Politeness Strategies in Malay and Indonesian: A Contrastive Analysis of the Standard Registers

This article presents a contrastive, theory-led analysis of politeness strategies in the baku (high standard) registers of Malay and Indonesian, focusing explicitly on normative expectations: how politeness is conventionally expected to be realised in formal interaction, rather than how it may be variably enacted in everyday usage. The discussion is grounded in established pragmatic approaches to politeness, while also attending to culturally salient concepts such as face, honour, and shame as organising principles of interaction. In both languages, politeness in the standard register is closely associated with mitigation in face-threatening acts, particularly requests, directives, refusals, and apologies, where speakers are expected to minimise imposition and preserve interlocutors’ autonomy. In standard Malay, politeness norms strongly favour indirectness, hierarchy-sensitive address practices, and conflict-avoidant strategies, especially in situations involving refusal or disagreement. Indonesian politeness in formal domains likewise foregrounds mitigation, but typically allows for comparatively greater explicitness, provided that respect and procedural clarity are maintained through appropriate linguistic devices. The article concludes by translating these contrastive insights into pedagogical considerations for tertiary-level instruction in Indonesian and Malay as foreign languages. It argues that politeness should be treated as a central component of communicative competence and cultural literacy, and that explicit instruction in normative politeness strategies can significantly enhance learners’ ability to navigate formal interaction in Malay- and Indonesian-speaking contexts.