ELS Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities
Vol. 8 No. 4 (2025): DECEMBER

Analysis of Politeness Strategies in Mahmud Taymur’s Short Story “Thariqun ila Al-Hubb”: The Brown-Levinson Perspective

Oktavya Wulan Syamhana, Lita (Unknown)
Zainur Rauf, Abdullah (Unknown)



Article Info

Publish Date
10 Dec 2025

Abstract

This study investigates the realisation of Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness strategies in the short story Thariqun ila Al-hub by Mahmud Taymur, focusing on how characters’ utterances reflect the four main strategies: bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off record. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, data were collected from the original Arabic text through careful reading and note-taking, followed by translation into Indonesian for analysis. The findings reveal that, out of 17 identified utterances, positive politeness is the most dominant strategy (47%), followed by negative politeness (24%), bald on record (18%), and off record (12%). The distribution varies across characters: some predominantly employ positive politeness to foster solidarity and closeness, while others rely on negative politeness to preserve distance and minimise face threats, and a few opt for directness (bald on record). These findings show that language politeness strategies not only serve to maintain social harmony but also serve as a means of expressing something, both in literary works and in real life.

Copyrights © 2025






Journal Info

Abbrev

jish

Publisher

Subject

Arts Humanities Education Languange, Linguistic, Communication & Media Social Sciences

Description

ELS-JISH is, a journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities: Linguistics, Literature, Language Teaching, Translation, and Culture, a scholarly peer-reviewed international scientific journal published quartely by the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Hasanuddin University Publication, focusing on ...