Abstract

Considering English as a tool of communication, language education cannot be regarded as successful if it only focuses on how much knowledge about English students accumulate instead of focusing on how capable they are communicating with it. The author firmly believes that second language education should always be discussed in the context of communication. Therefore the perspective of Pragmatics needs to be paid considerable attention. Above all, the concept of politeness is particularly important. However, the opportunity for the students to learn English from the point of view of politeness is rather limited for various reasons such as the shortage of teaching time or difficulty finding a place for it in the curriculum. The classroom also lacks the necessary context within which politeness can be understood. Politeness can only be understood in association with language in context. In this regard, cinema has the potential to be a rich resource that provides students with exposure to real conversational situations. This paper discusses how to teach politeness through film and subtitle translation by using the politeness strategy devised by Brown and Levinson (1987) as a framework. It further discusses how subtitle translation contributes to the enhancement of the students' communication ability.