Characters ’ Politeness Strategies in Giving Command : Should Translators Keep Them ?

Politeness strategies have been studied from various angles. In literary works, they can be used as a device to frame characterisation. However, in recent times only a few studies have investigated the association of politeness strategies with characterisation as seen from the translation perspective. This article discusses the result of an investigation on how far the translation of politeness markers in giving commands has contributed to the framing of certain characterisation in literary works. A Pragmatic approach is used in this qualitative research to analyse the translation of politeness markers from English to Indonesian. Objective data were collected through purposive sampling from Dan Brown’s novel Deception Point and its two Indonesian versions to obtain information as to which techniques produce better translation quality in both translations. Then, affective data were collected through Focus Group Discussions. The results show that the translation of politeness markers contributed to the characterisation. It was found that established equivalence, variation, and explicitation techniques employed to the translation of politeness markers contributed to the maintenance of characterisation and the translation quality. Meanwhile, addition, reduction, and literal translation techniques altered the characterisations and therefore, decreased the translation quality. This implies that translators should consider politeness and characterisation in translating commands.


INTRODUCTION
After Brown and Levinson (1987) released their theory about positive and negative politeness, numerous researchers reported that some language societies tend to be positive politeness societies, while others are negative politeness societies (Chang 2008, Chen, He & Hu 2013, Hickey 2000, Hsieh 2009, Ogawa 1999, Ogiermann 2009, Reiter 2000).A language learner should learn how to use different politeness strategies when exposed to a different language from their mother tongue (Chiravate 2011, Najeeb, Maros & Nor 2012, Etae, Krish & Hussin 2016, Maros & Rosli 2017).They change politeness strategies while speaking in different language since the speakers realise that both languages have different tendencies in politeness strategies.It has also been found that there is a polarization of positive and negative politeness between western and eastern tradition (Eelen 2014, Mills 2011, p. 38).These findings lead us to the question, "how do translators treat these politeness issues in intercultural communication?" Politeness issues in translation have been discussed by a number of researchers such as Boubendir (2012), Fuertes-Olivera and Nielsen (2008), and Hickey (2000).However, these studies are limited to the translators' competence and problems in transferring politeness issues.In literary translation, some researchers have found that politeness strategies are either maintained or changed in the target language (Hatim & Mason 2000, Pratama 2014, Touiserkani 2015, Tretyakova 2016) which, in turn, affects the translation quality.However, these studies have not discussed the effect of maintaining or changing these politeness strategies from the source language into the target language on the characterisation, related to norm of the target language reader.
The effect of translation on characterisation in literary translation studies has rarely been studied.Hatim and Mason (2000) argue that some translators have failed to transfer politeness.They, however, do not discuss the effect of such a failure on characterisation.Chaghervand and Toroghpeima (2015) have discussed the translation of indirect characterisation in dramas but they did not explain how characterisation was changed or maintained.Moreover, Hatim and Mason (2000) and Chaghervand and Toroghpeima (2015) focused on audiovisual translation which is supported by non-linguistic aspects, i.e. facial expression, intonation, and body language that help the audience to understand the characterisation.The present study focuses on the translation of commands in novels.It relies strictly on written linguistic aspects because novels do not provide any audiovisual aids to support characterisation except the utterances and description written by the author or the translators.In a previous study, the authors of this paper found some changes in the politeness strategies used in source and target languages (Ardi, Nababan, Djatmika & Santosa 2016).However, the study did not explore the translation strategies used and their impact on translation quality.
The present study investigates the effect of the translation techniques used in translating commands on the framing of characterisation and translation quality in literary works.Within the framework of pragmatics, this study focuses on the translation of commands uttered by main characters from English into Indonesian.Despite the fact that Indonesia is a significant market for creative works including translation works (Frankfurter Buchmesse 2015, Nawotka 2015), research on the translation of English literary works and politeness strategies into Indonesian has received little attention.This study involves social contexts, such as power and distance relation between speaker and hearer, and rank of imposition of the utterances.Specifically this article aims to identify translation techniques which contribute positively and negatively toward the translation quality and characterisation in literary text.

