Upgraders and Downgraders Strategies in SATGAS Covid-19 Talk Show

: Studies on pragmatics which are focusing on the discussion of speech act have been highlighting the issue of how speech act strategies are analyzed based on the forms, classifications, and functions. As the use of speech act strategies is usually correlated to the politeness strategy, the analyses needs to be taken further to the internal modification, for example is the use of upgraders and downgraders to see how words build the politeness in a context differently based on the degree of politeness they carry as stated on Trosborg (1995). This paper used SATGAS COVID-19 Talkshow as the research object for the talkshow uses a lot of upgraders and downgraders strategies. Moreover, the talkshow is unique in its topic which is related to health in which such talkshows haven’t been quite addressed in speech act studies. As for that, this paper discussed types and functions of upgraders and downgraders used in the talkshow as well as what speech act classifications in which the upgraders and downgraders are embedded. This paper was analyzed using the contextual method which the results show the dominant speech acts contain upgraders and downgraders are assertive and directive; the dominant types of upgraders and downgraders are adverbial intensifiers and modals. Moreover, the results have shown that the two main purposes of the use of the strategy are to emphazise the importance of some informations and to follow the politeness culture which some of them are driven by the factor of of the speaker’s religion. The most important part of this research is that there are downgraders’ markers which are specially bound to Indonesian context, ‘Insya Alloh’ and the use of pronouns and upgraders’ marker ‘buanyak’. Nevertheless, this study only focusing on the talk show which only focusing on the health domain, moreover; the studies related to upgraders and downgraders in Indonesian context have not been quite addressed, next researchers could have more broaden scope of the study related to upgraders and downgraders, for example related to gender studies.


I. Introduction
The rise of the Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia, which is quite difficult to control, has forced the government to take various ways to overcome it. The government's efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 are of course in the interest of protecting the public. One of the ways the government is doing is by providing updated information on how cases are increasing and what solutions need to be done. Considering the fact that the Covid-19 virus is dangerous, one of the factors is that the virus does not yet have a vaccine and can be transmitted through human intermediaries; moreover, it can cause death. The government has done various ways to control it. One way to convey information about Covid-19 is through a talk show regarding direct information updates on Covid-19 delivered by the SATGAS Team to remind the public of the dangers of the Covid-19 virus.
Regarding the main domain of the COVID-19 SATGAS talk show, which is health, the health domain of the COVID-19 SATGAS talk show is very interesting to study for similar research on speech acts related to talk shows which have not been studied enough in the health domain. Some examples of speech act research on talk shows are Sagita & Setiawan (2019); Fajarini (2017); Tressyalina & Ridwan (2015); Wulandari et al (2015); and Amiro (2014) which focuses on talk shows related to the political, social, and economic spheres. Moreover, research on speech acts that have been carried out has various data sources, including Arani (2012) Siritman & Meilantina (2020) which generally examines speech acts of various discourses such as films, poetry, social activities such as meetings, and learning activities in the classroom which focuses on the study of discussing speech acts on form, classification, and function. Meanwhile, studies of speech acts related to the use of upgraders and downgraders have been carried out using English data sources in Wahyuni (2010) and Halupka-Resetar (2014), and have also been carried out in the context of Japanese, for example Kusumawati (2020). In the previous study, the roles of upgraders and downgraders were used in the discussion of speech act strategies in general and have not studied the markers of upgraders and downgraders in the Indonesian context.
In this regard, the study of markers of upgraders and downgraders in this study is interesting to do with three research questions, namely: what are the types and types of upgraders and downgraders in speech acts, what types of speech acts contain upgraders and downgraders, and why the strategies of upgraders and downgraders downgraders are used in talk shows which are the object of study.

Type of Research
This research is a qualitative descriptive study. This research is a descriptive study because this research will describe linguistic phenomena, especially regarding the use of speech acts in the discourse of the spokesperson for COVID-19.

Subjects of Research
The data source for this research is the COVID-19 SATGAS talk show from March 2020 to July 2020 which was taken from the MetroTV youtube channel. The selection of the MetroTV youtube channel is due to the completeness of the SATGAS COVID-19 talk show from March 2020 to July 2020. The data are interviews from interviewers and resource persons in the SATGAS COVID-19 talk show from March 2020 to July 2020. Researchers used 25 dialogue videos from 51 dialogue videos in the COVID-19 SATGAS talkshow from March 2020 to July 2020. The selection of the 25 videos was based on consideration of video topics and research topics, namely health-themed talk shows.

