THE VERBAL POLITENESS OF INTERPERSONAL UTTERANCES RESULTED FROM BACK-TRANSLATING INDONESIAN TEXTS INTO ENGLISH Yan Mujiyanto

Verbal politeness can be considered from the perspectives of linguistic features, participants’ sociocultural background and their membership within a speech community. It can also be viewed from the ways to which it applies in interpersonal utterances, be they source or target ones. It may also be taken into account from its users’ perception as well their maintenance in real communication. This paper aimed to explore (1) the degree of the verbal politeness contained in English interpersonal utterances, (2) the correlation of politeness degrees between the English utterances as the source texts and their back-translations, (3) the speakers’ perception of the politeness degrees contained in the two sets of utterances, and (4) the ways of maintaining them. The object of this study was verbal (im)-politeness contained in English interpersonal utterances which were back-rendered from translated texts in Indonesian. In order to elicit the type of utterances from the subject of this study, the Indonesian utterances were exposed to them to be translated back to English. Comparing the source texts with results of their back-rendering, this study was capable of fulfilling the outlined objectives. The results of this study show that (1) the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the source language were generally equivalent to their counterparts in the target language; (2) there was a positive correlation between the English utterances and their back-translations; (3) the politeness degrees of the utterances in both the source texts and their back-translations were perceived to be relatively polite; (4) the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the target language have been maintained by using grammatical features and rhetoric which were more formal than those available in the source texts.

