The Directness Levels of Crit ic ism : A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study of Korean and American Youtuber

Background: Different countries may have different cultures that are influenced by their religion, traditions, or norms. These differences affect the way they speak, such as when they are commenting or giving opinions. Due to the way people express speech acts can be varied and lead to misinterpretation because of their differences, the researcher was intrigued to conduct this study. Methodology: This cross-cultural study was carried out to observe and compare the speech act of criticism between Korean and American YouTubers and to investigate the role of their cultural background in influencing the directness level they conveyed. First, the researcher selected three Korean Youtubers and Americans as well with food review content. Second, the researcher watched one video from each channel and took notes on every expression of criticism they used. Findings: The result of this study demonstrates that in American YouTubers speech, direct strategy emerges more frequently than the indirect one. Conversely, Korean YouTubers tend to use the indirect one. The finding also indicates that their speech behavior is related to their cultural norms, in which American culture encourages clear personal opinions, while Korean culture is a restraint to express their opinion or feeling clearly. Conclusion: Due to the considerable difference between Korean and American YouTuber speech, it can be concluded that culture takes a significant part in shaping one’s speech behavior. That is why people with different cultural backgrounds may have different ways of speaking.


INTRODUCTION
Accepting criticism has never been easy; it is one of the speech acts, which is very potential to threaten the hearer's face. Therefore, giving criticism without offending others will always be a challenge. Sun and Hyland (2001) defines criticism as an expression of Script Journal: Journal of Linguistic and English Teaching P- ISSN: 2477ISSN: -1880E-ISSN: 2502-6623 October 2020 dissatisfaction or negative comment. It means that criticism can also be seen as a negative response or opinions and thoughts that are expressed openly and let others know what is really on our minds about someone or something. T.-M. Nguyen (2005) adds that criticism as an act of illocutionary act whose illocutionary point to give a negative evaluation, or it can be also defined as an expression of dissatisfaction or negative comments to the hearer. This definition shows that criticism is not only an expression of dissatisfaction, but there is an illocution that expects the listener or who receives the criticism to improve or carry out the expected evaluation. Leech (1983) includes criticism under the 'expressive' in his classification. He classifies the speech act into six categories. They are assertive, directive, commissive, 'expressive', declarative, and abrogative. Brown et al. (1987) indicate that speech acts, such as requests, criticisms, and so on, are considered as actions that inherently threaten the face. Spencer-Oatey (2008) also agrees with Brown and Levinson's opinion (Brown et al., 1987) that speech acts are deemed necessary to be handled carefully because many of them can easily threaten rapport. These differences portray their cultural values or their cultural priorities. Therefore, we perceive that culture can distinguish people in using directness or formalities and how expressive they are when delivering speech acts.
In criticizing, people may differ in expressing or conveying it. Ones tend to be careful and sound indirect, while others sound more direct. Spencer-Oatey (2008) defined directnessindirectness as a distinction related to the extent to which the meaning is reflected by words uttered. The more messages are determined by the words used, the more direct the speech, and vice versa. The choice and tendency of a person in determining the strategy and directness level to be used are one of the concerns in pragmatics because the speaker can vary in conveying speech acts. Blum-Kulka (1987, p. 133) said that the level of the directness of criticism with the level of illocutionary transparency requires several attempts to interpret the illocutionary point of this criticism. According to Brown et al. (1987) can be argued that the direct criticism strategy is more potential to threaten the rapport rather than the indirect one.
Talking about speech acts, including criticism strategies, politeness strategies will never be separated from this discussion. It is because politeness strategy contributes to the way speakers deliver their speech act, including criticism. As Min (2008) argues that criticism is an intrinsically threatening face in Brown and Levinson's terms. It is included in the speech act group that can threaten the positive face of the listener. To make a criticism be more accepted by listeners, speakers tend to reduce the affirmation of criticism by increasing the degree of politeness. It can be said that politeness strategies are often used to reduce the potential threatening rapport that might occur as a result of conveying criticism. Leech (1983) described that politeness levels could be increased by using a more indirect type of illocution, and this is an option for speakers when delivering speech acts. And Watts (2003) points out that in different cultures, politeness can be manifested and understood in different ways through verbal and nonverbal behavior. The view of social norms refers to the normative view of politeness which is seen as a social standard of behavior in any society. The view of social norms assumes social standards are similar to discernment politeness in the sense that they refer to the use of standards in social settings. Watts et al. (2008) also asserted Lakoff's statement that politeness is developed by societies to reduce friction in personal interaction.
As what the researcher found that there are many various patterns of criticism reflected in the food review content delivered by YouTubers from Korea and America, which became the subject of this research, later on, one of the most obvious difference is their directness level in expressing criticism, one sounds indirect, while the other sounds are more direct. Hymes (1964) stated that people in different countries speak differently. Not only because they have different linguistic codes, but also because they use their codes differently. Since differences in ways of speaking between people who have different cultural backgrounds, misinterpretations may occur, and people easily get offended or even stereotyping one another. Therefore, this study was conducted. By using a cross-cultural pragmatics approach, this study tried to observe the diversity of people in delivering the speech act of criticism, and also to answer whether their cultural background influence their speech behavior or not.
A study of directness level of speech acts has already widely done by many researchers, such as Abuarrah et al. (2013) work which examines the directness level of request strategy between Palestinian Arabic and British English, Karatepe (2016) with the study of the food. Besides, this study also intended to investigate the role of their cultural background in choosing that strategy. With the hope that this research can provide a better understanding of the diversity of society in using language so that it can reduce the potential for conflict and maintain harmony in social life.

