because of that, even though this sentence does not directly refer to anyone, but

whom is close to the people who wants to be addressed to must feel that their

position or space has been hampered because something that they have been tried

to hide, has known now.

ii. 02/05/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“They fail to understand, or more precisely, refuse to understand.”

Nuran’s utterance shows this is absolutely a bald on record statement. The word,

“refuse” is clear to say that it is not about they do not understand, but the fact is

they decline to understand and accept the truth as well as acknowledge that what

they have said is untrue and unproven. The purpose of this utterance is also

pointing to the reason of Nuran in applying bald on record, which is to drop their

positive image through accusations based on the truths that were hidden by them

for so long. Unlike those five pacific countries which only provide allegations

without evidence exacerbated by their unwillingness to accept the truths,

Indonesia on the other hand can prove that all accusations explained are based on

the fact which are not made up by Indonesia government.

All of the evidences are the projects of Indonesia government which has

been done and still working on that, because of that, it can be an indication that

Indonesia’s commitment is undeniable and unquestionable. Thus, in order to

make Mr. President and all delegates more aware of who they are, then Nuran

chooses to emphasize the word, “refuse” at the end of this remark which also aims

to make them unable to dispute it.


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iii. 03/06/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The provinces of Papua and West Papua have undergone massive

development and progress. During the past three years, 4,325 kilometres of

roads, 30 new seaports and 7 new airports were built; 2.8 million Papuans have

received free basic health care; 360,000 Papuan students have received free

education, while the economy has grown at a rate of 9.21 per cent. All of that

makes Papua and West Papua provinces the fastest growing regions in

Indonesia.” This bald on record sentence clearly shows the complaint of

Indonesia towards those five pacific countries. Contradiction and complaint are

the way used by Nuran to convey the allegations and all the matters raised in the

forum were untrue. Their leader’s speeches who said the provinces of Papua and

West Papua are two provinces that received less attention from the government,

has not yet developed, the occurrence of injustice, and unfinished cases of human

rights violations is a clear statement made by them in order to make Mr. President

and all delegates believe for what they have said and later realize their desire to

provide support, so that those two provinces can stand as an independent regions.

In this case, if Nuran wants to clarify the truth, then it cannot be done

effectively without stating it directly. Regarding this, intentionally or

unintentionally, will surely drop the positive face of the addressee, specifically,

those who want to be addressed as the targets. The thing that make them even

more ashamed is proof that the two mentioned provinces were precisely the fastest

growing regions among all provinces in Indonesia.


88

iv. 04/07/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“The provinces of Papua and West Papua are an integral and sovereign

part of Indonesia. They will always remain an integral part of Indonesia.” Every

country will try so hard in protecting the integrity of its territory by doing

anything or every possible effort. Nuran in this statement shows it so obviously,

the effort to protect the provinces of Papua and West Papua and keep maintain

them as part of the sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia. Disapproval as the

way to drop their positive face is clearly shown through this bald on record

utterance which states that Indonesia will not let anyone try to interfere even take

its territory.

In this case, everything that is conveyed explicitly or implicitly has been

considered by Indonesia government as attempt even to seize some of its

territorial and such actions like this will surely get resistance both from the

government and Indonesia society. However, the interesting thing from this

statement is, Nuran thinks, perhaps they still do not understand or do not care that

Indonesia does not like if its territory being threatened and ashamed, therefore,

she emphasizes again the intent and purpose of the rejection comes from

Indonesia government, through the repetition of the same sentence, same meaning

and same goals.

v. 04/08/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

“Those countries have been foolishly deceived by individuals – I repeat,

individuals – with a separatist agenda to exploit the issue of human rights.” Off-

record seems so obvious in this utterance, through her repetition to the word,


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“individuals”. Nuran wants to say and show that those five pacific countries are

only being used as a tool or even puppets of certain groups or individuals who

have a motive to get and control some territories, especially want to take the

provinces of Papua and West Papua from Indonesia which is known as the area

with abundant natural resources and have them completely. All actions and

statements which taken and uttered by those countries has been supported strongly

by that individuals or particular groups because they want their wishes are granted

and after that can easily get those two provinces.

