<![CDATA[Politeness is a culturally situated communicative practice through which speakers negotiate interpersonal relationships, social hierarchies, and relational expectations. This study investigates politeness strategies in Massenrempulu society, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, focusing on how linguistic directness interacts with personal pronouns and address terms across symmetrical and asymmetrical relationships. Employing a qualitative ethnographic design, data were collected from 40 participants through participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and document review. A corpus of 320 recorded utterances was examined using politeness strategy classification and context-sensitive pragmatic interpretation. The findings reveal that bald-on-record strategies predominate (72%), followed by positive politeness (15%), negative politeness (10%), and off-record strategies (3%). Direct expressions occur in both symmetrical and asymmetrical interactions, although relational distinctions are reflected in the use of culturally meaningful linguistic markers. The pronoun Ko commonly accompanies familiar interactions, whereas Ki and honorifics such as Puang, Andi, and Pak index respect and social positioning. These findings suggest that grammatical directness and relational deference can coexist within culturally embedded communication practices. The study contributes to sociopragmatic scholarship by demonstrating how local linguistic resources mediate interpersonal appropriateness, while highlighting the importance of contextual interpretation beyond conventional directness–indirectness distinctions in culturally diverse communicative settings.]]>
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