METHOD
The sample was chosen based on the focus of this study; they are Korean and American YouTubers who have food review content. To narrow the sample, the researcher decided only to observe YouTubers who review Indonesian food, considering that recently many YouTubers create content about Indonesian food, so that it easier for the researcher to collect the data needed. Second, one video from each chosen YouTubers were watched and took notes every expression of criticism that emerged. In the third step, the researcher analyzed all data collected to compare the directness levels of criticism they conveyed. This study also intended to know whether their speech behavior is influenced by their cultural background or not. All references that provide information about these two cultures, American and Korean culture, are used as references to answer that question by implementing a cross-cultural perspective.

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Korean: It's hard to eat it again strategies. The directness level can refer to how strong or aggressive the speech act or utterances that can threaten the face of the hearer. Wierzbicka (1985) stated that the evaluation of the realization of certain speech acts in terms of directness and politeness varies across cultures and depends on social and cultural values and norms. Wierzbicka Wierzbicka (2003, p. 61) also added that the notion of politeness is known in every culture, but the practical realization of the phrase "be polite" differs from one culture to another.
The directness level of the speech acts of criticism that was conveyed by American YouTubers is quite related to their socio-cultural values. Wierzbicka (2003) explained that in Anglo-American culture, people could freely express their feelings or say what they want to say, but they are not expected to be too 'blunt' when conveying them. For this culture, it is important to acknowledge everyone's right for personal freedom and to use their right to selfexpression, as long as it does not violate the autonomy of others, because of that individualism centered culture. Watts (2003) also explained that American politeness usually relies on personal autonomy and how people maintain the etiquette of the conversation. As a result, every individual is usually given more rights to choose which politeness strategies they will use to maintain each other's autonomy in the conversation. Song (2014) stated that, generally, politeness in American culture is related to social etiquette, and it is used to avoid conflicts, and their characteristics tend to be individualistic and rational. Wierzbicka (2003) added that in white Anglo-American culture, the main emphasis was not on preventing displeasure, or spontaneous and uninhibited self-expression, but rather on personal autonomy for everyone, on non-imposition, and so on. Therefore, this culture encourages people to say freely at the right time what they think or what they want to say, as long as it does not violet other personal autonomy. The concept of American culture can be represented as follows; Anyone can say: "I want this", but they cannot say: "You have to do this because I want it" (Wierzbicka, 2003, p. 80). From what experts have explained about American culture, we can see that there is relevance to the behavior exhibited by American YouTubers. The fact that they generally use a direct strategy in expressing criticism is related to their culture that upholds the importance of recognizing everyone's right and personal autonomy, and also encouraging everyone to express their feelings and opinions. Therefore, the speech behavior that American Youtubers expressed can be assumed to be the result of the influence of their cultural background.
If American YouTubers are assumed to use more direct criticism rather than the indirect one, contrary to the Korean YouTuber, which indicates that the indirect strategy was the most frequently emerge. According to Hofstede's study (I. Lee, 2005) Korea, even more than In the process of observing data, the researcher also found that Korean YouTubers, in certain situations, gave a silent reaction when reviewing food. However, their body language clearly is shown as dislike or rejection. This behavior might be explained by C. Y. Lee (2012) about the Nunchi. Nunchi can be translated as an eye measure. In other words, Nunchi is a person's ability to understand other people's Kibun through their eyes. C. Y. Lee (2012) added that Korean people tend to express their different opinions or feelings by giving positive or ambiguous answers. However, people are expected to be able to read their nonverbal language or their body language to understand the answers they mean. Southerton (in C. Y. Lee, 2012) also suggests that people need to learn other people's non-verbal language and body language to understand the true meaning of what they are saying. Nunchi is like the sixth sense, the ability to see visual cues to understand what the person is saying.
The behavior of Korean people who often avoid outright rejection can also be related to another key principle of their culture, namely Inhwa. Alston (in C. Y. Lee, 2012) defined Inhwa as harmony. As a collectivist society, the consensus is an important element in In conclusion, the direct criticism used by Korean Youtubers is less than the direct criticism found in American YouTuber's utterances, and they also tend to avoid blatant confrontations, such as giving negative evaluations, making rejections, etc. This behavior is quite relevant to what some experts describe Korean cultural norms as discussed above.
Many experts described that Korean culture tends to maintain harmony by avoiding confrontation and restraint to express feelings and opinions bluntly. So, it makes sense that the speech behavior they show is considered a result of the influence of their cultural norms.

CONCLUSION
The results of this study indicate that there are significant differences in the level of direct criticism used by Korean and American YouTubers in reviewing food. Based on the data collected shows the direct criticism strategy appeared more frequent in American YouTuber's utterances, whereas in Korea appeared less. This study also finds out that the speech behavior delivered by both American and Korean Youtubers were related to their cultural norms.
Where Anglo-American culture according to Wierzbicka (2003) acknowledge everyone's right and personal autonomy and encourage everyone to express their personal feelings and opinions freely as long as it does not violate the autonomy of others. Whereas Korean culture as Hofstede's study (I. Lee, 2005) is considered to tend to avoid confrontation to maintain harmony, due to harmony and consensus are their ultimate goals in social life. Finally, from all the discussion above, it can be concluded that culture takes a significant part in shaping one's speech behavior. That is why people with different cultural backgrounds may have different ways of speaking.