| dc.description.abstract | This research was aimed at finding out the greetings, both openings and
closings, used by twelve Indonesian students studying at La Trobe University. The
focus of the study was the language used, the formality of openings and closings,
the politeness or mitigation especially in closings, and kinds of non-verbal greetings
in used. There were six different groups performing the conversation: the first group
involved a conversation between close friends, the second group was between two
participants who were not close friends, the third was a conversation among three
participants, one participant introduced his friend to a new-comer student, the
fourth was a conversation between Moslems, the fifth was a conversation between a
Moslem and a participant from another religion who were casual acquaintances, and
the last was a conversation between an adult and a child. Tape recorder and pencil
and paper technique were used to collect the data. The results of the study indicated
that the local language and the Bahasa Indonesia of the speakers and interlocutors
influenced the greetings, the level of formality in greetings and the politeness
especially in closings used in their home country were the same as in Australia, and
the non-verbal greetings like smiling, bowing, and waving were considered to be the
emphasis of the greetings themselves. The results suggest that further research
particularly on the use of greetings will be conducted among various age, education
and cultural background. | en_US |