Besides supporting each other, perhaps the pacific countries will get

something as wages from their work because it is impossible that certain countries

are willing to support separatist groups along with their political agenda to control

some areas of a country as long as they do not engage in collusion, deeply.

Because of Nuran already knows their purpose learns through the previous United

Nations forum represented by Rakhmatia, so this time in her decisive statement

which is shown in the repeating word of “individuals”, Nuran firmly imposes their

negative face by depriving them from their right to not being disturbed, hindered

in carrying out their mission and defense themselves before the public in the

United Nations forum. She does not give any chance for those countries to say

something, she succeeds in silencing them with the facts and important

information that they hide from all countries.

vi. 04/10/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“If Indonesia had anything to hide concerning human rights issues in

this day and age of open technology, by now everybody would know if such


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accusations even existed.” In this utterance, Nuran wants to share fact through

logic of thinking, that in the era of open technology as it is now and lets anyone to

easily access everything through technology and social media, and being update

anytime and anywhere, it is an impossibility if there is something that Indonesia

has hidden successfully from everyone, include Mr. President of the United

Nations forum and all delegations. For Indonesia there is no point in hiding facts

especially about human rights because what is hidden certainly will be discussed

and evaluated in the periodic review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human

Rights Council and it is also just wasting time for themselves to overthrow the

prosperity that has been built for so long.

In another words, there is no single countries will impose their face and

dignity willingly for uncertain and dangerous things. Absolutely, Nuran’s

statement is using bald on record to impose the positive face of the five pacific

countries which without any doubt and regret still try to interfere Indonesia.

Nuran conveys this disapproval emotionally and deliberately to show that

Indonesia would never feel afraid to take action and show a threat back to them.

vii. 05/11/AN/BLR AND NPS/IMPOSITION




record?” This utterance consists of two types of politeness strategies, namely

bald on record and negative politeness strategy. This statement contains both a

statement and questions, in which the statement clearly states that it is


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unreasonable when several countries become one and support separatist activities

in a country. Usually, the unity of several countries occurs and is formed because

of multilateral relations or for the sake of cooperation in certain important factors

such as education, economy, health, military and socio culture include technology

rather than forming unity to support the destruction of several regions in a

sovereign state.

Although, Nuran has explained the reasons behind the statements made by

their leaders, but it seems that it does not totally drop their face, so that in addition

to demean their positive face, Nuran also chooses to drop their negative face

which aims to give accusations back to them and prevent them from their rights to

not be disturbed an restricted by anyone, at any time and in anywhere. Therefore,

both of the strategies have their own purpose, which is bald on record statement to

impose positive face of the addressee and negative politeness strategy to impose

negative face. Thus, Mr. President and all delegates will understand that those

who shout about human rights have not shown a perfect historical record for that

concern or even better than Indonesia and the accusations made by them is one of

their effort to hide their own domestic problems, perhaps it could be about human

rights matter, then as a diversion of the issue, Indonesia is being made as the

center of attention.

viii. 05/12/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Obviously, their motivation in this body is to dismember the territorial

integrity of a sovereign and independent nation.” This utterance of Nuran is

clearly showing that the purpose of five pacific countries in the United Nations


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forum is just to give accusations and blame Indonesia government, consciously

and purposely for achieving their mission in seizing the provinces of Papua and

West Papua. The forum that was supposed to be used for discuss every problem,

such as conflict, climate change, global migration, poverty eradication, and such

serious matters instead being used by them to propose their own political agendas

without any doubt and regret.

For the sake of their eagerness, they even do not think and consider again

that their doings are fatal for themselves and their relations among other countries

and towards the United Nations, also they do not afraid of their bad reputation

later as the result of what they have done. By knowing and seeing their

motivation, Nuran is also pretty sure to impose their positive face through her

bald on record statement by stating that they just join the forum for disintegrating

the territories of Indonesia as an independent and sovereign nation. The

imposition exists through the complaints and accusations made by her which

addressed to five pacific countries concluded in that single statement, Nuran does

that, so Mr. President and all delegates recognize such things like that must not be

allowed in the United Nations forum and totally inappropriate for countries in

conducting such doings.

ix. 05/13/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Such actions are illegal, must not be condoned and violate the

fundamental principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.” In

relations to the previous statement, Nuran repeats again that what they have done

is intolerable, unfortunate and should not be done by countries like them.


