A Case Study on Adaptation and Politeness Strategies of

International Students

Yanuarita Kusuma Permata Sari

, Asih Zunaidah

, Anindya Widita

and Y. P. D. Kalumbang

Public Relations Program, Bina Nusantara Institute of Creative Technology Malang, Indonesia 65126

Communication Science Program, Bina Nusantara Institute of Creative Technology Malang, Indonesia 65126

Keyword: Case Study, Adaptation, Politeness, Strategies, International Student

Abstract: Studying and living abroad provide people with the chance to improve their socialand cultural knowledge

by experiencing the local culture and lifestyle in general. There must be quite a number of international

students leaving their homelands and living in a foreign country to study. Consequently, they will have the

need to adapt and to survive in the new environment. Adapting to a new place and its people (not to mention

its culture) is a serious matter for them. These students cannot avoid social contacts as they live through

their daily activities, at least when communicating with their classmates or a teacher in a class. In this

‘foreigner-native’ type of communication, problematic This case study is expected to provide useful insights

in social adaptation strategies used by the international students. The result found that students have done

strategies during their study to deal with the potential conflicts. There are two ways of politeness strategy

applied by the international students to avoid a potential conflict. First is the negative politeness strategy and

second is the positive politeness strategy. Students also applied convergence and divergence strategy to

adapt with the differences.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is a range of motives behind the decision of

leaving one’s comfortable homeland. One might

leave for a simple vacation, for making a new living,

or for education. On educational reason, aside from

their actual need to study, students going overseas are

considered prestigious in some countries. Based on

the statistical data obtained by UNESCO in “Top 20

countries for international students” (Top 20

countries for international students 2016 Online),

there were 740482 international students in the USA,

427686 international students in the UK, and hundred

thousands more students were spread across the

globe. Furthermore, Indonesia‟s universities have

recently become the destination for international

students. In 2016, there were 6,967 study permits

issued by the Directorate of Institutional Supervision

of Higher Education (Perguruan Tinggi Indonesia

DiminatiMahasiswaAsing 2017 Online ). Among

those universities, UI, UGM, ITB, and UNAIR

appear to be some of the most popular destinations,

based on Top Universities (Top Universities

Destination Guides: Study in Indonesia 2018

Online).

Related to the previous information, there must

be quite a number of international students leaving

their homelands and living in a foreign country to

study. Consequently, they will have the need to adapt

and to survive in the new environment. Adapting to a

new place and its people (not to mention its culture)

is a serious matter for them. These students cannot

avoid social contacts as theylive through their daily

activities, at least when communicating with their

classmates or a teacher in a class.

In this “foreigner-native” type of communication,

problematic encounters are bound to happen -such as

misunderstanding, stereotyping, intolerance, etc.

These students might already have expected that

there would be problems at some point in their

adaptive life as foreigners. Thus, they will act and

find strategies to cope with such communication

problems. In helping the students to adapt to the new

place, basic knowledge about the local life and

culture is considered necessary, aside from learning

new language, especially if English is not used as the

delivery language. However, the preparation does not

only go one way, the destination country for studying

should also make effort to ensure they successfully

provide the best possible education experience for the

130

Permata Sari, Y., Zunaidah, A., Widita, A. and Kalumbang, Y.

A Case Study on Adaptation and Politeness Strategies of International Students.

DOI: 10.5220/0010003700002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 130-135

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

international students. Correspondingly, the

researchers were interested to investigate the

international students‟ strategies to adapt to the new

environment.

This study particularly focused on their strategies

to deal with potential communication conflicts

occurring their encounter with native Indonesian

students and lecturers in campus. The strategies

included non-verbal (actions) and verbal (talks)

responds to the conflicts. The research subjects were

international students of UNAIR (Airlangga

University) who were not originally from western

countries or popular Asian countries. The students

were the awardees of KNB (Kemitraan Negara

Berkembang - Developing Country Partnership)

grants (also called “Dharmasiswa” scholarship).

These students did not speak neither English nor

Bahasa Indonesia quite fluently. So, whether they

want it or not, learning (or even mere understanding)

the locally spoken language is essential to them as a

part of social adaptation. Therefore, this case study

is expected to provide useful insights in social

adaptation strategies used by the international

students.

2 THEORETICAL REVIEW

2.1 Communication Accommodation

Communication Accommodation is a theory

focusing on roles of verbal and nonverbal

communication in conversation, based on the belief

that people from different cultural community will

adapt their communication to accommodate others.

