Positive politeness strategies used by the judges in Master Chef Australia : season 11

This research aimed to investigate the use of positive politeness strategy in the comments that the Master Chef Australia judges used in their utterances and the factors affecting their choice of strategy. Master Chef Australia season 11, episode 01 and 55 were selected as the data source of this research. In this research, the researcher applied Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework about politeness strategy and its contributing factors. In her study, the researcher employed the qualitative approach. She transcribed episode 01 and 55 videos in order to collect the data. She also highlighted all sentences, words, and phrases that contain positive politeness strategies. The researcher found that twelve of the fifteen strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) were carried out by the judges, they are; use in-group identity marker, exaggerate, give-gift to the hearer, notice or attend to hearer, avoid disagreement, include both speaker and hearer in activity, intensity interest to hearer, promise, give or ask reason, jokes, seek agreement, and assert speaker knowledge and concern to hearer’s wants. Also, the researcher found that the judges’ use of positive politeness strategies was motivated by two main reasons; payoff and the relevant circumstances factor. The judges used those factors because they want to reduce the social distance with the contestants and minimize the FTA by assuring the hearer that the speaker finds her/himself to be the same kind that the hearer liked and wanted to fulfill the desires of the hearer.