Verbal politeness can be measured by considering it from the perspective of linguistic features such as the use of prosody, length of utterances, speed of expressions, loudness of voices, and so on.For instance, a statement like "Bring me a blanket!" or an interrogative "Where are you going?" can be expressed differently depending on who the speaker is, to whom (s)he talks, on what occasion the utterances are expressed, and so on.Verbal politeness may also be taken into account from the perspective of the participants' socio-cultural background like face, power, status, age, gender, social distance, kinship, participants' role, and membership within a speech community.To illustrate, in a communication among the members of a family living in a particular cultural setting, one or both of the parents' authority may be greater than that of the spouse and the children.Therefore, (s)he has the power to impose communication means with politeness degree that is different from the one employed by the other members of the family.An utterance like "Shut up!" may not be considered impolite when it is used by a parent for asking his/her children to keep quiet.On the other hand, the same utterance can be regarded impolite when it is uttered by the children asking their parents to do the same action.
Firstly introduced by Brown & Levinson (1987), the concept of Face has been thought of as a major aspect to constrain participants' attitude or behavior in interacting to one another.It plays a significant role in determining types of strategy to realize certain degrees of politeness.Because every interpersonal utterance potentially threats the addressee's face, speakers strive to minimize the threat by implementing certain politeness strategies, depending on which face is being threatened.However, politeness degrees may also be realized without taking into account the addressee's face but considering the (in)-directness of the utterances.As an example, an offer is usually uttered directly or "bald on record" whereas a request may be expressed indirectly.
The term "interpersonal utterance", is referred to as something that a speaker says in order to convey a certain interpersonal function, i.e. the grammatical choices enabling the speaker to enact his/her complex and varied interpersonal relations.This idea is based on the claim that a speaker not only talks about something but also talks to and with others.Besides construing experience, language also simultaneously acts out "the interpersonal encounters doi: dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v6i2.4914that are essential to our survival" (Halliday, 2003).According to Halliday (2003), "Nearly every utterance has both an ideational meaning, relating to the processes and things of the real world, and an interpersonal meaning, relating to the roles and attitudes adopted and assigned by the speaker" (p.83).In addition, Halliday (2003) argues that these encounters "range all the way from the rapidly changing micro-encounters of daily life … to the more permanent institutionalized relationships that collectively constitute the social bond." (p. 16).According to Halliday & Matthiessen (2004), the grammatical systems related to the interpersonal function consist of "Mood, Modality, and Polarity".It is this reference that has been used as the main basis to assess the politeness degrees of the interpersonal utterances under this study.
Politeness act becomes an integral part and is automatically constrained by the socio-cultural setting in which it is applied.If the act is realized in a verbal language, there will be intercultural similarities and difference.For example, the politeness degree of greeting may be expressed as utterances like "Good morning", "Good day", "Hi", and "Hallo", whereas in such languages as Indonesian, the same function may be expressed as a question like "Where are you going?" that may be answered in an expression like "Just over there".In other words, cultural differences tend to bring about discrepancies in the ways of expressing the politeness act.Utterances which are assessed to be polite in a cultural setting may be taken as impolite in other settings.Consequently, it is necessary for the interlocutors across cultures to be aware of the existing differences in realizing utterances whose politeness degrees are appropriate with the linguistic and socio-cultural aspects which are used as the parameter of the politeness acts.As a result, it is always necessary to reconstruct utterances in a language whilst maintaining the politeness degrees contained in them in common, accurate, and acceptable language, be it original, translation, or back-rendering.The success in maintaining the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in a language and in restructuring them in another language implies the achievement of dynamic or functional equivalence between the two languages.The maintenance of politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances entails maintenance of socio-cultural aspects involved in the production of utterances across languages.
Among approaches which are generally used as the basis to study politeness acts, there are three which are commonly highlighted in studies of interaction.According to Fraser (1990; also see Cruz, 2008), one of the three approaches is the socalled "conversational-maxim approach" that has been based on the Politeness Principles (Leech, 1983) and Rules of Politeness (Lakoff, 2005); both of which refer to Cooperative Principles introduced by Grice (1975).The second is called "appropriateness approach" which was represented among others by the works of Fraser& Nolen (1981) and Jary (1998).The third, which is commonly called "face-saving approach" was introduced around three decades ago by Brown & Levinson (1987).In the third approach, the study of politeness has been initiated by presumptions about the potential of the speaker to be aggressive towards the addressee.According to this approach, polite behavior exists in the speaker's effort to minimize or eradicate the aggressive behavior in order to create proper interaction between or among its participants.Such aggressive behavior is caused by the existence of the face in everyone's mind that can be maintained, manipulated, or eliminated during the social or interpersonal interaction.
Referring to such experts as Leech (1983), Brown andLevinson (1987), Lakoffand Ide (2005), and other Pragmatics experts, this study has been focused on interpersonal utterances which are categorized into five classes, i.e. direct act, questioning, informing, deference, speaker's involvement/vulnerability avoidance.Direct Act refers to an utterance whose meaning is the same as its intention.For instance, the expression "Listen!" means an order for an addressee to listen to something.This type of expression is of course intended for the addressee to listen to what the speaker is going to say.Another example is the utterance "Be careful.Put it here!"which means and is intended as a warning for the addressee to be careful in putting something at a place near the speaker.
The term questioning refers to interpersonal utterances in interrogative, i.e. "asking a person about something, especially officially" (CALD), whose meaning can be different from its intention.For example, the utterance "Do you have any money?" is a rhetorical question asking whether the addressee has money.However, the intention beyond such meaning is asking for the addressee's willingness to give or lend the speaker some money.
Interpersonal utterances of the informing category refer to utterances which are meant to give information to the addressee, but beyond that, they are actually intended to ask or request the addressee to do or not to do something.The utterance "Dinner is ready" which may be understood to mean that "dinner is ready to serve" is actually intended as an offer for the addressee to start enjoying dinner.In the following example, "Your boyfriend's still in the bathroom, and I'll be late!" the speaker merely informs that the addressee's boyfriend is still in the bathroom and that (s)he will be late for work.However, beyond the information, the speaker intends to request the addressee to ask her boyfriend to come out of the bathroom because he wants to use it before leaving for a certain destination.
Deference is a category of interpersonal utterances which is expressed by employing positive or negative politeness strategies (Brown & Levinson 1987) so that the utterances sound or are felt more polite.As an example, in an utterance like "Come, if you want" the speaker actually asks the addressee to do something together with him, but in order to make the request sound more polite, it is accompanied by a condition that the addressee does not mind doing it.
The fifth category of interpersonal utterances under this study refers to utterances in which the speaker involves himself or other parties in doing the activity (s)he intends the addressee to do.The purpose is to avoid offending the addressee because the utterances may harm him/her or because the addressee may be vulnerable to doing activities required by the speaker.Speaker's involvement is thus an effort to make the utterance sound or be felt more polite.In the utterance "All right, we'd better get started", the use of personal pronoun "we" (inclusive) provides an impression that the speaker will be together with the addressee in starting to do something, whereas the real intention is asking the addressee to do the activity without the speaker's involvement.
In the area of translation, the term equivalence is referred to as a situation, process, or result of a translating event that is achieved when the utterances in the target language "replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording" (Vinay&Darbelnet 1998; also see Leonardi, 2000).According to Nida and Taber (1982), translation undertaking should lead to the achievement of dynamic or functional equivalence, i.e. a translation principle guiding the translator to render the meaning of the original to the target language in such a way that the "target language wording will trigger the same impact on the target culture audience as the original wording did upon the source text audience" (p.200).In order to enact such equivalence, Hatimand Mason (1997) recommend the implementation of register analysis involving the readers' context in the reconstruction of utterances through the analysis of what is happening, who are involved in the communication, and what medium is used to convey meaning.The three questions are then realized in interpersonal, ideational, and textual metafunctions.Halliday (2004) argues that interpersonal metafunction, which is the focus of this study, deals with the interaction between or among interlocutors implementing grammatical resources available in the language to realize social as well as interactional roles in order to determine, manipulate, and maintain the interpersonal communication.The lexico-grammatical system realizing this particular metafunction is the system of mood.
To mention a number of studies relating the meaning and intention of interpersonal utterances, politeness, and (back)-translation, Brut (2006) explored the realization of cross-cultural pragmatics in studying the translation of implicit compliments in film subtitles, while Aijmer (2009) studied the realization of the word "please" using a politeness formula viewed from a translation perspective.In the meantime, Ogiermann (2009) reported a study concerning the realization of apology in negative and positive politeness cultures, whereas Bouchara (2009) implemented Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to explore Shakespeare's comedies.In the following year, Mujiyanto (2010) studied the transfer of modalization in the Indonesian translation of English interpersonal clauses, while Feng & Liu (2010) analyzed the implementation of interpersonal meaning in public speeches.
In the area of politeness studies, Cutrone (2011) looked into the implication of politeness and face theory for the backchannel style of Japanese L1/L2 speakers.Meanwhile, Yaqubi&Afghari (2011) conducted a cross-cultural study of politeness strategies applied in the translation of English requests as face-threatening acts into Persian, whereas Lee (2011) compared politeness and acceptability perceptions of request strategies between Chinese learners of English and native English speakers.The applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory was also explored by Yoshida and Sakurai (2005) who dealt with Japanese honorifics as a marker of socio-cultural identity from the non-Western perspective.This had initiated Kiyama, Tamaoka&Takiura (2012) who also took non-western culture evidence from Japanese facework behaviors.Politeness was also studied by Mu (2015) who focused her attention on the existence of such entity in English and Chinese movies.
Initiated by Davidseand Simon-Vandenbergen (2015) who introduced the ways of realizing interpersonal meaning in interaction, concepts of (back)-translation, and readability measures, Mujiyanto (2016) studied the comprehensibility of readable English texts and their back-translations.In addition, Terkouraf (2015) edited a number of research articles on the interdisciplinary perspectives of (im)-politeness.The articles contained in the book, along with the empirical studies presented above, has initiated the generation of the topic under this study.
Considering the categorization of interpersonal utterances, which has been synthesized from a number of sources, and the studies relating meaning and intention of interpersonal utterances, elements of politeness, back-translation, and comprehensibility conducted so far, it seems that there have been few efforts, if any, taken to uncover the ways through which verbal politeness contained in English utterances is maintained in conveying interpersonal meaning, whereas the maintenance of verbal politeness can be considered being imperative to achieve functional equivalence in (back)-translation.This gap had generated the basic problem of how the degrees of the verbal politeness are maintained in realizing interpersonal utterances.
Solving the problem, this paper provided argumentative explanations about the ways in which the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the target texts were maintained in order to result in expressions with politeness degrees which were equivalent to the ones consisted in similar utterances in the source language.To be more specific, this paper aimed to explore (1) the degrees of verbal politeness contained in English interpersonal utterances, (2) the correlation of politeness degrees between English utterances as a source text and their back-translations, (3) the respondents' perception of the politeness degrees contained in the source texts and their back-translations, and (4) the ways in which the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the source texts were maintained in the production of the respective utterances in the target language.The results of the explorations were presented in such respective order.

