Redefining politeness: Power and status in the digital age

Abstract

Politeness refers to socio-cultural norms, conventions, or rituals in society. From a critical sociolinguistic perspective, the discourse of politeness is inseparable from social status and power. For instance, people who have a high social standing associate with a high level of politeness. This condition certainly has implications for a social hierarchy. Status is characterized by the presence of a high social position, while power is related to the hegemony of the powerful person to his subordinates. Previous research has shown that power is closely related to society characterized by educated, knowledgeable, and elderly people in society. However, in today’s digital age, those indicators have shifted to wealth, position, and fame. It is for this reason that relations of power and status in politeness need to be redefined.

Keywords:

• politeness
• power
• social status
• sociolinguistics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the No research funding was used to do this research [0].

Notes on contributors

Darsita Suparno

Darsita Suparno graduated with a first-class honors in linguistics from Universitas Indonesia In 1986. She received both her master's and doctoral degrees in linguistics from Sam Ratulang University in Manado, North Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 2000 and 2012, respectively. She accepted a ‘short-term research fellowship’ at the National University of Singapore's Asean Research Institute in 2007. She started lecturing in 1993. Her email address is [email protected].

Ita Fitriana

Ita Fitriana received her undergraduate degree in 2010 and her master's degree in 2012, both from Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia. Then, she obtained her doctoral degree from Universitas Udayana, Indonesia in 2022. She participated in the ”Long Term Japanese Teacher Training” program sponsored by the Japanese government in Japan in 2016-2017. Since 2014, Ita Fitriana has been working as a lecturer in the Japanese Department at the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Jenderal Soedirman, located in Purwokerto, Indonesia. Her email is [email protected]

Nadra Nadra

Nadra obtained her first degree from Universitas Andalas in 1986—her master's degree in 1992 and her doctorate in 1997, both from Gadjah Mada University. She also took the ‘Short-Term Research Fellowship’ at J. W. Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt, Germany in 1993. She has been a lecturer since 1988 and a Professor of Linguistics at Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Andalas, Indonesia, since 2002. Her email is [email protected]

Fahmi Gunawan

Fahmi Gunawan holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics. He is an associate professor in the Department of Arabic Language Education, Institut Agama Islam Negeri Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. He has fourteen years of experience in teaching and research. His research interests include but are not restricted to translation, cri tical discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics, sociopragmatic, language education and language in Islamic studies.

Saad Boulahnane

Saad Boulahnane earned his Ph.D in Cultural Studies from Hassan II University. He is presently assistant professor of English at Hassan I University (FLASH). Boulahnane is a Fulbright alumnus, who served as a teaching assistant in Colorado State University, USA