POLITENESS IN CROSS CULTURAL CONTEXT
The use of politeness to mitigate Face-Threatening Act (FTA) in various speech acts and contexts has attracted many scholars for almost four decades since the introduction of politeness theory by Brown & Levinson (Eelen 2014, Leech 2014, Prachanant 2016, Sifianou 2015).Although it has been criticised by some scholars, (c.f.Eelen 2014, Lakoff & Ide 2005), this theory has the ability to map the tendencies of politeness of different societies.
In general, Brown and Levinson (1987) classify politeness strategies for mitigating FTA: a) bald on-record strategy, without redress, marked by imperative, e.g.open the door; b) positive politeness reduces face threat by telling the addressee that the speaker wants what the hearer wants.There are fifteen positive politeness markers, e.g.'let's open the door'; c) negative politeness is oriented to the hearer's negative face as his basic want to maintain his territory and self-determination.There are ten negative politeness markers, e.g.'could you open the door?'; d) off record strategy is implemented by using fifteen as marker, e.g., 'it's hot in here'.
Societies with different languages and cultures use different politeness strategies for the mitigation.These differences potentially cause politeness markers selected by the speaker work differently in intercultural context (Hatim & Mason 2000, Kecskes 2015, Baker 2018, p. 245).For instance, in an English speaking country, it is acceptable to call parents by using their first name as a positive politeness marker in certain circumstances (Brown & Levinson 1987).However, it is not acceptable in Indonesia or Malaysia to use first name as a politeness marker to parents.
The selection of strategy is determined by rank of imposition (R) or the weight of the task given, social distance (D) or the proximity of the speaker and the hearer, and power relation (P) between the speaker and the hearer (Brown & Levinson 1987, Leech 2014).One of the speech acts that has high FTA is directive act since the illocution of this act is to have the other do what the speaker says (Leech 2014, p. 33).Directive acts include commands, requests, suggestions, and instructions.However, commands receive less attention since researchers mostly focus on politeness strategies implemented for requests (cf.Chiravate 2011Leech 2014, p. 134, Eva Ogiermann 2015).In fact, commands have higher FTA since the speaker gives no option to the hearer to comply with what the speaker says for the benefit of the speaker (Cutting 2008, p. 15, Leech 2014 p. 135).Thus, commands require politeness strategies shown as politeness markers used in the utterance as the way to mitigate FTA or to save other's face.
Regarding the potential problem of translating politeness markers, this study was conducted to explore how translators as mediators of intercultural communication solve this problem.The present study used literary works as the source of data, since politeness markers are used to build the characterisation.Literary works have received a lot of attention in translation studies and pragmatic studies (Babaii & Rashed 2017, Haroon 2017, Kia & Ouliaeinia 2016).However, these studies did not include politeness in cross cultural context as one of the important aspects related to characterisation in literary translation.