METHOD
The production of interpersonal utterances in English as a foreign language is constrained by linguistic as well as socio-cultural aspects.The linguistic aspects include appropriate uses of grammatical features, sound systems, word formation, meaning, and intention, whereas the socio-cultural aspects include such features as social distance, relative power and status, and rank imposition which are all reflected in types of utterances.The differences in linguistic and sociocultural features between Indonesian and English potentially cause varieties of formal and semantic shifts in the attempt to express interpersonal utterances which contain certain degrees of politeness.Such shifts can be influenced by the tendency to maintain the politeness degrees of utterances in the target language while expressing similar utterances in the back-translation.It is this maintenance that was explored throughout this undertaking.
This study was directed to Indonesian speakers of English.They were civitas of a state universityin Semarang, including English lecturers, graduate as well as undergraduate students of English Education, and educational staff.A hundred (10%) participants were randomly drawn from approximately 1000 population.The main object was the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances they perceived on their occasions to conduct such activities as a seminar, workshop, briefing, lectures, as well as courses which were all conducted in English.In order to draw data, the subjects were assigned to back-translate interpersonal utterances into English and later perceived the politeness degrees of the utterances exposed to them.The source utterances had been elicited from verbal interactions among the characters of an English novel that had been translated into Indonesian by a professional translator.
The main instruments of this study were (1) observation guide and (2) two sets of questionnaire.The observation guide was used to elicit interpersonal utterances used by the characters of an English popular novel written by Rowling (2012) that had been rendered into Indonesian by Budihapsari, Prabantoro, and Badariah (2015).The main reason for purposefully choosing the novel and its translation was its comprehensive nature of the characters in it, supplying various types of interpersonal utterances which were adequately representative for the purpose of this study.The employment of this instrument had yielded hundreds of English interpersonal utterances and their translations.
The first set of the questionnaire contained 100 English interpersonal utterances purposefully elicited and sorted from the source novel, whereas the second set also contained the same number of utterances which were actually resulted from backrendering the Indonesian counterpart of the English utterances.In line with the framework proposed for this study, the interpersonal utterances were classified into the five categories, i.e.direct act, questioning, informing, deference, speaker's involvement/vulnerability avoidance; each consisting of 20 different utterances.This study empirically examined the politeness degrees of English interpersonal utterances and their backtranslation as they were perceived by the respondents.
The data obtained from applying the first instrument were analyzed in four phases.First, data classification was supposed to categorize the utterances obtained from eliciting them from the sources into five types of utterances.The classified data were then reduced and sorted for their functions into utterances exclusively representing the five classes of utterances.The two sets of utterances were then compared in order to discover the similarities and differences in maintaining the politeness degrees.Inferences were subsequently drawn from the comparison.
The data were analyzed for the politeness degrees of the utterances, the correlations, and the difference in politeness degrees.This analysis was carried out by implementing the statistical programs of Excel available in Microsoft Windows.The last part of the analysis contained discussion and interpretation of the ways in which the politeness degrees contained in the source texts were maintained in the target texts, as they were reflected in the back-translations.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The employment of the first instrument resulted in hundreds of interpersonal utterances.Through the reduction process, the utterances were sorted out to five categories, twenty items each.The utterances were then back-translated to English.The backrendering yielded a representation of the most appropriate counterpart of the selected utterances.