Analysis Method of Research
The data collection method is the listening method (Sudaryanto, 2015). The method that will be used in providing data in this study is the listening method, with advanced techniques, namely free-of-conversation engagement (SBLC) and note-taking techniques. This study uses contextual methods for data analysis carried out on real speech forms spoken by speakers to speech partners at certain places and times, and certain speech situations (Rahardi, 2005). Data analysis used several theories such as Trosborg (1995), Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989), Brown and Levinson (1987), and Holmes (1984).

III. Results and Discussion
The findings in the analysis of research data there are five types of upgraders, namely intensifier, adverbial intensifier, commitment intensifier, repetition, and swear word. Classification of types and types of upgrades is in the following table. The finding of upgraders type is in line with Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) and Trosborg (1995), that all upgraders are lexical type. The findings of the most upgraders are adverbial intensifiers with a 'certain' marker which has a frequency of 45 times (18%). Meanwhile, the upgraders that appear the least are intensifiers marked with 'buanyak' (a lot) and 'begitu…nya'; swear word with 'gila' (crazy) marker, each of which has 1 occurrence (0.4%). In the findings, there are types of upgraders in Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) and Trosborg (1995) that do not appear in the data, namely do-construction and concern for hearers. The interesting thing about the findings that do not exist in the English data is the presence of the upgrader's marker 'buanyak' (a lot in exagerated expression) which is a modification of the lexical 'banyak' (a lot).
From the findings, it can be seen that the upgraders intensifier type has the highest frequency of occurrence, which is 155 times. This can happen considering that the context of the object of research is to provide information and appeal to listeners about the importance of maintaining health and safety together during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Some examples of a data type intensifier are (1). From the examples above, it can be seen that upgraders 'tentu' (surely), 'banget' (so), 'sangat'(so), 'sekali'(so), and 'cukup' (quite) are used to emphasize the information conveyed by the speaker to the listener, so that the listener can know the importance of the information conveyed. For example, (2). 'Dewi: Nah, ke daerah ini kalau kita lihat dari 100 orang yang baru diperiksa ternyata ada 60 yang positif berarti angka infektivitasnya satu orang ke orang lain cepat banget atau sangat tinggi ya.', upgraders 'banget' (so) and 'sangat' (so) are used to emphasize that the infectivity or transmission of covid-19 is high from person to person, so that with the information from this COVID-19 SATGAS talk show, listeners are expected to be more careful in social interactions.
Then, from the research findings, also found interesting things. Trosborg (1995) did not find any type of upgraders repetition, but there was data upgraders repetition in this study. The repetition data is the use of 'really' in conversational data which has a frequency of 12 times. The example of the data is (4) 'Yuri: subjektivitas yang mengatakan saya oke saya sehat sehingga kemudian berada di tengah kita. Nah, inilah yang harus betul-betul kita waspadai.' From the example (4), 'betul-betul' (really-really) has a similar function as 'sangat' (so), so they can be categorized in the same classification. The emergence of 'betul-betul' (really-really) in Indonesian data, but no classification was found in Trosborg's research (1995) can be caused because repetition using the same lexical is not commonly found in English. For example, the use of 'I really really like science.' Commonly, 'I really really like science.' is presented by 'I really like science.' or it is commonly used the form of double intensifier as stated in Blum-Kulka, House, dan Kasper (1989) which uses two different intensifier lexicals , for example 'I am really dreadfully sorry!' Another interesting finding is the finding of intensifier type upgraders with 'buanyak' (a lot in an exagerated expression) markers. Emphasis with the addition of 'u' usually often occurs in Javanese speakers. The appearance of 'buanyak' in the research data is quite interesting because the speaker in the talk show, namely Doctor Reza Ramdhoni, is not a Javanese speaker. However, if we look at the development of the Javanese language among social media users, it is now quite large. For example, currently Javanese culture, such as songs, accents, dialects, has been widely disseminated through humor and monologues on social media, so it is very likely that speakers who do not have a Javanese mother tongue background can get this exposure. This is similar to speakers who do not have a Sundanese mother tongue background, but sometimes use 'mah', for example, 'Saya mah sudah selesai dari kemarin' (I have finished it yesterday) in which 'mah' is an empty lexical which doesn't have any meaning that mostly used by Sundanese (one of Indonesian traditional language spoken by people in West Java of Indonesia), so that example can be uttered as 'Saya sudah selesai dari kemarin.' (I have finished it yesterday). This can happen because speakers get exposure to Sundanese from social media or the surrounding. There are nine types of downgraders; four lexical downgraders with eleven markers, two phrasal downgraders with four markers, and five syntactic downgraders with twenty-four markers. The types and types of downgraders in the research findings are in line with Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) and Trosborg (1995) who divide downgraders into three types, namely lexical, phrasal, and syntactic. The most downgraders found were downtoners of lexical type with 'mungkin' (maybe) markers. The 'mungkin' (maybe) downgrader marker has a frequency of 72 times (24%). Meanwhile, the findings of downgraders with the lowest frequency of occurrence were modals downgraders with 'seharusnya' (should) markers, hesitators with 'ah' markers, downtoners with 'maaf' (sorry) markers, and hedges with 'kurang lebih' (approximately) markers, each of which has a frequency of 1 occurrence (0.3 %). In the type of downgraders, there are types of downgraders in Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) and Trosborg (1995) that do not appear in the research findings, namely tense, negations, 'if' form, and consultative devices. Meanwhile, in the research findings, there are downgraders markers in Indonesian speakers related to an Islamic religion which is the majority religion in Indonesia, namely the lexical 'Insha Allah'. In addition, there are downgrade pronouns found in the research data.
