Ela Martisa, Asraf, & La Aso Page 23 of 33 Volume 1 Issue 1 June, 2021 E-ISSN 2797-8117 POLITENESS STRATEGIES PERFORMED IN PIERS MORGAN AND DONALD TRUMP INTERVIEW Ela Martisa 1,4 , Asraf 2 , La Aso 3 1,2,3 English Literature Study Program, Language and Literature Department, Faculty of Humanities, Halu Oleo University, Indonesia 4 Corresponding Author, Email: ela.martisa@uho.ac.id Abstract This research aims to describe politeness strategies performed by Piers Morgan and Donald Trump in an interview held on 25 th of January 2018 on World Economy Forum at Davos, Switzerland. It is used theory of politeness strategies proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987). This research employs descriptive qualitative method by taking the transcription of the interview. The data analysis reported that the participants of the interview employed positive and negative politeness strategies to save one another‟s face. The result of the research shows that the participants of the interview attempt to decrease and keep the social distance between them through positive and negative politeness strategies. As a journalist, Piers Morgan try to handle the conversation to run smoothly. He employs more negative politeness strategies than Donald Trump which has higher social status as the President of USA. In this event powerless participants need to be more polite than powerful participant. Keywords: Politeness Strategies, Positive politeness, Negative politeness, Piers Morgan, Donald Trump. INTRODUCTION Communication is one of the important aspects in human life. People can interact to each other through communication by using language. Wardhaugh (1977, p.7) has said that language allows people to say things to each other and expresses their communicative needs. In other words language of communication is an effective way to convey ideas, messages, intentions, feelings and opinions to others. Language also can be used as a tool to maintain the social relationship and personal behaviors. Renkema (1993, p.8) has stated that to make a conversation run smoothly, it needs a strategy which is called politeness. Politeness is a polite social behavior in a particular culture (Yule, 1996, p.60). Politeness in communication is very important because it can make social