Accommodation here is defined as the ability to

adapt, modify, or manage someone‘s behavior in

response to others. This theory focuses on

interactions and understanding individuals from

different groups by examining the language, non-

verbal attitudes, and individual paralinguistic use.

Through this concept, the understanding between

people from various groups becomes an important

part in achieving the purpose of communication

(Turner H L and West R, 2008).

2.2 Face Negotiation and Politeness

Strategies

Ting-Toomey (1998, cited in West and Turner [6 pp.

460-462]) was influenced by research on politeness

theory (Levinson S C and Brown P, 1987) which

contends that people will use a politeness strategy

based on the perception of face threat. Ting-Toomey

believes that although face is a universal concept,

there are various representations of it in various

cultures. Face needs exist in all cultures, but all

cultures do not manage the needs similarly. Ting-

Toomey contends that face can be interpreted in two

primary ways: face concern and face need. Face

concern may relate to either one’s own face or the

face of another. In other words, there is a self-

concern and another-concern. Face concern answers

the question, “Do I want attention drawn toward

myself or toward another?” Face need refers to an

inclusion–autonomy dichotomy. That is, “Do I want

to be associated with others (inclusion) or do I want

dissociation (autonomy)?” (Turner H L and West R,

2008).

The concept of face and FTA (Face Threatening

Act) were put forward by Brown & Levinson. It

discusses certain kinds of acts threatening face,

namely those acts considered contrary tothe

“facewant” of the addressee and/or the speaker

(Levinson S C and Brown P, 1987). In this case,

“act‟ can be both verbal and non-verbal

communication. In their notion, one would rationally

look for a way to avoid doing any FTA or use

certain strategies to minimize the threat (in verbal

communication), as schematized in Figure 1 by

Brown & Levinson (Levinson S C and Brown P,

1987).

Figure 1. Strategies in Doing FTAs.

According to the scheme (when one decides on

doing FTA), being ‘off record’ means the speaker

has more than one intentions and is being ambiguous

(such as using metaphor, irony, rhetorical questions,

understatements, etc.). Thus, the speaker can avoid

being responsible for doing FTA as the other party is

left to interpret the intention on his own.

The next FTA is when a speaker goes ‘on record’,

this means that the communicative intention is clear

to both the speaker and hearer (non-ambiguous).

There are two types of going on record: without

redress or with redress. If one goes without redress,

he would do the FTA directly, baldly,

unambiguously, and would do it as concise as

A Case Study on Adaptation and Politeness Strategies of International Students

131

possible (such as commanding someone to do

something). On the contrary, going with redress

means one needs to ‘give face’ to the other

participant, he would attempt to recognize the

hearer’s face and compensate for the potential face

damage by doing either negative or positive

politeness which depends on which face is being

threatened - negative/ positive face.

3 RESEARCH METHODS

This research is a case study with descriptive

qualitative approach. Purposive technique was

chosen to determine the informants, in which

specific criteria or considerations were used. The

informant’s criteria are:

1. International students who are no longer learning

in language class

2. The international students must come from

outside Southeast Asia, thus the complexity of

different culture and geographical location will

generate more diverse data

The informants’ origin and general information

are: one student from Senegal, three students from

Madagascar, one student from Pakistan, one student

from Palestine, and one student from Afghanistan.

The data were collected directly from interviews

conducted with the informants. Additionally, direct

observation was also conducted to study their

behavior and activities.

4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The researchers found that all of the informants

mostly chose not to do FTAs whenever possible;

they thought it was better to remain silent and to

avoid any conflicts since they lived in a foreign

environment. Nevertheless, should they really had to

communicate, they applied negativepoliteness

strategies (in doing FTA) when dealing with their

lecturers. Negative politeness strategy is commonly

associated with “formal respect” politeness.

According to Brown and Levinson (Levinson S

C and Brown P, 1987), the outputs are all forms

useful for social “distancing” and therefore the

strategy is likely to be used for putting a social brake

in an interaction. A clear example of this strategy is

the use of honorific address-form such as Pak/ Bu/

Professor before the lecturer’s name. The honorific

address that is mentioned as a part of negative

politeness strategy is a part of convergence as it

mentioned in accommodation theory.

