Use of Politeness Strategies in Conflict Resolution in Interpersonal Communication of Two Main Characters in Makutano Junction

Abstract

Politeness is a universal, interdisciplinary phenomenon. People from different linguistic backgrounds and cultures have their ways of showing respect and saving face of the interlocutors from possible face attacks during interpersonal communication. The inevitability of verbal conflict in daily conversations and the important role played by the politeness strategies during conflict resolution motivated the researcher to conduct this study. The overall goals of this study were to investigate the politeness strategies used by two of the main characters (Karis and Hope) of "Makutano Junction" TV series and establish the conflict resolution strategies chosen by them in their interpersonal communication during verbal conflict resolution. The study also investigated the influence of gender, in the choice of the politeness strategies and the verbal conflict resolution strategies adopted by these two characters. The study was anchored on Brown and Levinson (1987) 'Politeness Theory', Sillars (1986) 'Attribution Theory of conflict Resolution', IL. Austin (1962) 'Speech Act Theory' and Grice (1975) 'Conversational Maxims' The source of the data was Makutano Junction TV series. The data consisted of the utterances made by the two characters during verbal conflict situation. Descriptive - qualitative approach was taken in the analysis of the data. The analysis of the politeness strategies and verbal conflict resolution strategies was based on 'Politeness Theory' Brown and Levinson (1987) and Sillars (1986) 'Attribution theory of conflict resolution respectively. After the analysis, the study established that the two characters indeed used all the various types of politeness as described by Brown and Levinson (1987) and verbal