The Use of Politeness for Manipulation in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes Movie

Abstract

The aims of this study is to analyze the used of politeness strategies by the main character in the The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes movie, which released in 2023, that is Coriolanus Snow. This study shows that how politeness strategies are used to reflect manipulation and control in his interactions with other characters through his utterances. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach to get the explanation in depth. The data were collected from downloaded script that has 252 of Snow’s utterances, and then the researcher analyzed using Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, that has four strategies such as bald on record, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record. The findings reveal that the most frequently used strategies are bald on record (132 utterances) and positive politeness (78 utterances), followed by negative politeness (27 utterances) and off-record (15 utterances). However, the two strategies used to manipulate other characters are bald-on-record and positive politeness. The analysis reveals that Snow
employs bald on record to assert hierarchy and dominance in critical situations. At the same time, positive politeness is manipulated to foster a false sense of intimacy and create emotional dependence.