93

Moreover, they are also the official members of the United Nations who have

agreed to all agreements, one of them is to create peace and unity among all

countries and with the United Nations. The agreements that they have known and

agreed should not be violated, but they do not show their commitment about that.

Precisely, they decrease their credibility and capability before the public because

of their support to the separatist groups. They do not care anymore for their image

and choose to lose it because of their strong desire in reaching for those two

mentioned provinces.

Nuran as the representative of Indonesia try to remind that actions which

have gone too far, should immediately get the attention of the United Nations,

directly and may not get any forgiveness by any defense or reason, but it seems

like the United Nations does not do anything for solving that case, which means

they just spin out time until this case do not raise anymore. Because of that

reason, Nuran shares this reminder through the bald on record utterance so that

she also can imposes the positive face of the addressee through her direct

complaints. This way is an effective step for Nuran to get the attention of Mr.

President and all delegates to start find the way out of this case and do not put

aside it just because it is considered as an unurgent matter according to their

opinion and not from the point of view of Indonesia as the target country.

x. 05/14/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“We cannot let that happen. We cannot let it continue.” The action that

they have done is considered as a serious act which threatens the territory of an

independent and a sovereign state. There is no country which is willing if the


94

integrity of the country is swayed by a group of people who seek protection from

several countries. Any country will definitely not tolerate this action, means every

country will defend their territory as hard as they can. This statement is a warning

as well as a counter–threat that was conveyed by Indonesia to those countries.

In this case, Indonesia no longer sees them as a proper and suitable

territory to be called as a state. It is seen through the speech of Nuran who no

longer offends them with pronoun, “they” and those as what she always does in

her previous part of speech. Immediately, she conveys the retaliation of what

Indonesia wants to do in response to the accusations they had given. Nuran clearly

imposes those pacific countries’ positive face to strengthen the face threatening

act effect in which Indonesia never feels afraid in facing any threats or

accusations, but rather they must be prepared and feel afraid of what will be done

by Indonesia to them as a deterrent effect, later.

xi. 05/15/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

“Indonesia categorically rejects all accusations made by those countries

and the individuals with separatist agendas operating behind them.” Nuran

expresses this disagreement bluntly and does not care anymore for the image of

the addressee to show that she intentionally imposes their positive face in always

being approved. Nuran wants to denote that not everything is considered as a

tolerable thing and can be agreed by everyone, especially about sensitive things

like questioning and doubting sovereignty and dignity of the independent nation,

specifically Indonesia. Things like this can threat and trigger a disunity to occur in

the country absolutely as dangerous for the state life.


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Accordingly, Indonesia cannot consider this case as a harmless thing,

Indonesia also will not be silent and definitely will take action as a form of

disagreement towards them. This bald on record statement shows the effort of

Indonesia government in protecting the country and society as well as to defend

the provinces of Papua and West Papua as the absolute areas of Indonesia.

Indonesia will not let anyone to endanger and impend some areas of Indonesia

and Indonesia as a whole. Hence, Indonesia will show that the unitary state of the

Republic of Indonesia is an inviolable essence.


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CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS

From the analysis that has been conducted, the researcher concludes that

language and language acquisition is so important nowadays, it is not only for the

sake of diplomacy but for the globe scale. The specific examples are the speech of

Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran, Indonesian diplomats who have to

show their skills not only in diplomacy field but also in language and the

combination of both. The choice of strategy used will determine whether the

speech will be recognized as the main case and topics for further discussion in the

United Nations General Assembly or will just brought in the forum only.

Bald on record as the most frequent strategy which appears in 27

utterances of both diplomats in total means it is effectively to reject when those

pacific countries questioning the sovereignty and dignity of Indonesia, whereby

Indonesia government will not give any tolerance. The use of off-record by

Rakhmatia in 1 of her utterance and Nuran in 3 of her utterances aim to show that

Indonesia is a country which does not always blame and mention everything

directly since they know every truths and facts will reveal as soon as possible.