Downgraders in Spencer-Oatey (2008) play a role in an utterance as a way for speakers to parse bluntness. Reducing the bluntness effect in an utterance also serves as a way for speakers to apply politeness in their speech, so that facial threats can be minimized. In the research findings, the most common types of downgraders found were 'mungkin' (maybe). An example of an utterance that contains 'mungkin' downgrader in the data are (1). mungkin' is used by speakers to explain information. From this example, the speaker does not use the word 'mungkin' as a way to overcome the speaker's confusion about his thoughts or for politeness to his interlocutor, but the speaker uses 'mungkin' as a way to explain ambiguous information, but the ambiguity is not caused by the speaker's confusion, but from existing facts. For example, (3). 'Cut: Tapi, kalau anak-anak kan mungkin habis main langsung pengen pegang kertas.' 'mungkin' used by speakers to explain the established fact that children usually do something else after playing. It is a fact that often happens and is not something that the speaker confuses about the facts. In addition, it is also not the speaker's way to perform an act of politeness to his interlocutor.  (4) and (5), 'mungkin' is not used as a way to convey ambiguity of facts, but is used by speakers as a strategy for using downgrades to show a cooperative attitude with the speech partner, so that face threats can be minimized. The downgraders strategy category in examples (4) and (5)  Furthermore, in the findings of downgraders, there are types of downgraders in Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989) and Trosborg (1995) that do not appear in the research findings, namely past tense, negations, 'if' form, and consultative devices. This can happen, especially in the use of the past tense and the 'if' form which is not found in the Indonesian data because of the different rules in Indonesian and English, namely there are no rules for the use and function of the past tense and the 'if' form in Indonesian such as contained in English. In addition, the research findings show that there are markers of downgraders in Indonesian speakers related to an Islamic religion which is the majority religion in Indonesia, namely the lexical 'Insha Allah'. In addition, the research findings also contain downgraders pronouns in the form of 'Pak' (sir), 'Dok' (doc as in doctor), 'Bu' (ma'am), and 'Mas' (bro/brother).
The use of 'Insha Allah' as downgraders has a frequency of 6 times. 'Insha Allah' can be used as downgraders because it can function as a way for speakers to convey certainty about something, but speakers don't want to say that something will definitely happen, so 'Insha Allah' can have a function to soften the power of speech. Examples of data findings contained 'Insha Allah', namely (1) 'Nurdin: Insha Allah belum ada lagi transmisi lokal.' (2).
'Hanif: Masyarakat kami harapkan tidak perlu khawatir lagi, apalagi yang ingin diambil lagi, dimandikan sendiri, karena kantong diberikan rumah sakit tidak sesuai, tapi Insha Allah dalam kondisi darurat, maka Insha Allah sah.' In that example, the use of 'Insha Allah' has the same function as the use of 'mungkin' (maybe) which has a function as a content-oriented downgrader, namely downgraders which have a function as a speaker's strategy to explain the ambiguity of a fact.
Then, in the research findings, there are also pronouns which in the Indonesian context can have a function as a marker of downgraders. Pronouns in Indonesian can function as markers of downgraders because the addition of pronouns in speech can change the negative effects of illocutionary speech. For example, (1) 'Lula: Saya ke Ibu Indra dulu. Bisa dijelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah, Bu?'; the downgraders pronouns in that example is 'Bu'.
