Politeness Strategies in Indonesian Motivational Podcast: An Interactional-Pragmatic Analysis

Abstract

The growing popularity of podcasts has created new forms of digitally mediated spoken interaction in which speakers must manage both co-present interlocutors and wider unseen audiences. However, politeness in Indonesian podcast discourse, particularly in face-sensitive financial advice, remains underexplored. This study investigates how politeness is pragmatically accomplished in the Indonesian motivational podcast Suara Berkelas when speakers discuss financially sensitive issues. Employing a qualitative interactional-pragmatic single-case design, the study analyzes five purposively selected excerpts from Episode 86. The analysis draws on Brown and Levinson’s face model, relational work, rapport management, and cyberpragmatics. The findings reveal that politeness is realized not primarily through conventional courtesy markers but through interactional strategies including third-party narratives, anticipatory mitigation, generalized social typing, quoted speech, analogy, irony, and moral reframing. These strategies enable speakers to criticize, warn, and advise while mitigating face threats and maintaining relational alignment and public credibility. The findings further demonstrate a dual audience orientation, as speakers simultaneously engage a co-present interlocutor and an unseen digital audience. In the Indonesian context, this orientation becomes particularly salient when financial advice intersects with family hierarchy, social image, and expectations of generosity. The study contributes to interactional pragmatics by showing how politeness in podcast discourse operates as dynamic relational work shaped by face sensitivity, cultural expectations, and digitally mediated audience design.