Politeness in Political Interviews: A Pragmatic Analysis of Indonesian Presidential Candidates' Answers to Critical Questions
Abstract
A political interview with a presidential candidate(s) is one of the most anticipated interviews not just by their supporters, but by the entire public. Although this interview has been going on for a while and the presidential election is over, it is still important to analyze the interview from both political and other perspectives. Through a pragmatic approach, this study aims to describe the types of politeness of one of the presidential candidates in answering critical questions from journalists. This study uses a descriptive qualitative method in which the data is collected through non-participant observation techniques and analyzed based on the classification of language politeness proposed by Brown & Levinson (1987). This study found four politeness strategies, namely direct strategy (bald on-record), positive politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, indirect strategy (off-record). Among these, the most dominant was the off-record strategy (37,8%), which indicates the politician’s preference for indirectness and narrative to address sensitive topics. The second most frequent was positive politeness (31.0%), typically employed to create in-group solidarity and a sense of shared purpose. Negative politeness (24.3%) was used when delivering disagreement or rejection while maintaining respect for the interlocutor’s autonomy. The least used strategy was bald on-record (6.7%), applied selectively for assertive or factual statements. These findings suggest that politeness strategies in political interviews are not merely linguistic choices, but are tied to image management, institutional power relations, and strategic facework. Besides aiming to enrich the understanding of how the concepts of politeness and face strategies are used in the political context, this study also explains how politicians use language to shape their self-image before the public and the media.
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