Politeness Strategies in English Interactions between Tour Guides and Foreign Tourists in Yogyakarta

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-418-1_15How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Politeness; Tour Guides; Foreign Tourists; Politeness Strategies; Speech Acts; Face Threatening Act

Abstract

Tour guides serve as the front line in implementing politeness in English with foreign tourists. This study aims to identify and analyze the politeness strategies used by tour guides and foreign tourists in Yogyakarta. The main research question is: What politeness strategies are employed by tour guides and foreign tourists in Yogyakarta? This research employs a qualitative approach using the simak bebas libat cakap (SBLC) method, note-taking, and informal matching techniques. The data sources include English utterances produced by tour guides with Javanese cultural backgrounds. Additionally, data were gathered from interactions with foreign tourists who use English as a lingua franca, either individually, in pairs, or in groups. Data were collected through recordings of conversations between tour guides and foreign tourists. The researcher observed these conversations and subsequently categorized and classified the data based on three main types of speech acts: representative, directive, and expressive. The data analysis was conducted using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Face Threatening Act (FTA) theory to identify the politeness strategies employed. The findings indicate that both tour guides and foreign tourists use various politeness strategies, including bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record strategies. Tour guides tend to use positive and negative politeness strategies more frequently to maintain good relationships with tourists, while foreign tourists exhibit more varied usage, influenced by cultural factors and language proficiency. These findings highlight the importance of linguistic and cultural awareness in international tourism interactions, particularly in the context of Yogyakarta.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Agustinus Hary Setyawan
AU  - I. Dewa Putu Wijana
AU  - Hendrokumoro
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/06/06
TI  - Politeness Strategies in English Interactions between Tour Guides and Foreign Tourists in Yogyakarta
BT  - Proceedings of the International Conference on Cultural Studies (ICCUS 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 191
EP  - 202
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-418-1_15
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-418-1_15
ID  - Setyawan2025
ER  -