That example includes the type of indirect directive speech acts that can have a direct form, such as 'Saya ke Bu Indra dulu. Jelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah!' (I go to Bu Indra first. Explain the effort of the government!) in which the direct form certainly has a greater damaging effect on the face of the interlocutor than the indirect form which is converted into an interrogative sentence. Then, in its indirect form 'Bisa dijelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah, Bu?' (Could you explain the effort of the government, Ma'am?), it certainly has a lower level of face damage mitigation than its direct form. In the example 'Bisa dijelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah, Bu?' (Could you explain the effort off the government, Ma'am?), the addition of 'Bu' (ma'am) gives the impression of adding to the speaker's politeness in telling the speech act of a directive request that asks the interlocutor to explain some information, namely about the government's effort during the covid-19 pandemic rather than the direct form of it.  In Spencer-Oatey (2008), the function of the upgraders strategy is described, namely as a way to emphasize important information that the speaker wants to convey and increase the positive impact of speech, while the function of downgraders is to soften the negative impact of the illocutionary illocutionary speech. Seeing this, speech has a very important thing to pay attention to, so that communication between speakers and speech partners can be realized properly. If you look at the research findings, especially in the findings of upgraders strategies, more are found in assertive speech acts and downgraders strategies are mostly found in types of directive speech acts, considering that assertive speech acts have the aim of conveying information in the form of facts and directive speech acts have an illocution for the speech partner to do something the speaker wants, the use of strategies of upgraders and downgraders can be related to the speaker's desire to protect his face, both the speaker's face or the face of the interlocutor. The existence of an advance concept, then, strategies of upgraders and downgraders are used. The concept of face which is the main focus of using the strategy of upgraders and downgraders is the desire to protect the positive face and negative face. This face protection, then, according to Brown and Levinson (1987) is related to the speaker's desire to apply politeness in speaking, where the desire to protect a positive face can be called positive politeness and protect a negative face can be called negative politeness.
In the third strategy, namely downgraders content oriented, speakers use this strategy as a way to overcome ambiguity or indecision in the content of the information spoken. In this strategy, the uncertainty of information comes from the facts of the information and not from the speaker's thoughts. An example of using this strategy in data finding, for example '...salah satu tema yang mungkin ditunggu oleh pemirsa semua adalah cerita mengenai rapid test yang masif yang kemudian banyak dipertanyakan dan juga ada beberapa kalangan masyarakat yang menolak.'. In this example, the speech uses a content-oriented downgrader strategy because the speaker uses the downgraders 'maybe' marker as a marker that explains whether the story about a massive rapid test is indeed awaited by the community or not. This is different in the previous example of the hearer oriented downgraders strategy which also uses the 'mungkin' marker. On a listeneroriented downgrader strategy 'Mungkin boleh diceritakan oleh Pak Anas?' (Maybe could you tell about it, Pak Anas?), 'mungkin' (maybe) has a focus on the questions in which the speaker's desire is implying to 'Pak Anas' to take an action, namely telling stories, which in this case, that is telling someone or the speech partner to do something can threaten the face of the speech partner. Thus, the 'maybe' marker is used to refine the directive utterance. However, in the content oriented downgraders example, '...salah satu tema yang mungkin ditunggu oleh pemirsa semua adalah cerita mengenai rapid test yang masif yang kemudian banyak dipertanyakan dan juga ada beberapa kalangan masyarakat yang menolak.' (one of the themes which is maybe mostly awaited by the viewers...), there is no purpose of the speaker to want his interlocutor to do something. In this example, the speaker uses 'mungkin' (maybe) as an expression to state 'mungkin' (maybe) in the context of the fact that the information is being spoken.
From the description above, the use of speaker-oriented and content-oriented upgrades and downgraders can be said to be related to the positive face protection of speakers, where speakers want the speech or information they speak can be appreciated by their interlocutors. Meanwhile, in the use of the downgraders hearer oriented strategy, the focus of the purpose of its use is on the speech partner, where the speaker wants his speech not to damage the face of his partner, especially the negative face. In the example of research findings that have been discussed previously, negative face is the desire of the owner of the face not to get interrupted by his freedom from the outside. From this understanding, in applying the downgraders hearer oriented strategy, which is most commonly found in the type of directive speech act, it can be interpreted that the speaker does not want his speech to interrupt or offend his interlocutor. This can happen because the directive speech act has an illocutionary act that causes the speech partner to perform a certain action as the perlocution, so that if the main, directive speech does not use the downgraders strategy, then the speech can be considered to be less polite. For example, 'Ceritakan apa yang ada di buku itu!' (Tell us about the book!), will be considered less polite if it is used as an utterance to the speech partner where the speaker has a background and social status that is not higher than the interlocutor. Therefore, in this example, a downgrader strategy can be used which can soften the speech, for example, 'Bolehkah mungkin diceritakan apa yang ada di buku itu, Pak/Bu?' (Could you probably/maybe tell us about the book?).