CHARACTERISATION IN LITERARY TRANSLATION
Characterisation is one of the fictional devices in a literary text to give specific image of a fictional world (Bosseaux 2013, Giordano 2008).Characterisation includes direct characterisation and indirect characterisation (Chaghervand & Toroghpeima 2015).Direct characterisation includes author's description, direct description by other characters, or by a narrator.Meanwhile, utterances, politeness markers, and a character's behaviour function as indirect ways to build characterisation.Utterances are used by authors to build characterisation indirectly (Giordano 2008, p. 187).
A fictional character, as a speaker, is described using certain politeness strategies to mitigate the impact of FTA.His/her politeness strategies show the characterisation, i.e. polite, sympathetic, emphatic, gracious, or arrogant, based on their politeness markers and language selection.The selection of politeness strategy is also affected by the context of situation between the speaker and hearer and the speaker's psychological condition.
Translation studies scholars have addressed the topic of characterisation from several perspectives using various approaches, such as, stylistic approach (Bosseaux 2013), Critical Discourse Analysis (Babaii & Rashed 2017).Some researchers have used pragmatic approach to analyse fictional elements, such as, characterisation in the translation of drama, novel, poetry (Ardi et al. 2016, Chaghervand & Toroghpeima 2015, Kia & Ouliaeinia 2016).However, these studies did not give clear information about indicators of characterisation nor identify translation techniques which maintain and change characterisation in literary works based on their utterances.
Although it is impossible to achieve perfect interpersonal equivalence between two different cultures (Morini 2008), the translation of literary works need to create similar effects on readers including indirect characterisation.The translator needs to decide whether to maintain or change the politeness strategies in the utterance to achieve similar effects on the readers.Moreover, literary works -produced in the cultural and social norm of the source language (Brownlie 1999, Schäffner 1999, Toury 1995) -might be different from the norm of the target language.In this study, the choice made by the translator in treating politeness markers are categorised on the basis of translation techniques proposed by Molina and Albir (2002).They proposed 18 translation techniques in categorizing the strategies implemented in the translation product by comparing them to the source text.
Some research on translation quality in literary works of English to Indonesian has been done (Rusjansyah 2015, Umalee 2013), however these studies are limited to linguistics aspect only.There is a lack of translation studies in literary works that involve fictional devices, such characterisation, style, setting, or reader's perception -related to the nature of literary works.
This study focuses on the translation of politeness marker used in the commands produced by main characters.The study hopes to present significant findings how the translation of politeness markers in literary works contributed to build characterisation by using pragmatic approach.Thus, the objective of this paper is to identify translation techniques which maintain characterisation and translation quality.

METHODOLOGY
This study uses the qualitative research method in assessing the translation of the politeness strategies employed to mitigate the commands given by the main characters in Dan Brown's novel Deception Point.The politeness strategies are analysed using the pragmatic approach.The sources of data are Deception Point by Dan Brown (2001) and its two Indonesian translations -entitled Deception Point (Titik Muslihat) translated by Isma B. Koesalamwardi and Hendry M. Tanaja issued by PT Serambi Ilmu Semesta (Jakarta) in 2006; the second translation entitled Deception Point was translated by Ingrid Dwijani Nimpoena issued by PT Bentang Pustaka (Yogyakarta) in 2015.The novel was selected as this novel is a best seller novel and has been translated twice into Indonesian.Dan Brown's novels have been translated into 56 languages according to The Bookseller (Cowdrey 2016).By comparing both translations, it is hoped that this research provides information on which translation techniques provide better quality to handle politeness from English into Indonesian.
The data were all commands produced by the seven main fictional characters in the novel.The characters are four men, Michael Tolland (scientist), Zachary Herney (US President), Sedgewick Sexton (senator), and William Pickering (head of NRO); and three women, Rachel Sexton (NRO agent, daughter of Sedgewick Sexton), Marjorie Tench (presidential senior advisor) and Gabrielle Ashe (senator advisor/senator personal assistant).Commands produced by those characters in various social contexts (P, D, and Rx) in the source text (ST) and its translated versions are compared to identify translation techniques.The social contexts are marked by using the number 0-3 (see Hoebe 2001 for details) to identify the changes of characterisation.The data were analysed qualitatively related to the effect of translation techniques on characterisation and translation quality.Translation quality rated by three translation experts in a focus group discussion and also as inter-rater reliability to avoid subjectivity (Nababan, Nuraeni & Sumardiono 2012).Then, the social context and politeness strategies as a domain are analysed in a componential analysis to identify their relationship with translation techniques and translation quality as a taxonomy comprehensively (Spradley 1980, Santosa 2017).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Deception Point describes a situation in the United States during a presidential election.The main characters of the novel are, U.S. President Zachary Herney (ZH) who tries to continue for a second term as US President.He competes with Senator Sedgewick Sexton (SS).They are assisted by Senior Advisor Marjorie Tench (MjT) and personal assistant Gabrielle Ashe (GA) respectively.The other main characters are Rachel Sexton (RS) as intelligence officer of National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Michael Tolland (MT) as oceanographer, and William Pickering (WP) as head of NRO.The commands produced by these seven characters were analysed.The results of the analysis are presented under two headings, the translation of characters' politeness markers in giving command and translation techniques & quality.