Politeness degrees of the interpersonal utterances
The utterances resulted from the back-rendering were put side-by-side with the source ones.The two sets were then arranged in the matrix before being distributed to the randomly drawn respondents for their responses.
Assigned to fill in the questionnaires, 50 respondents responded to the source texts and the other 50 to their back-translations.However, there were only 80 questionnaires that could be processed, i.e. a half of the source texts and the rest for their back-translations.As instructed in the questionnaires, the respondents were asked to judge whether each of the utterances was very polite, more polite, polite, less polite, or impolite, each scored 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 respectively.As a result, the two sets of questionnaire yielded scores ranging from 40 to 200.The scores were then statistically processed.Table 1 shows the results of employing descriptive statistics.As shown in the table, the mean score of the questioning category of back-translations is 133.95,whereas the mean score of the direct act category of the source texts is only 113.7.The maximum score of 180 is gained in the questioning category of the source texts, whereas the minimum score of 60 is obtained in the direct act category of the back-translations.Therefore, the highest degree of politeness contained in the questioning type of utterances compared with the other categories of the interpersonal utterances.On the other hand, the utterances of the direct act category scored the lowest both in the mean and minimal scores, implying that this type of utterances contained the lowest degree of politeness.
The scores of the politeness degree for the interpersonal utterances, which range from 40 to 200, can be categorized into five levels, i.e. very polite (170 -200), more polite ( 137 -169), polite (104 -136), less polite (71 -103), and impolite (40 -71).Consulted to such indices, all categories of the utterances can be considered being polite because they are within the range of 104 -136.In spite of that, of the five categories, qustioning is the highest in rank, followed by deference, informing, involvement, and direct act, as the lowest in rank.It implies that in order to convey an intention through interpersonal utterances, questioning is considered being the category with the highest degree of politeness compared to the four other categories.Meanwhile, deference is thought of as a means of the same purpose with a reasonably high degree of politeness.On the other hand, direct actis perceived as a category of utterances with the lowest degree of politeness.
Figure 1.Correlation of politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations.
Putting the mean scores of the politeness degrees of the source texts and their back-translations side by side, the back-translations were in general more polite than the source utterances, ST BT except those in the informing category, in which the politeness degree of the source texts is a bit higher than that of the back-translations.Figure 1 shows that for the direct act, questioning, deference, and involvement categories, the politeness degree of back-translations (BT) was significantly higher than their counterpart in the source text (ST).On the other hand, for the informing category, the politeness degree of the back-translations is clearly lower than that of the source texts.Figure 1 also shows that the politeness degree of questioning in the back-translations is the highest whereas that of the Direct Act category is the lowest.

Correlation of the politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations
In order to reveal the correlation of the politeness degrees between the source texts and their backtranslations in each of the five categories, this study implemented the Product Moment correlation test.Hypothesizing that there was a positive correlation between the originals and their back-translations for each of the five categories of utterances, based on the acceptance criteria of statistical r > table r for df (0.05, 18), this statistical computation resulted in correlation indices as presented in Table 2. Table2.Correlation between the source texts and their back-translations.For the direct act category, the correlation coefficient between the source texts and their backtranslations is 0.680 whereas the r table for df: (0.05, 18) is only 0.468.Because the statistical r (0.680) > r table (0.468), it can be inferred that there is a positive correlation between the source texts and their back-translations.For the questioning category, the correlation coefficient of the source texts and their back-translations is 0.623 whereas the r table for df: (0.05, 18) is 0.468.Because the statistical r (0.623) > table r (0.468), there is also a positive correlation between the pair of utterances.

Direct
For each of the informing and involvement categories, by the same token, the correlation coefficient between the source texts and their translations is 0.764 for the former and 0.832 for the latter for the same r table of 0.468.Therefore, there is also a positive correlation between the two sets of utterances in the two categories.On the other hand, for the deference category, the correlation coefficient of 0.439 is a bit lower than its r table of 0.468.It implies that the source texts negatively correlate with their back-translations for this category of utterances.
In other words, there is generally a positive correlation of the politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations for the direct act, informing, questioning, and speaker's involvement/vulnerability avoidance categories of utterances.The more polite the source texts are the more polite their back-translations will be.In contrast, the politeness degrees of the source texts negatively correlate with their back-translations for the deference category, implying that the higher the politeness degree of the source texts is, the lower the degree of their back-translations will be.If the back-translations were reversed to target texts and these utterances, in turn, were compared to the source texts, it can be inferred analogically that in general there is a positive correlation between the politeness degree of the source utterances and their counterparts in the target language, except that of the deference category.This interpretation is in line with Cutrone (2011), YaqubiandAfghari (2011) and Lee's (2011) findings which relate the implementation of face theory, politeness strategies, and acceptability in (back)-translation.

Perception of the utterances' degree of politeness
The respondents' perception of the politeness degrees contained in the source texts and their backtranslations can be described as follows.First, the two sets of questionnaire were distributed to the respondents.Next, the respondents were asked to share their perception about the politeness degree of the utterances by means of choosing one of the five options, i.e. very polite, more polite, polite, less polite, impolite.Then, their perceptions were tallied for scores of each of the five categories.Subsequently, the employment of descriptive statistics yielded indices as presented in Table 3.
Table3.Indices of politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations.