Rakhmatia chooses to use positive politeness as appears in her 2 utterances

to portray that even if there is a problem among Indonesia and those eleven

pacific countries, in which Rakhmatia faced six pacific countries and despite of

that, Indonesia still offer a friendship upon them. Nuran in this case is the only

one who does not apply any positive politeness in her speech, since all her


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statements aims to convince and deliver the real facts and conditions of Indonesia

as well as to argue the fake allegations about Indonesia, thus she just focuses on

how she can expresses and clarifies everything well when faces five pacific

countries, so that everyone in the both 71st and 72nd UNGA can understand it,

easily.

Last, the use of negative politeness strategy is to show that seeking and

getting attention through some questions whether form a direct or indirect

sentence when uttering it, sometimes more effective than tell them directly. In this

case, Nuran indirectly and intentionally invite all the participants to analyze their

utterances which full of false and invalid allegations and surely addressed to

Indonesia government, while Rakhmatia does not apply negative politeness at all

in her speech because her purpose in the UNGA moment just to inform about

what work that has been done and the results obtained.

Besides, the types of politeness strategy which really help Rakhmatia and

Nuran as the speakers, the reasons of the use of the types of politeness strategy as

sociological variables for relevant circumstances such as the social distance of

speaker and the hearer, the power relation of speaker and the hearer and the

absolute ranking of impositions in the particular culture also very important in

diplomacy world. It really influences the choice of words of the speaker when she

or he wants to utter something or to deliver some facts before the public,

especially an important meeting like the United Nations General Assembly in

which the words of the Diplomat as the official representative of certain country

will portray the image of their home country, in this case the choice of


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sociological variables of Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran as Indonesian

Diplomats for their speech’s strategies will show to the world how Indonesia

respond and resolve some cases in relation with them.


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APPENDICES

The researcher uses several codes to simplify the terms used as the types of politeness strategies, namely: BLR stands for Bald on

record, OR stands for Off – record, PPS stands for Positive politeness strategies, and NPS stands for Negative politeness strategies.

Every bold sentence indicates types of politeness strategies that the researcher found.

Appendix 1: Data of Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by


Table 1. Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia

Line Utterances Types of politeness strategies Time 1st Indonesia would like to exercise its right of reply to the statements delivered

by the representatives of the Solomon Islands (see A/71/ PV.18) and Vanuatu (see A/71/PV.19), and the similar statements by the representatives of Nauru (see A/71/ PV.13), the Marshall Islands (see A/71/PV.15), Tuvalu (see A/71/PV.19) and Tonga (see A/71/PV.19), regarding matters concerning Papua, a province of

Bald on record 0:09-0:27


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Indonesia (BLR). 2nd Indonesia is shocked to hear that, at this important stage, where leaders are

gathered in the General Assembly to address the early implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the transformation of our collective action, and other global challenges, such as climate change — whose severest impact is felt by Pacific countries — the State leaders chose instead to violate the Charter of the United Nations by interfering in another country’s sovereign affairs and attempting to violate its territorial integrity (BLR).


3rd We categorically reject the continuing insinuations in their statements, which clearly reflect an unfortunate lack of understanding of the history, current situation and progressive developments in Indonesia, including in the provinces of Papua and West Papua (BLR).


4th Couched in unfriendly rhetoric and smacking of a political manoeuver, those politically motivated statements were designed to support separatist groups in the State provinces, groups that have persistently engaged in inciting public disorder and in conducting armed terrorist attacks on civilians and security personnel (BLR).


5th The statements made by those countries clearly violate the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the principle of international law concerning friendly relations among States, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States (BLR).


6th I reiterate that it is a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States (BLR).


7th It is highly regrettable and dangerous for States to misuse the United Nations, including the Assembly (BLR).


8th Those countries are using the Assembly to advance their domestic agenda and, in some cases, in an attempt to divert attention from political and social problems at home (BLR).