THE TRANSLATION OF CHARACTERS' POLITENESS MARKERS IN GIVING COMMANDS
After analyzing the utterances of the seven main characters in the source text and their translation in the target texts, 80 commands were identified.Table 1 below shows the distribution and frequency of commands given by the characters in the ST, target text version 1 (TT1), target text version 2 (TT2), and back translation version (BT) is placed under the TT Table 1 shows that ZH and MjT gave more commands compared to other characters because of their positions as president and president advisor.These positions gave them more authority and power to give command to their staffs, including to other characters.Meanwhile, the senator and other characters related to their positions and duties do not make a lot of commands.The situational context is that ZH gave a command to his secretary to arrange a meeting.This means the hearer does not have power (P=0), they are quite close since they have worked together (D=1), and the imposition is medium (Rx=2).In the source language, the president uses "let's" as the marker of positive politeness strategy to show his solidarity to his staff.However, this characterisation is not reflected in the target language since this politeness marker is changed in both translations.In TT1, the translators modulated the expression of "let's" into "sebaiknya" which means "it's better."This modulation changes the illocution of this utterance into a suggestion since the speaker seems to suggest a better place to have a meeting.This translation also reduced the politeness marker "us" that indicates speaker involved the hearer in the ST.Besides, the translator also added the expression "saja" which means "just" that functions to minimise the imposition (negative politeness marker).Meanwhile, in the second version, the translator reduced the expression "let" as the positive politeness marker to involve the hearer but keeps the use of 'kita' (us).Although the strategies are the same, they change the characterisation of ZH.
Both translations also have problem in acceptability related to the translation of possessive pronounce "my" that is translated into "-ku'.In English which has egalitarian property, I, you, my, your can be used both in formal or informal setting.Meanwhile, the norm in Indonesian is to differentiate this function between 'saya' (formal) and 'aku' (informal).In this context, the translation should be "di kantor saya".
Another example of characterisation is shown in the following command given by SS to his daughter RS when they had breakfast together at a restaurant, as quoted from Ardi et al. (2016) As daughter, RS has no power (P=0) and has close relationship (D=0).The utterance has low imposition since its illocution is a negative command not to talk about business over breakfast.Again, the phrase "let's" as a positive politeness marker is reduced in both translations.This technique causes the politeness strategy in this utterance to change into a bald on record strategy.This translation omits Sexton's politeness strategy of involving the hearer.Although both translations are acceptable in the norm of the target culture, neither translation shows that SS actually wants to show others that he has good relationship with his daughter (Ardi et al. 2016).Actually, SS is being characterised as polite, sympathetic, and gracious in ST.However, it is not reflected in the TT.Linguistically, the characterisation in ST is not reflected in TT due to deletion politeness markers although the message is delivered.
Next, a command was given by GA to a cab driver.In this context the hearer does not have power (P=0) and they do not have close relationship (D=2 The command was given by GA after MjT threatened to announce her affair with the Senator in public.GA wanted to ask her friend's opinion at ABC television studios.As she was panicking, she did not use any politeness marker.However, changes were introduced to both of the translations.The translators added ya (please) to minimise imposition and pak (sir) showing respect or deference both are negative politeness markers in TT1.Similarly, the translator also added lah (please) that minimised the imposition in TT2.Thus, both translations do not reflect that GA was panicked since the politeness markers indicated that GA is in a normal situation in TTs.
The following example is a command given by MjT to WP to meet and discuss about RS.MjT wanted WP to come alone to the meeting.In the ST, MjT used bald on record strategy or without any mitigation to give a command to WP (P=1, D=1, Rx=2).However, it was changed into negative politeness strategy in both translations by adding lah (please) to minimise the imposition.In this novel, MjT is actually characterised as an assertive and does not use any courteousness as stated by the author that she did not need the usual social graces (D. Brown 2001, p. 84).
The next example is a command given by RS to the captain of the U.S.S.Charlotte.RS asked the captain to trust her.In this example, it is the first meeting of RS with the captain who just saved her (P=1, D=1, Rx=2).To mitigate the FTA, RS uses negative politeness strategy (by using indirect 'need') to show her respect to the hearer.However, the translators of both versions modulated the modality 'need' (weak obligation) into 'must' (strong obligation) that increases the imposition of the command.This modulation changes the characterisation since it changes the rank imposition of the utterance in the target language (Rx=3).The translators could have kept the rank of imposition by translating need into its established equivalence, perlu.
Moreover, TT2 in Example 5 successfully portrayed the character of RS by translating 'you' into anda which shows respect, formality and high social distance between the speaker and the hearer, however it fails to show adequate respect.This is in line with Hassall (2013) who stated that anda is used as very formal register and indicates of very high social distance.This technique maintains the negative politeness of the ST since the Indonesian language has the same social norm of politeness to show respect.However, this negative politeness is not reflected in TT1 because 'you' is translated literally into 'kau' (P=0).This translation creates RS as an arrogant character who does not show respect.In Indonesian, 'kau' is used to address a hearer with a lower position with no social distance.
The next example is a command given by MT to his friend Corky to find their friend Norah.Since they are close, MT uses the bald on record strategy.The utterance is given in a panic.This utterance was translated by using the reduction technique (ommitting "go") and preserving the established equivalence of find, i.e. "cari".TT2 added the expression lah (please) which functions to minimise the imposition and make the utterance more polite.As a result, this addition technique changes the politeness strategies in the utterance into negative politeness in TT2.
In general, the distributions of the politeness strategies used by the seven characters are shown in Table 2 below.The table also shows the translation quality using the criteria with score is ranked on a 3-point scale (Nababan et al. 2012).Table 2 shows that some politeness strategies were changed in the target texts (see Example 3).Simultaneously, negative politeness strategies are also increased in TT1 and TT2.The markers of politeness strategies are increased because the translators employed addition techniques (see Example 3,4,and 6).This technique consequently changes the characterisation of the speakers.
In addition, Table 2 also shows that the translation of commands produced by GA and SS got the lowest translation quality.The lowest score in quality is caused by some of their politeness strategies are changed.Consequently, it affects their characterisation in the translation versions.Table 2 above also shows that the quality of politeness translation of TT1 is better than TT2.The next part discusses translation techniques which contribute positively and negatively to the translation of politeness strategy in giving commands on characterisation.

TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES AND QUALITY
The following data show the techniques used in translating the politeness strategies of commands and their impact on the quality of literary works.Data are categorised based on social context (P, D, and R).This social context is marked by the numeric value ranked from 0-3 indicate level of P, D, & R (Hoebe 2001).This value indicates P, D, and R relation, such as 0 for extra close distance/equal power, 1 for low distance/power and imposition rank, 2 for medium distance/power, and 3 for high distance/power.The data are presented based on social context and politeness strategy (PS) as the domains.Then, translation techniques and the translation quality are the taxonomy of data.Table 3 and Table 4 show componential analysis of TT1 and TT2 respectively.4 show that all politeness strategies are used in various social contexts.It implies that command can be given to the higher position hearer under certain conditions.This can be seen in Example 5 above.This finding is in line with Leech (2014, p. 135), that power of the speaker does not differentiate between command and request, but the option given to the hearer.
Translation techniques which contribute to translation accuracy are established equivalence, variation, explicitation, and pure borrowing.Established equivalence technique can be implemented if the translators analyse the social contexts between the speaker and the hearer and reconstruct politeness marker that maintain the speaker's characterisation by considering social norms of the target language.Variation is mostly used in selecting appropriate pronouns in Indonesian, i.e.I become saya, aku, gue, etc (see Hassall 2013, for detail).This should be analysed on the basis of relations between speaker and hearer (fatherdaughter, head-staff, and friends).The explicitation technique also produces accurate translation, particularly in terms of maintaining the characterisation.This finding is in line with Kia and Ouliaeinia (2016) who state that explicitation plays an important role in preserving the accuracy and acceptability of literary translation especially in terms of characterisation.In this research, explicitation is mostly used in translating pronoun 'you' by identifying the power relation (age, job position), for instance, into 'ayah' (dad) rather than kamu its literal translation.Moreover, literary works are produced in the cultural and social norm of the source language (Brownlie 1999, Schäffner 1999, Toury 1995) that might be different from the norm of target language.Then, pure borrowing is used in translating name as a positive politeness marker.
Modulation, addition, reduction, literal translation, implicitation, and discursive creation may result in a less accurate and less acceptable translation.The application of the modulation technique should not change the rank of imposition of the utterance.Thus, modality should be treated carefully since it also functions as a politeness marker to minimise the rank of imposition.In example 5, the imposition is increased since the translators modulated the imposition from weak to strong obligation by translating 'need' into 'harus' (must).Consequently, those modulations affect the characterisation.Moreover, the implementation of addition technique causes the changes of characterisation being framed by the author through the politeness markers.The addition of politeness markers may change bald on record strategy into positive politeness or negative politeness strategy (Example 3).Consequently, it changes the distance or rank of imposition of the commands that affect the quality of translation.Similarly, the application of reduction and implicitation can also change the politeness strategy (Example 1 and 2).These techniques changed positive politeness or negative politeness strategy into bald on record since politeness markers are omitted.
The use of literal translation can produce an accurate message, but this technique produces less acceptable or less natural translation.Accuracy is defined as to the extent to which a translation matches it original to the preservation of information content of ST in TT (Shuttleworth & Cowie 2014, p. 3), meanwhile, the acceptability is related to the naturalness or adherence to the norm or target system (Shuttleworth & Cowie 2014, p. 3).This definition clarifies that accuracy is related to message but acceptability is related to the norms in the target language.For instance, the translation of I into 'aku' is literally accurate related to the message, however, it is pragmatically inappropriate for a president to say 'aku' referring to himself if he talks to his staff.It should be 'saya' with formal property -adhering to the norm and culture of the target language.English with egalitarian property, 'you' can be used for all hearers or the second speaker.However, in Indonesia, the speaker should select an appropriate pronoun for the hearer, such 'kau' (lower position hearer, close distance, informal), 'kamu' (lower position hearer, neutral, formal), 'anda' (higher position hearer, formal) or title.Thus, translators need to analyse the relation and situation because the pronoun functions as a politeness marker in Indonesian.
This finding is in line with Ardi et al. (2016) who claim in translating the literary works, translator does not merely translate the message but also reconstruct indirect characterisation being described by the author.The translators should be able to reconstruct politeness strategies selected by the author to maintain characterisation of character in TT.The recommended techniques can be used to maintain the characterization.