Utterances
Very As shown in Table 3, most respondents perceived both the source texts and their back-translations to be very polite, more polite, or polite.The respondents also perceived the politeness degree of the source texts to be similar to that of their back-translations.Figure 2 shows that for the polite and less polite categories the source texts were generally perceived to be more polite than their back-translations.For thevery polite, more polite, and Impolite categories, the back-translations were perceived to be more polite than the source texts.Therefore, the respondents' perception of the politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations were relatively equivalent.In other words, there is no shift in politeness degree between the source utterances and their back-translations.
Figure 2. Range of politeness degrees between the source texts and their back-translations.

Maintenance of politeness degrees
For the purpose of discussing the ways in which the politeness degrees of English utterances were maintained as they were reflected in their backtranslations, the samples are marked a (for source utterance), b (for target utterance), and c (for backtranslation).

Maintaining the politeness degree of direct acts
The politeness degree of the direct acts as a representation of interpersonal utterances had been maintained by expressing the intended meaning in a word for word back-translation.In the rendering, the speaker did it whilst also mentioning the addressee's name, either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of the utterances.Sample (1) shows this type of translation and the use of the addressee's name "Mary" in the middle of the utterance, while Sample (2) shows the use of the nickname "Gav" in the final position of the utterance.In the two samples, the target utterances were re-expressed in the backrendering in the word for word of translation type.The more formal form of expressions is also used for maintaining the politeness degree of interpersonal utterances.In Sample (3c), the utterance "Let's eat!" emphasized on the verb "eat" as the counterpart of "Ayo makan!" can be considered more polite than the utterance "Dishing up!" (from the word "dish" (sth) up phrasal verb [M] UK Informal-CALD, 2008) uttered by the native speaker of the source language.
The Politeness degree can also be maintained by asking rhetorical questions.In Sample (4), the addition of the tag question "kan?" in the target language has made the utterance sounds more polite when back-translated to "have you?" instead of "right?" in "You have not had dinner, right?" (4) a.You have not had dinner, right?b.Kau belum makan malam, kan? c.You haven't started dinner yet, have you?
The interpersonal meaning contained in the direct acts might be more polite if it were expressed as an offer for the addressee to do something together with the speaker.In Sample (5) the utterance "Ayolah masuk" which has been backrendered to "Come in" contained a degree of politeness which is similar to that of the utterance "Come on through"an idiomatic expression uttered by a native speaker of the source language.
(5) a. Come on through, Sam'll be down in a mo.
b. Ayo masuk, Sam akan turun sebentar lagi.c.Come in, Sam will be down in a minute.
However, the politeness degree of utterances is not determined solely by grammatical features, rhetoric, or formality of utterances, but also by the context in which the utterances are expressed.As an example, the utterance "Ayo masuk" ("Come in" or "Come on through") may mean an offer, an order, a command, or even a threat depending on the context in which the speaker and addressee were present, the relation between the two, the presence or absence of the third party, or the specific event triggering the generation of such utterances.If, for example, there is a close social relation between the speaker and the addressee, such an utterance as "Come in" providing "benefit to the addressee" (Leech, 1983) is considered being polite.On the other hand, if the relation between the interlocutors is a police and thief, the same utterance might turn to be understood as a threat.

Maintaining thepoliteness degree of questioning
The politeness degree of questioningwas maintained by employing various types of expressions.Among them are direct questioning with or without modality, order or request which is implicitly uttered in interrogative, mentioning of the addressee's identity, expression of opinion, conveyance of willingness, and the inclusion of reason.Sample (6) shows the conveyance of a question intended to request the addressee to listen attentively to the speaker.In (6c),which had been back-translated from (6b), the speaker did not use any modal, whereas in (6a), he used the modal "can".
(6) a. Can you hear me?
b. Anda mendengar saya?c.Do you hear me?
The use of such a modal as "can" may enhance the utterance's politeness degree.To the same extent, the use of other modals like "could", "would", and "should" may also be influential to the enhancement of the politeness degrees.In the example above, the source text may be considered being more polite than its back-translation.
In Sample ( 7), the utterance is also expressed in an interrogative.Sample (7c)is in the standard form of aninterrogative using the common word "money" whereas (7a) has been expressed casually using the words "'Ave", "yeh", "gor", and"cash" causing the former to be more polite than the latter.In other words, interpersonal utterances which are constructed in formal grammar and rhetoric may cause them to be more polite than those which employ casual words and grammar, even though such utterances are commonly used to show the proximity in social relation between the interlocutors.
Interpersonal utterances may be expressed in an interrogative asking for the addressee's opinion or willingness to do something.In Sample (8), the speaker asks for the addressee's willingness to do an activity.In (8a) the source textwas expressed in casual words, while its counterpart uses relatively formal ones.An interpersonal utterance using a relatively formal grammar and rhetoric sounds more polite than another expression which uses casual language or idiomatic expression even though such an expression sounds more natural as a source text rather than its back-translation.In Sample ( 9),the interpersonal utterance has been expressed in a direct question preceded by a reason.The utterance which intends to ask the addressee to keep quiet has been expressed in a question "Apa yang terjadi?" ("What happened?")and ("What's going on?").The former is preceded by a reason "Your class is noisy."The use of the word "racket"/ˈraek.ɪt/noun NOISE 2.[S] INFORMAL "an unpleasant loud continuous noise" (CALD, 2008) in (8a) shows the different social status between the speaker and the addressee.Besides that, the addressterm "Miss Harvey" is used to show the speaker's deference to the addressee.The politeness degree of interpersonal utterances can also be maintained by providing praise to the addressee prior to the conveyance of the utterance.Sample (10) which hasbeen meant to offer something is preceded by the praise "Kau baik sekali"("You are very kind "and "You're so kind").
b. Kau baik sekali, Gav.Mau minum apa? c.You are very kind, Gav.Do you want to drink?
The difference between the source utteranceand its back-translation in Sample ( 10) is that in the former (10a) it is a negative interrogative, whereas in the latter (10c) itis a positive interrogative.If this type of utterance provides benefit to the addressee, the back-translation sounds more polite than the source.On the other hand, if the utterance gives benefit to the speaker, the use of a generic word like "anything" rather than the specific one "drink" will sound more polite (Leech, 1983).
Generally, Questioning is a way of expressing interpersonal utterances that can be considered being the most polite among the other four classes of utterances.And besides, using more formal grammar and rhetoric, back-translations can become more polite than the sources.This implies that Questioning can be considered as the most polite means of conveying interpersonal utterances.

