Every language may have some entities which may not be
owned by another language. The uniqueness of a language is strongly
influenced by the culture of its native speakers. Therefore, languages vary
cross-culturally. I strongly believe that the way the Javanese people (one
of the Indonesian ethnic groups) express politeness is also influenced by
the Javanese culture. This article tries to examine the reflection of some
concepts of Javanese cultures such as: tata krama, andhap-asor, and
tanggap ing sasmita (the language styles, humbling oneself while exalting
others, and being able to catch the hidden meaning). The approaches used
in this study are based on politeness theory, e.g. Brown and Levinson
(1987), Leech (1983), Grice (1975, 1981), and Lakoff (1973, 1990).
Finally, this study proves that the forms and the politeness strategies used
in Javanese are really bound by the Javanese concepts. As a result, it is
almost impossible to conduct politeness in Javanese without
comprehending and applying those cultural concepts.