CONCLUSION
The findings of this study answer the question outlined at the beginning of this paper that politeness strategies in the translation of literary works should be dealt with adequately since they play important roles as indirect ways to build characterisation.The changes of politeness strategies in the target language may change the characterisation that has been intentionally designed by the author.This study indicates that the translator should be aware of the problems related to politeness that might arise related to cultural differences between the source language and the target language.The best technique implemented in translating politeness strategies will maintain the impact and fulfil the norm in the target language.The translation techniques that can be used in maintaining the characterisation in giving commands are the techniques that do not change the rank of imposition and the distance between speaker and hearers, i.e. established equivalence, variation, explicitation, and pure borrowing in translating politeness markers.Thus, translators need to analyse the characterisation being developed by the author and transfer the characterisation by selecting appropriate strategy that results in translation techniques with good accuracy and acceptability.
This paper has attempted to demonstrate the contribution of pragmatic approach especially politeness strategy in evaluating characterisation in literary works.As aesthetic and expressive texts, fiction uses characterisation to influence readers' emotions.Those are indirectly built through politeness strategies used in their commands.Thus, it is expected that translator can maintain the characterisation in literary translation by reconstructing equivalent politeness markers employed for those commands.

TABLE 1 .
Distribution of command in source text (ST) and target language text 1 (TT1) & 2 (TT2) Table 1 also shows that the numbers of commands were decreased in both target texts since the translators employed translation technique that changed the illocution of the utterances, see Example 1.

TABLE 3 .
The relation of context, politeness strategy, translation techniques and quality in TT1

TABLE 4 .
The relation of context, politeness strategy, translation techniques and quality in TT2

Table 3 and
Table