Regarding the explanation above and the context of the COVID-19 SATGAS Talkshow, there are several factors that influence speakers to use the strategy of upgraders and downgraders. In the upgraders strategy, speakers can use this strategy to emphasize some important information that must be conveyed to the public, considering that the context of the talk show was at the beginning of the pandemic before the vaccine was discovered where government advice and recommendations to maintain health protocols were important to implement. This is also triggered by public awareness that is still low enough to implement health protocols in the new normal period, so that social activity restrictions appear. The use of upgraders markers which are also related to positive faces can also mean that the fact that the information conveyed by speakers who have expert backgrounds in their fields, namely health workers, can be said to have truths that are accepted by the community, so that people do not need to worry and doubt suggestions. delivered. Then, several factors that can influence the use of the downgraders strategy, especially in terms of protecting the negative face of the speech partner which is often found in the research findings, can be caused by the context of a formal talk show and the background of the speaker and his partner, both social background and age. . In the talk show, speakers and their interlocutors interact in formal situations where polite language is used. However, in this context, there is also an age factor that influences speakers to use the downgraders strategy to show politeness to their older interlocutors. For example, in the talk show, the speakers and their interlocutors mostly come from the same professional background, namely health, but the speakers and their interlocutors have different age gaps. However, this also does not make speakers with more age to use impolite speech. In the talk show, there is a reciprocal politeness that is harmonious between the speaker and the speech partner. It can also be influenced by the formal context in the talk show.
Then, the findings also show the use of pronouns as downgraders markers, such as 'Pak' (sir), 'Bu' (ma'am), 'Mas' (bro/brother), dan 'Dok' (doc in doctor). For example, 'Lula: Saya ke Ibu Indra dulu. Bisa dijelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah, Bu?' (I go to Bu Indra first, could you tell the effort of the government, ma'am?), the downgrader marker is 'Bu'. That example is an indirect directive speech act which can have the direct form as 'Saya ke Bu Indra dulu. Jelaskan seperti apa perjuangan pemerintah!' (I go to Bu Indra first, tell about the effort off the government!) in which the direct form certainly has a greater damaging effect on the face of the interlocutor than the indirect form which is converted into an interrogative sentence. Then, in its indirect form, it certainly has a lower level of face damage mitigation than its direct form. In the indirect form and adding 'Bu' (ma'am) gives the impression of adding to the politeness of the speaker in telling the speech act of a directive request that asks his partner to explain information, namely about the government's struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic. The addition of these pronouns has a close relationship with the speech culture of the Indonesian people. For example, in the context of English, in a learning process in class, students can call their teacher directly. For example, 'Can I submit my paper tomorrow, David?' or 'Can I submit my paper tomorrow?', however; in the Indonesian context, it is comonly used, 'Dapatkan saya mengumpulkan makalah saya besok, Pak/Bu?' (Can I submit my paper tomorrow, sir/ma'am?). If the pronoun 'Pak' or 'Bu' is omitted, then the speech will be impolite. Even in English Literature student classes, for example, the dialogue that occurs between students and lecturers is also still influenced by Indonesian-language culture, so usually there is also the use of sir or ma'am to refine speech.

IV. Conclusion
This study found that the dominant type of upgraders is adverbial followed by modals in assertive speech acts, whereas; The dominant downgraders are modals which are mostly found in directive speech acts. In addition, the reasons for using upgraders and downgraders in the COVID-19 SATGAS talk show can be for certainty and politeness, and are influenced by several factors such as the speaker's religion and community culture. In addition, the use of this strategy also aims to minimize actions that threaten faces, both negative faces for downgraders and positive faces for upgraders. The interesting thing is that this research also found several upgraders and downgraders that were not found in other language contexts but in Indonesian; 'nih', 'tuh', 'buanyak' on upgraders and 'Insha Allah' and pronouns on downgraders. However, since this research only focuses on talk shows that only focus on the health domain, what's more; studies related to upgraders and downgraders in the Indonesian context have not been widely discussed, further researchers can further expand the scope of studies related to upgraders and downgraders, for example in relation to gender studies.