SOCIAL DISTANCE AND POLITENESS IN SCHOOL INTERACTIONS: A DCT-BASED STUDY
Keywords:
Politeness strategies, social distance, speech acts, EFL classroom pragmaticsAbstract
This study explores the politeness strategies used by junior high school students in classroom interactions and how these strategies are influenced by social distance, specifically in peer versus teacher interactions. Grounded in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, the study focuses on four types of speech acts—agreeing, disagreeing, making requests, and making suggestions—across two social contexts. Using Discourse Completion Tasks (DCTs) and follow-up interviews, five participants’ responses were analyzed to identify the use of positive, negative, and bald on-record politeness strategies. The findings show that students tend to use more elaborate and formal expressions when addressing teachers, employing politeness markers such as hedging, modal verbs, and honorifics. In contrast, peer interactions were often more casual and direct, marked by brief affirmations, bald on-record disagreements, and assertive suggestions. Interview data supported these patterns, revealing that students consciously adjust their tone and language based on the perceived social hierarchy. These results suggest that social distance plays a critical role in shaping students’ pragmatic choices, and that explicit instruction in politeness strategies is necessary to enhance students’ communicative competence in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) settings.
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