Maintaining thepoliteness of informing
The term Informing,which is used to mean "telling someone about particular facts" (CALD, 2008), is defined as the speaker's effort to convey the intention of interpersonal utterances through the provision of information concerning a particular thing.The speaker expects his/her interlocutor(s) to be able to understand the intention of the utterance beyond the meaning of the information, so that (s)he is willing to do any activity the speaker requires him/her to do.
The politeness degree of interpersonal utterances, which are conveyed through information giving, can be maintained by providing direct acts, with or without additional information to strengthen the meaning of the utterances, conveying the speaker's or the addressee's needs, using negative utterances, providing information concerning the interlocutor's opinion or thought, and conveying belief on something.
Interpersonal utterances which are categorized as Direct Act as exemplified in Sample (11) can be misunderstood given the difference between the utterance meaning and the intention.The utterance "Makan malam siap" ("Dinner is ready") may be used to inform that "makan malam" ("dinner") has really been ready to serve.However, that same utterance can also be used to implicitly invite someone to "start dinner soon" depending on the context and the participant involved in the interaction.
The provision of information intended to order, request, command, etc. may be conveyed by adding extra information in order to strengthen, emphasize, or confirm the intention beyond the meaning of the utterances.Sample(12) proves that an order to start an activity of "makan malam" ("dinner") has been conveyed by adding to it information that other parties involved in the activity have also been ready.The words "ready" and "have arrived" in (12c) are used to emphasize the intention more than the use of such expressionsas "nearly ready" and "are here" in (12a).Because an utterance containing an offer provides benefit to the addressee, the backtranslation (12c) sounds more polite than its source(12a).Sample (13) also shows the speaker's intention to do an activity.However, using the expression "saya ingin" ("I want") implies that the speaker has ordered the addressee to do something in order to facilitate the addressee's intention to "berbicara dengan Barry ("to talk to Barry").
b. Saya ingin bicara dengan Barry.c.I want to talk to Barry.
Interpersonal utterances can also be conveyed by using such a negator as "tak/tidak/nggak" ("not").Samples ( 14) and ( 15) show the use of suchnegators in utterances which have been intended for the addressee to clearly understand the meaning imposed by the speaker.In ( 14), the negator "tak" has two counterparts in English, i.e. "not" and "n't" whereas in (15) the negator "nggak", which is the casual form of "tidak" also matches with "not" and "n'", which is also casual.
(14) a. Mind, I certainly didn't want to win like this.
b. Walau sebenarnya aku tak ingin menang seperti itu.c.Look, I really do not want to win like that.
Sample ( 16) shows the use of interpersonal utterances representing the speaker's feeling ("kurasa") or thought/assumption ("kukira"), which matches with "I think" and "I suppose "respectively.The sample shows that the original utterance and its back-translation use relatively similar expressions in order to maintain or obtain a certain degree of politeness.
The politeness degree of interpersonal utterances can also be maintained by using expressions conveying the speaker's belief about something.Sample (17) has been furnished with the expression "Aku berani bertaruh" ("I bet") in both the source text andits back-translation.This expression has been supposed to be used for emphasizing the intention as it is expressed in the main utterance, i.e. "dia sudah melakukannya" which matches with "he did" and "he has".In Sample (18), the interpersonal utterance has been conveyed through the conclusion or inference of a situation or event.In this sample, the word "jadi" ("So") is followed by a statement using the expression "is certainly" in the back-translation and "must be" in the source text.(18) a.So this must be Robbie?b.Jadi, ini pasti Robbie, ya? c.So, it is certainly Robbie, huh? Different from the other four categories of interpersonal utterances, informing contains an inadequate degree of politeness.The source texts prove to be more polite than their back-translations.This is made possible due to the fact that in the target language the conveyance of information may only be understood as information, without any consideration for the potential intention beyond the explicit meaning contained in it.