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9th Those countries mentioned are also using false and fabricated information as the basis for their statements (BLR).


10th The conduct of those countries undermines the Charter of the United Nations and is detrimental to the credibility of the Assembly (BLR).


11th Indonesia’s commitment to the protection of human rights is beyond question. Indonesia is a founding member of the Human Rights Council. Indonesia has already served as a member of the Council for three terms and is currently serving a fourth term. Indonesia initiated the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (BLR).


12th Indonesia has ratified eight out of nine core international human rights instruments, which have all been incorporated into its national legal system — compared with just four by the Solomon Islands and five by Vanuatu (BLR).


13th Indonesia is among the few countries that have an ongoing national plan of action on human rights; it is currently working with the fourth iteration of the plan, which is for the 2015-2019 period (BLR).


14th Indonesia has had an active and robust National Commission on Human Rights since 1993, as well as a vibrant civil society and free media. Indonesia is a country with a full-fledged, functioning democracy. In such a vibrant national democracy, where there is the highest commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights at all levels, it would be nearly impossible for any human rights allegations to go unnoticed or unscrutinised (BLR).


15th We reaffirm that there are domestic mechanisms in place at the national level in Indonesia, as well as at the provincial level in Papua and West Papua (PPS).

Positive politeness 4:51-5:01

16th For our part, we will continue to maintain appropriate focus on the development of the Papua and West Papua provinces in the best interests of all

Positive politeness 5:03-5:15


105

(PPS). 17th Let me conclude with a saying from our Asia-Pacific region, namely, that when

one points the index finger at others, the thumb automatically points to one’s own face (OR and BLR).

Off-record, bald on record 5:17-5:32

Table 2. Summary Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia

The Speaker (Indonesian diplomat)

Politeness Strategy

Bald on record Positive politeness strategy

Off record Negative politeness strategy


15 2 1 0

Total 18


106

Tabel 3. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia as Sociological

Variables for Relevant Circumstances

Data Code The Speaker Utterances Sociological circumstances

Social distance

Relative power

Ranking of imposition

01/01/NMR/BLR/POWER


Indonesia would like to exercise its right of reply to the statements delivered by the representatives of the Solomon Islands (see A/71/ PV.18) and Vanuatu (see A/71/PV.19), and the similar statements by the representatives of Nauru (see A/71/ PV.13), the Marshall Islands (see A/71/PV.15), Tuvalu (see A/71/PV.19) and Tonga (see A/71/PV.19), regarding matters concerning Papua, a province of Indonesia (BLR).

•

02/02/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION

Indonesia is shocked to hear that, at this important stage, where leaders are gathered in the General Assembly to address the early implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the transformation of our collective action,

•


107

and other global challenges, such as climate change — whose severest impact is felt by Pacific countries — the State leaders chose instead to violate the Charter of the United Nations by interfering in another country’s sovereign affairs and attempting to violate its territorial integrity (BLR).


We categorically reject the continuing insinuations in their statements, which clearly reflect an unfortunate lack of understanding of the history, current situation and progressive developments in Indonesia, including in the provinces of Papua and West Papua (BLR).

•


Couched in unfriendly rhetoric and smacking of a political manoeuver, those politically motivated statements were designed to support separatist groups in the State provinces, groups that have persistently engaged in inciting public disorder and in conducting armed terrorist attacks on civilians and security personnel (BLR).

•

04/05/NMR/BLR/IMPOSITION The statements made by those countries clearly violate the purposes

•


108

and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the principle of international law concerning friendly relations among States, as well as the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States (BLR).


I reiterate that it is a violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States (BLR).

•

04/07/NMR/BLR/POWER

It is highly regrettable and dangerous for States to misuse the United Nations, including the Assembly (BLR).

•

04/08/NMR/BLR/POWER

Those countries are using the Assembly to advance their domestic agenda and, in some cases, in an attempt to divert attention from political and social problems at home (BLR).

•


Those countries mentioned are also using false and fabricated information as the basis for their statements (BLR).

•


The conduct of those countries undermines the Charter of the United Nations and is detrimental to the credibility of the Assembly (BLR).