However, from the data, the researcher also

noticed that the international students tended to

avoid doing any FTAs if possible, even if they really

needed to do it (such as asking questions or

requesting for further explanation). In their culture,

interfering a lecturer’s on-going speech delivery in

class is considered very impolite. Students remain

silent in the class even though they are confused or

having difficulty to understand the subject. To keep

the class going unbothered, their avoidance method

is by nodding to the lecturer. Therefore, even if the

lecturer actually let his students to ask questions in

the middle of delivering the lesson if they have

difficulty understanding it, the international students

chose not to do it and waited until the end of the

class or even met the lecturer personally outside the

class schedule (should they really needed to). In face

negotiation, when it comes to avoiding it means

staying away from disagreement [5 p. 458].

The next analysis discusses the politeness

strategies used by the international students in

interacting with fellow classmates and other student

acquaintances (including the interviewer herself).

From the data, students went on different strategies

when communicating with other students. Some of

them went bald on record ‟because it is the way they

do in their country as it is better to be direct”, so

they had no reason to “minimize the threat”. Going

bald on record usually aims at maximum efficiency

in communication. For instance, in a potentially

conflictive and sensitive conversation topic like

“dark skin tone‟ or “racism” brought by a local

classmate, one of the international students directly

attacked the hearer’s positive face want by

disapproving and reprimanding. The dialogue is

shown as follows (context: the international student

was from Madagascar and she has dark skin tone,

while the local student thought dark skinned people -

like the Papuans - are bad, so the local student was

implying that the Madagascar student was bad):

Local classmate : “do you know, orang Indonesia

baiksemuatapi yang paling jahat orang Papua”

(Indonesian people are all good, but the worst

ones are Papuans)

International student : “orang Papua orang

Indonesia jugakan, sayapunyabanyakteman

Papua tapimerekatidakjahat, kamulebihjahat”

(Papuans are also Indonesians, right? I have a

lot of Papuan friends but they are not bad, you

are worse).

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From the response, it is clear that the

international student went directly “bald on record‟

without redressing her classmates’ positive face. In

her defense, being direct is a part of her culture. So,

there is no need to sugarcoat when it comes to one’s

belief. When she saw or heard something she

dislikes, she would tell others about it directly.

Furthermore, most of the informants (four of

seven) chose to apply negative politeness strategies

in their interaction with fellow students because of

the social distance between them and the local

students. Thus, they tried to respect the locals

negative face want. An example is taken from the

interview response by a Palestinian student to show

the use of this strategy. When the interviewer asked

for his opinion about the existence of “Dolly” - the

biggest prostitution business in Southeast Asia - in

Surabaya (the city in which UNAIR is located), he

said, “It’s hard to see the biggest Muslim country

have things like this. I’m sorry, I’m sorry”. From his

response, he used two types of negative politeness

strategies: the impersonalization of the speaker and

hearer (by using dative agents for the verb - “it is

hard to see”) and the apology (by saying “I’m

sorry”). This implies that in spite of disapproving the

fact that Indonesia, as one of the biggest Muslim

countries in the World, has a well-known

prostitution business, he minimized the threat to the

hearer’s (who is both a Muslim and an Indonesian)

negative face. What the Palestinian student said

previously is a model of communication divergence

applied during his study in Indonesia.

The last strategy used by the international

students is positive politeness strategy. This strategy

is chosen whenever a speaker wants to minimize the

threat to the hearer’s positive face and thus it is the

opposite of negative politeness; positive politeness

realization is used for minimizing social distance, as

stated in Brown and Levinson (Levinson S C and

Brown P, 1987). The example of applying this

strategy is when one of the international students

(she is from Senegal) used “familiar‟ name to call

her classmates and

acquaintances (e.g. she called the interviewer by

her nickname) in order to be “closer” to them. Since

she had been learning Bahasa Indonesia, she also

used the language to answer the interview questions

as well as communicating in campus area. She even

used the locally common informal terms like

“okelah” (okay), “ndaksuka” (do not like, but the

‘not’ is in Javanese), “kokbisa yah!!” (how could he!

- when she gave a comment to a male classmate),

and “haduuuhhaduuh..” (an interjection similar to

‘uurgh’.). This example is a realization of “using in-

group identity markers/language” strategy.

Another example of the student’s strategy of

adaptation is when a male student from Madagascar

copied Indonesian students‟ habit to come late.

