Politeness strategies in teacher-student whatsapp communication

Abstract

One of the emerging issues of the use of text-messaging over the WhatsApp application, among teachers and students is concerned with students‘ impoliteness. A body of literature has extensively argued that students are less polite language users when sending texts to their teachers, and the current study sought to examine the politeness strategies used by the two groups. Specifically, it aimed to examine whether or not there is a significant difference between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and students in the use of politeness strategies in sending text messages to each other. To this end, the study addresses secondary EFL teacher-student WhatsAppp communication and presents an analysis of politeness strategies from a total of 200 WhatsApp texts. The analysis of the politeness strategies was based upon on Brown and Levinson‘s (1987) politeness framework. Findings of the study revealed that students employed more politeness strategies than their teachers. With the emphasis on age and social status, Indonesian EFL learners perceived teachers to be of a higher social class where students were required to highly respect them.