•


Indonesia’s commitment to the protection of human rights is beyond question. Indonesia is a founding

•


109

member of the Human Rights Council. Indonesia has already served as a member of the Council for three terms and is currently serving a fourth term. Indonesia initiated the Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (BLR).

05/12/NMR/BLR/POWER AND

IMPOSITION

Indonesia has ratified eight out of nine core international human rights instruments, which have all been incorporated into its national legal system — compared with just four by the Solomon Islands and five by Vanuatu (BLR).

• •

06/13/NMR/BLR/POWER

Indonesia is among the few countries that have an ongoing national plan of action on human rights; it is currently working with the fourth iteration of the plan, which is for the 2015-2019 period (BLR).

•

06/14/NMR/BLR/POWER AND

IMPOSITION

Indonesia has had an active and robust National Commission on Human Rights since 1993, as well as a vibrant civil society and free media. Indonesia

• •


110

is a country with a full-fledged, functioning democracy. In such a vibrant national democracy, where there is the highest commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights at all levels, it would be nearly impossible for any human rights allegations to go unnoticed or unscrutinised (BLR).

07/15/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

We reaffirm that there are domestic mechanisms in place at the national level in Indonesia, as well as at the provincial level in Papua and West Papua (PPS).

•

07/16/NMR/PPS/DISTANCE

For our part, we will continue to maintain appropriate focus on the development of the Papua and West Papua provinces in the best interests of all (PPS).

•

08/17/NMR/OR AND

BLR/IMPOSITION

Let me conclude with a saying from our Asia-Pacific region, namely, that when one points the index finger at others, the thumb automatically points to one’s own face (OR and BLR).

•


111

Appendix 2: Data of Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by

Ainan Nuran

Table 4. Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Ainan Nuran

Line Utterances Types of politeness strategies

Time

1st The delegation of Indonesia is compelled to exercise our right of reply to respond to the statements made by the representatives of Vanuatu and Solomon Islands and echoed by the representatives of Tuvalu and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, concerning Papua and West Papua (BLR).

Bald on record 0:10 – 0:26

2nd This is one time too many that a hoax and false allegations are being circulated by individuals who are economically motivated by the separatist agenda of Papua and their supporters (OR).

Off-record 0:29 – 0:43

3rd Time and time again, the same fabricated and false accusations are thrown at us (BLR).


4th Those countries are sadly blindfolded (BLR). Bald on record 0:52 – 0:55 5th They fail to understand, or more precisely, refuse to understand (BLR). Bald on record 0:56 - 1:02 6th The provinces of Papua and West Papua have undergone massive

development and progress. During the past three years, 4,325 kilometres of roads, 30 new seaports and 7 new airports were built; 2.8 million Papuans have received free basic health care; 360,000 Papuan students have received free education, while the economy has grown at a rate of 9.21 per cent. All of that makes Papua and West Papua provinces the fastest growing regions in Indonesia (BLR).

Bald on record 1: 03 – 1:47


112

7th The provinces of Papua and West Papua are an integral and sovereign part of Indonesia (BLR). They will always remain an integral part of Indonesia (BLR).


8th Those countries have been foolishly deceived by individuals — I repeat, individuals — with a separatist agenda to exploit the issue of human rights (OR).


9th If human rights are at the heart of the issue, why were those concerns not raised in the appropriate forum, namely, the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human Rights Council (NPS)?

Negative politeness 2:20 – 2:40

10th If Indonesia had anything to hide concerning human rights issues in this day and age of open technology, by now everybody would know if such accusations even existed (BLR).


11th Indonesia fails to understand how countries continue to support separatist activities in other countries. Is that a way to hide from one’s own domestic problems? Do those countries have a perfect human rights track record? (BLR,NPS)

Bald on record, negative politeness

3:01 – 3: 21

12th Obviously their motivation in this body is to dismember the territorial integrity of a sovereign and independent nation (BLR).


13th Such actions are illegal, must not be condoned and violate the fundamental principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (BLR).