Meanwhile, an Afghanistan student used his

adaptive strategy by doing some of Indonesian style

of socializing to build friendship. Things that he can

do for adaption are something that he had to cope

with the cultural differences. By adapting to his

Indonesian friends‟ habits, he believed that it would

be easier to build a friendship during his study. In

his view, having a lot of friends would be an

advantage for him should he need any help to finish

his thesis.

Aside from choosing not to do any FTAs at all,

there are two ways of politeness strategy applied by

the international students to avoid a potential

conflict. First is the negative politeness strategy.

People from different culture are trying to adapt with

the differences, some others would try to keep the

distance by using the formal form of address (if the

country has it) while others would try to remain

silent and leave things as they are. Students in this

research chose to be silent as a strategy to avoid a

potential conflict during their study in the university.

The silence-strategy is showed with the body gesture

such as nodding their head when their local friends

or their lecturer talk, and by verbally not telling their

difficulty in the class to the lecturer.

Negative politeness strategy is related to

divergence strategy in accommodation theory where

the students do not feel comfortable adapting their

habit with the local due to the difference of value

and belief. They consider this as something that

cannot easily be changed no matter where they live.

Divergence here can also be understood as a social

identity that has to be maintained especially when

someone lives abroad or lives in the different area.

When people use this strategy, they simply choose to

dissociate themselves from the communicator and

the conversation [6 p.487].

Second is the positive politeness strategy. For

those willing to be open to differences, they can

accept and adapt to Indonesians’ habits without

much difficulty. The strategy can also relate with the

convergence strategy, in which the students are

trying and willing to adapt to the different culture

and be more open minded toward the cultural

differences. It is a selective process people do by

relying on their perceptions of the other person’s

speech or behaviour, which they will use as a guide

in behaving and responding to the other person.

From this research, the students applied this strategy

A Case Study on Adaptation and Politeness Strategies of International Students

133

by accepting and tolerating those who often come

late to class, using locally common informal terms

while talking with friends, and so on. Those students

felt that using such strategy will also give them

advantages during their study, on top of the benefit

of being able to improve their social life.

The discussion of politeness strategies shows that

different culture may have different styles of

communicating [7 p. 450], which may cause

problems in intercultural communication.

Nevertheless, the effectiveness of intercultural

communication is the goal and it is important to

know how to do so. Beside understanding the

language spoken or using English as a global

language, being culturally sensitive is also crucial

for effective communication to happen. Murray

(2003, cited in Ruddock and Turner, [8 p. 362])

argued that to be culturally sensitive, there needs to

be openness, respect, and understanding of the

cultural difference itself. The different strategy used

by the international students as explained above

showed that they have made an effort to understand

the local (Indonesian culture) and tried to adapt to it

in order to blend well with the locals as well as to

avoid conflict with the people around them.

5 CONCLUSION

The following table summarizes the politeness

strategy and adaptation strategy used by the

international students. This research also shows that

each student has their own decision to use the

strategy according their personal background or

their culture.

Table 1. Politeness Strategy and Adaptation Strategy of

International Students.

Student

Politeness Strategy Adaptation Strategy

Negative

Politeness

Positive

Politeness

Divergen

Converge

nce

Afghanista

Madagascar

(Male)

Madagascar

(Female) v

Madagascar

(Female 2) v

Pakistan v

Palestine v

Senegal

As we can see above, 4 out of 7 students who

used negative politeness also used divergence

strategy during their study. The rest of international

students used positive politeness strategy also used

convergence strategy during their study. It means

that those students are willing to adjust themselves

into something new and blend in with the local

students. Students in this strategy prove that positive

and open minded personality will give them easier

time during their study. Moreover, it will help them

to befriend the locals and have an overall better

social life.

The researchers propose some recommendations

based on the finding. First, for the educational

institutions to better accommodate the international

students’ needs in order to give them better studying

and living experience as well as maintaining their

and the country’s reputation. Those students should

be provided with not only the knowledge of

Indonesian Language, but also the social and

cultural life because they will interact directly with

the local cultures daily.

Secondly, the institution can propose some kind

of sessions for the international students to help

them adjust to their new life and environment. It is

important that the students know that regardless of

the differences of culture, values, daily habits, or the

learning and studying style, it will be better if they

can be more open minded and consider the

differences as a part of their self-learning to broaden

their perspective about the different countries and

the way of life. Once they manage to do that, they

will not have a difficult time living and studying

abroad.

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