Maintaining the politeness degree of deferring
The term "defer" is used to mean "allow the addressee(s) to make decisions for the speaker or tell him/her what to do, even if he/she disagrees with them, because of his/her respect for them or because of their higher rank, authority, knowledge, etc." (CALD, 2008).Based on such a notion, deference can be expressed by using preference, positive or negative conditional, politeness expression, modality, and apology.Preference is applied to provide options for the addressee to do or not to do something required by the speaker.Sample (19) shows that the speaker's order or request for the addressee to come to him has been expressed using the words "Come" and "Do" followed by the expression "if you want (to)".The politeness degree of this category of utterances can also be maintained using conditional clauses.Sample (20) shows that the speaker's intention for the addressee not to do something has been preceded by a real condition "If you want chips", both in the source text and its backtranslation.Interpersonal utterances may also be in the form of the speaker offering the addressee to do or not to do something.In Sample (21) the speaker asks the addressee to explain something, along with its reason."Jelaskan kepadaku", which has been preceded by the word "tolong" to make the utterance sound more polite and match with the source expression "please" that is put at the beginning or the end of the utterance.The use of exclamation word like "tolong" ('please") provides a certain effect to the politeness degree of the utterances be it in the form of a request to do or not to do something.The politeness degree of interpersonal utterances belonged to deference category can also be maintained by employing modality.Sample (22) shows that the modal "mungkin" which matches with "maybe" in English has implied the equivalence between the two languages in maintaining the politeness degree.The politeness degree may also be maintained by using a word of apology such as "maaf" ("sorry") showing the feeling ofsadness, sympathy, or disappointment, especially because something unpleasant has happened or been done" (CALD, 2008).Such a word may stand alone, is an integral part of a clause, or is followed by an address term.In Sample (23c) the word "sorry" has been followed by the address term "pal" whereas in (23a) the same word is followed by the term "mate".The use of the two address terms shows the intimacy of social relation between the interlocutors.The use of expressions showing regret or sympathy exemplified in (23) shows the speaker's effort to maintain the politeness degree of the utterances in both the source text and its backtranslation.

Maintaining the politeness degree of speaker's involvement/vulnerability avoidance
The politeness degree of interpersonal utterances can be maintained by involving the speaker or a third party to do or not to do activities requested by the speaker (speaker's involvement).The politeness degree can also be maintained by the speaker's effort to avoid using utterances which might offend the addressee (vulnerability avoidance).In Sample (24), the expression "You can tell your 'usband" has been translated to "bilang aja ke suamimu" and back rendered to "Say to your husband".The last utterance does not use any modality but is a more formal utterance instead.
In Sample (25) the involvement of the third party "siapa pun" ("anyone") can be seen from the use of the modalized clause: the utterance in (25a) uses "musn't tell" whereas its counterpart in (25c) uses "can not say".
(25) a.You mustn't tell anybody we've got a new computer.b.Kalian tak boleh bilang kepada siapa pun kalau kita punya komputer baru.c.You can not say to anyone if we have a new computer.
In Samples ( 24) and ( 25), the interpersonal utterances asking for the addressee to do or not to do something have been expressed by involving the third party whose involvement in the interaction is not always significant.
Subsequently, the politeness degree of the interpersonal utterances may also be maintained by avoiding direct assignment to the addressee as the doer of the activity.Sample (26) shows that the use of the word "sialan" ("damn", "bloody") may cause the utterance to become less polite.However, instead of using the personal pronoun "you" the speaker has used the expression "salah satu dari kalian" ("one of you") both in the source text and its back-translation.Therefore, the speaker has tried to enhance the politeness degree by using the indirect order, intended to lessen the harm that may be suffered by the addressee due to the use of such a curse word.In Sample ( 27) the utterance asking for the addressee to take care of or at least to visit a grandmother has been made more polite by conveying the information "she's said your name twice" which has been back-translated to "she mentioned your name twice".
The politeness degree of such an utterance can also be maintained by the involvement of interlocutors to inclusively do something required by the speaker.
In Sample (28), the use of the personal pronoun "kita" ("we" -inclusive) shows the involvement of the interlocutors to together do an activity represented by the phrase "segera mulai" ("get started") and ("get on").
(28) a. You'll see.All right, we'd better get on.
Moreover, in Sample (29) the speaker even does not explicitly mention the involvement of the addressee to do an activity which (s)he requires him/her to do by using the personal pronoun "aku" ("I") instead of "kita" ("we") or "kamu" (you").
(29) a.I'm going to take a casserole up to Mary's.
b. Aku akan mengantarkan kaserol untuk Mary.c.I will deliver casseroles for Mary.
Samples ( 28) and ( 29) show that if the speaker really intends the addressee to do the activity of "memulai" ("get started") in "sebaiknya kita segera mulai" ("we'd better get started") and "mengantarkan kaserol" ("deliver casseroles") respectively, the offer and the order have been expressed implicitly in order to enhance the politeness degree of the utterances.
Interpersonal utterances can also be expressed in suggestion, advice, or rejection to do something which may harm the addressee.In Sample (30), the utterance intended to request the addressee to do the activity of "makan" ("eat something") has been conveyed using the expression of "I think you'd better eat…" which has been translated into to "Sebaiknya kau makan" and back-translated to "You'd better eat".
Sample (31) shows that in order to ask the addressee to do the activity of "menelepon" ("call"), the speaker uses the expression "You'd better call" which has been translated to "Kalau begitu, kau telepon…" and back rendered to "Then you just call…" (31) a. You'd better call Miles and Samantha and tell them "no", then.b.Kalau begitu, kau telepon saja Miles dan Samantha, bilang kalau kita tidak akan datang.c.Then you just call Miles and Samantha, say that we would not come.
Meanwhile, in Sample (32), the speaker has strived to make the addressee be calm using the expression "We didn't want …" which has been translated to "Kami take mau…" and backtranslated to "We would not make …" (32) a.We didn't want to upset you, dear.
b. Kami take mau membuatmu resah, Sayang.c.We would not make you afraid, dear.
In addition, even in warning or threat, the politeness degree of the utterances can be maintained by means of concealing the person delivering the act of warning or threatening.In Sample (33), the expression "you're grounded" has been translated to "kau dihukum" and backtranslated to "you were punished".In the expression, it is not explicitly explained who will actually be the person administering the punishment.In other words, both the source text and its backtranslation have tried to maintain the politeness degree of the utterance in a similar manner.Due to the fact that the speaker's involvement/ vulnerable avoidance category of interpersonal utterances basically provides profit to the speaker and harm the addressee, the politeness degree contained in it is relatively lower than the four other categories.In spite of that, it is evidence that in general the politeness degree of the source texts has been maintained by the use of relatively similar utterances in the (back)-translation.
The results and discussion, which were simultaneously presented above, were constrained by such factors as follows.(1) The number of respondents taking part in this study could be considered too small to solve all of the problems comprehensively.(2) Albeit university qualified,the respondents were not always capable of judging the politeness degrees contained in the interpersonal utterances; it is also questionable whether they provided serious response to the questionnaires or not.(3) The ratio between the scope of the object, the varieties and categories ofutterances, and the number of items represented in the questionnaires might not be adequately proportional causing thevalidity and reliability of the instruments as well as the findings to be a bit unconvincing and thus need to be reconfirmed through replication studies.
Among the practical implications of this study is that translation practice needs to (re)-consider the importance of politeness degrees containing in the target utterances, specifically the interpersonal ones.Beside that, back-translation can practically be employed to check the existence of politeness shift or deviance that may be viewed from grammatical, rhetorical as well as socio-cultural perspectives.