14th We cannot let that happen (BLR). We cannot let it continue (BLR). Bald on record 3:48 – 3:51 15th Indonesia categorically rejects all accusations made by those countries and the

individuals with separatist agendas operating behind them (BLR). Bald on record 3:53 – 4:03

16th I would like to conclude by quoting an old Indonesian proverb: if you slap the water in a bucket, then be careful of the water splashing over your own face (OR).



113

Table 5. Summary Types of Politeness Strategies Employed by Ainan Nuran

The Speaker (Indonesian diplomat)

Politeness Strategy

Bald on record Off – record Positive politeness strategy

Negative politeness strategy


Total 17

Tabel 6. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Ainan Nuran as Sociological Variables for

Relevant Circumstances

Data Code The Speaker Utterances Sociological circumstances

Social distance Relative power

Rangking of imposition

01/01/AN/BLR/POWER Ainan Nuran The delegation of Indonesia is compelled to exercise our right of reply

•


114

to respond to the statements made by the representatives of Vanuatu and Solomon Islands and echoed by the representatives of Tuvalu and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, concerning Papua and West Papua. (BLR).

02/02/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

This is one time too many that a hoax and false allegations are being circulated by individuals who are economically motivated by the separatist agenda of Papua and their supporters (OR).

•

02/03/AN/BLR/POWER

Time and time again, the same fabricated and false accusations are thrown at us (BLR).

•

02/04/AN/BLR/POWER

Those countries are sadly blindfolded (BLR).

•

02/05/AN/BLR/IMPOSITION

They fail to understand, or more precisely, refuse to understand (BLR).

•


The provinces of Papua and West Papua have undergone massive development and progress. During the past three years, 4,325 kilometres of roads, 30 new seaports and 7 new airports were built; 2.8 million Papuans have received free basic health care; 360,000 Papuan students have received free

•


115

education, while the economy has grown at a rate of 9.21 per cent. All of that makes Papua and West Papua provinces the fastest growing regions in Indonesia (BLR).


The provinces of Papua and West Papua are an integral and sovereign part of Indonesia (BLR). They will always remain an integral part of Indonesia (BLR).

•

04/08/AN/OR/IMPOSITION

Those countries have been foolishly deceived by individuals — I repeat, individuals — with a separatist agenda to exploit the issue of human rights (OR).

•

04/09/AN/NPS/DISTANCE

If human rights are at the heart of the issue, why were those concerns not raised in the appropriate forum, namely, the third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review of Indonesia at the United Nations Human Rights Council? (NPS)

•


If Indonesia had anything to hide concerning human rights issues in this day and age of open technology, by now everybody would know if such accusations even existed (BLR).

•

05/11/AN/BLR AND Indonesia fails to understand how countries continue to support

•


116

NPS/IMPOSITION

separatist activities in other countries. Is that a way to hide from one’s own domestic problems? Do those countries have a perfect human rights track record? (BLR,NPS)


Obviously, their motivation in this body is to dismember the territorial integrity of a sovereign and independent nation (BLR).

•


Such actions are illegal, must not be condoned and violate the fundamental principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (BLR).

•


We cannot let that happen. We cannot let it continue (BLR).

•


Indonesia categorically rejects all accusations made by those countries and the individuals with separatist agendas operating behind them (BLR).

•

06/16/AN/OR/DISTANCE

I would like to conclude by quoting an old Indonesian proverb: if you slap the water in a bucket, then be careful of the water splashing over your own face (OR).

•


117

Appendix 3: Data of Summary Types of Politeness Strategies and The Reasons in using the Types of Politeness Strategies

Employed by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran

Table 7. Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran


Bald on record Off – record Positive politeness strategy

Negative politeness strategy

Nara Masista Rakhmatia 15 1 2 0


Total 27 4 2 2


118

Table 8. The Reasons of the use of the Types of Politeness Strategies Applied by Nara Masista Rakhmatia and Ainan Nuran

as Sociological Variables for Relevant Circumstances

The Speaker Sociological Variables Social Distance Relative Power Rank of Imposition

Nara Masista Rakhmatia 2 6 11 Ainan Nuran 2 3 11

Total 4 9 22


politeness strategies of indonesian diplomats’

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