Exploring Students’ Politeness Perspectives at the State University of Makassar

Abstract

This paper’s main focus is to explore the students’ perspectives of politeness practices at the State University of Makassar. The main problems to be explored are the roles of politeness in the class and the ways to show politeness. The subject of this research is the students of English Literature Department, Faculty of Languages and Literature, the State University of Makassar. To collect data, an open-ended questionnaire was distributed to one class of English Literature department, consisting of 20 students. This questionnaire was analyzed descriptively in relation to politeness theories. Findings shows that the students perceived that politeness has important roles in the classroom interaction. Politeness is a need in education, a strategy to create good characters, and a learning motivation. There are also some ways to show politeness according to the students such as being on time and not getting angry in the class. These students’ perspectives should be given a priority in order to create effective learning and teaching process. Findings from this study become valuable inputs for teachers and students in their efforts to create effective classroom interaction.