CONCLUSION
The results of this study show that the politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the source texts were generally equivalent to their counterparts inthe target texts, which were reflected in their backtranslations.The Questioning category could be considered being the most polite means of conveying interpersonal utterances compared to the other four categories, whereas the direct actwas regarded as the category with the lowest degree of politeness.The politeness degrees of the backtranslations tend to be higher than those of the source counterparts.
In general, there was a positive correlation of politeness degrees between the English utterances and their back-translations.However, the polite degree of such utterancesfor the deference category is negatively correlated with that of the backtranslations.
The respondents of this study generally perceived that the source texts and their backtranslations were relatively polite.It implies that there was no significant shift of politeness degrees in the (back)-rendering of the interpersonal utterances.
The politeness degrees of interpersonal utterances in the target texts have been maintained by using grammatical features and rhetoric which were more formal than those available in the source texts.This has made the target texts more polite than the source ones.In other words, the use of formal grammar and rhetoric has generally caused the backtranslations to be more polite than the source texts.
Of the five utterancecategories, questioning is the most preferable category as a polite means of conveying interpersonal utterances.Meanwhile, informing which was intended as interpersonal utterances proved to contain an inadequate degree of politeness; the source texts of this category were generally reckoned to be more polite than their back-translations.
Besides requiring replication, the above conclusions leave a number of problems which need further investigations.Among such problems are the possibilities that (1) shift of politeness is caused by the addressees' misunderstanding of information without their awareness of its real intention; (2) politeness degrees of utterances are not determined solely by grammatical features, rhetoric, or formality of utterances, but also by the context in which the utterances are expressed; (3) politeness degrees are determined by such aspects as direct questioning, order or request uttered as interrogatives, mention of the addressee's identity, expression of opinion, conveyance of willingness, and inclusion of reason.
The other areas of politeness degrees in (back)translation practices that need further research include (4) interpersonal utterances which are conveyed through information giving, conveyance of needs, uses of negative utterances, provision of information about the interlocutor's opinion, thought, and belief; (5) provision of information intended to order, request, command, etc; (6) deference which is expressed by using preference, positive or negative conditional, politeness expression, modality, and apology.
Finally, it is questionable whether the politeness degree of interpersonal utterances can be maintained by (1) involving the speaker or a third party to do or not to do activities to avoid utterances which might offend the addressee or (2) being expressed in advice, suggestion, or rejection to do something which may harm the addressee.
(9) a. Miss Harvey!Your class is making an almighty racket.What's going on? b.Miss Harvey!Kelas Anda ribut sekali.Apa yang terjadi?c.Miss Harvey!Your class so noisy.What happened?

(
12) a. Dinner's nearly ready.Howard!Miles and Sam are here!b.Makan malam sudah siap.Howard, Sam dan Miles sudah sampai.c.Dinner is ready.Howard, Sam and Miles have arrived.
(20) a.If you want chips, you don't go to a fucking salad bar.b.Kalau mau keripik, jangan pergi ke meja salad.c.If you want chips, do not go to the salad table.

(
21) a.Explain to me, please … what possible difference it can make to you? b.Tolong jelaskan kepadaku … apa bedanya bagimu?c.Please explain to me ... what is the difference to you?

(
26) a.And one of you draw the bloody curtains.Why are they still open?b.Dan salah satu dari kalian tutup tirai sialan itu.Kenapa, kok, dibiarkan terbuka?c.And one of you close the damn curtain.Why, really, left open?

Table 1 .
Descriptive statistics of the utterances' degrees of politeness