The phenomenon of interest in politeness, both socially and linguistically, has seen a significant increase over the last three decades as evidenced by the numbers of paper that have appeared on the subject in international journals and monographs. As a part of discourse analysis studies, the researcher also hopes that this study is able to contribute to the existing pool of knowledge on politeness strategies used in written discourse, particularly in the writing of economic journal articles of two identified economic journals.

The main focus of this study is to put economic issues written by economists in economic journals, related with politeness strategies as a main topic to discuss while using discourse analysis as an approach. In this chapter, the first section starts out with the explanations of discourse and discourse analysis as an approach. Then, it moves to the discussion of politeness theory which covers the concept of politeness itself and the claims for universality. They are also diverse criticism or modification of one of the elements of the model, focusing on Myers’s room of thinking in his study “Politeness in scientific text” (1989). It is linked to what Brown and Levinson had proposed in their book “Politeness: Some universals in language usage” (1978).

Moreover, other main parts that are explained briefly in this section are also from the economic texts. These sections will cover the discourse of economic as well as the author-audiences relationship in academic text that is considered as useful in studying politeness strategies in written text.

A Brief Overview of Discourse

The term “discourse” analysis is a mammoth-like interpretation. It is said as very ambiguous since its introduction to modern science. The definition of term “discourse” sometimes has various meanings and broad interpretations as there is no agreement to the use of the term discourse among the linguists. So in this study, the researcher mainly refers to the linguistics of language usage in social context, specifically on the analysis of occurring connected speech or written discourse to match with the limitation of this study.

The word “discourse” was derived from a Latin word “discursus”, which means either “written or spoken communication or debate” or “a formal discussion of debate.” Until now, however, linguists are still arguing to the use of this term if it is applied in reference. It is not easy to clarify what discourse is all about in terms of similar perception among scholars. Therefore, only discourse from the vantage point of linguistics, especially applied linguistics, is reflected here.

In language studies, the term “discourse” is defined in a number of different ways. It refers to the speech patterns and how language, dialects, and acceptable statements are used in a particular community. Discourse is a subject of study, particularly among residents in secluded areas and share the same speech conventions. Studies of discourse have roots in a range of theoretical traditions that investigate the relationships among language, structure and agency.

Many scholars also propose their own definitions on the term of discourse, namely Crystal (1992:25). He says that “discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative”. John et al (1994) mentions that discourse is used in linguistics to refer to verbal utterances of greater magnitude than the sentence. Moreover, Cook (1990:7) adds that novels, as well as short conversations or groans, might be equally and rightfully named as discourses. In general, most of these scholars and definitions above have a similar point of view that discourse relates more to parole. It is always produced by somebody whose identity, as well as the identity of the interpreter and discourse, always appears in either physical or linguistic context and within a meaningful fixed time, whereas language does not refer to anything.

The term “discourse analysis” has been used interchangeably in two separate contexts; spoken discourse and written discourse. Both are different in types, such as speaking and writing. The former involves only “air” there are certain dissimilarities that are less apparent in these kinds of discourse while the latter includes some medium of “the conveyed message”.

Spoken discourse might be seen as a spontaneous act which could show a speaker’s mistakes, repetitions, sometimes less coherent grunts, stutters or pauses and as a result, they might be meaningful. Speech develops in time that the speaker says with certain speed that is suitable for him, even if it may not be appropriate for the addressee or listener and though a request for repetition is possible, In speech situation, speaker usually knows the listener(s) or he is at least aware of the fact that he is being listened to, could enable him to adjust the register.

In contrast with spoken discourse, in written discourse, the writer is frequently able to consider the content of what he produces for almost unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent in the production. The written texts produced could have complex syntax or contained some features such as the organization of tables, formulas, or charts. The writer does not know who his audiences are and as a result, he cannot adjust to audiences’ specific expectations. In section 2.2.1, a brief overview of written discourse will be explained in details.

Discourse Analysis

The researcher uses the following explanation to define what is discourse analysis. “…that discourse analysis is a primarily linguistic study, examining the use of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language functions along with its form, produced both orally and writing.” (Carter 1993:23)

The definition above explains the term “discourse” quite clearly as a branch of applied linguistic. Discourse analysis may function to examine the use of language, that is the language used in certain speech community in spoken or written form. In other words, discourse analysis is a study that attempts to find patterns in communicative products as well as their correlation with the circumstances, in which it is designed to recognize and identify linguistic qualities of various genre as well as the interrelationships among social relations, social identities, contexts and specific situations of language use.

Discourse analysis involves the use of both spoken and writt