Responses to Impolite Criticism by Indonesian EFL Students in Surakarta

This research identified the response strategies to impolite criticism used by Indonesian EFL students in Surakarta, the influence of status levels towards the use of responses to impolite criticism strategies, and the influence of familiarity or social distance towards the use of responses to impolite criticism strategies. The type of this research was qualitative research. The data of this research were all responses to impolite criticism used by students when they were criticized. The data were elicited by means of discourse completion tasks (DCTs) from 40 Indonesian English as a foreign language students in Surakarta, Central Java and analysed by using Bousfield’s (2008) theory. The findings showed there were three kinds of response to impolite criticism strategies used by Indonesian EFL students in Surakarta, namely: accepting face attack (AFA), countering face attack (CFA), and combined strategy (CS). It also showed that the difference of status levels and social distance between interlocutors influenced the strategies in responding impolite criticism