Abstract
In context of ceremonial discourse, commencement speeches serve as a significant platform for sharing success narratives, imparting words of wisdom and giving motivation as well as inspiration to graduating individuals. This study undertook a discourse analysis to unveil and explore the employment of politeness strategies by commencement speakers in sharing success stories during graduation ceremonies. Limited to twenty (20) YouTube videos, the research scrutinized the linguistic choices within the speeches. Among the identified strategies, positive politeness emerged as the most frequently employed, followed by the bald on-record approach, while the utilization of negative politeness was less common. Notably, the off-record strategy was absent from the speeches. The examination of these strategies’ sheds light on the nuanced linguistic techniques employed by commencement speakers to engage their audiences and convey success narratives. This study contributes to our understanding of discourse in ceremonial contexts, highlighting the importance of linguistic choices in conveying messages of achievement and inspiration.
