The Discourse of Motivation: Judges’ Comments in The Voice Kids Indonesia

This chapter discusses the comments of judges of The Voice Kids Indonesia (TVKI), a competition program broadcast on television involving children. This study applies pragmatic approaches using Brown & Levinson’s politeness theory (Politeness: some universal in language used. Cambride University Press, 1987) and Searle’s theory (1969) on illocution. The focus of this study is the judges’ motivational comments toward children’s performance as contestants. The analysis is also supported by Maslow’s theory (A theory of human motivation. Nalanda Digital Library, 1943) on motivation. The data are collected from TVKI judges’ open comments of assessment in TVKI Blind audition session to battle round session (episodes 1−4 and 9−11) which are taken from TVKI's official YouTube Channel. Analysis based on the politeness theory reveals that positive and negative politeness strategies help shape contestants’ needs for self-actualization. The judges’ motivating comments genuinely address each contestant’s skills and put the contestant at ease. Thus, this study can explain the existence of the relationship between politeness strategy and the hierarchy of fulfillment of human needs informing potentially motivational comments.