Places, Images, Times & Transformations

Japanese Conversation

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Though Americans recognize some of their options as "more polite" than others, and sometimes are concerned about how polite they should be in a particular interaction, for the most part we make these choices without thinking overtly about them. Similarly, Japanese people learn about politeness levels but learn the system more consciously than Americans.

Japanese speech assumes that a speaker and listener can have three different status relationships: higher to lower, equal to equal, lower to higher. Speaker and listener can also be members of the same group or of different groups. The decision as to what relationship is at work in any encounter depends on a number of factors. Usually, older people have some claim to higher status over younger people, and usually males have some claim to higher status over females. Occupational status or family background are also important. What one wishes to accomplish in the interaction also matters. Americans don't usually like to think about status relationships and sometimes declare that everyone should be equal, but many Japanese seem to be quite comfortable with hierarchical relationships. Some relationships can change over time, like those in work groups where competition leads some people to higher positions than others. But other relationships don't change: your mother is always your mother, younger brothers and sisters are always younger, and a teacher is always a teacher, even after you leave the school. The relationships just mentioned are all ones that are usually thought of as 'in-group' relationships: members of the same stable group of people who can be distinguished from individuals outside of the group.

Some situations are thought of as formal, others as casual. Even in interactions within an in-group, some situations are more formal than others and call for different modes of speaking. Interactions with people outside of one's in-group may often be more formal. Even in 'informal' situations, people with lower status may speak more formally and 'politely' than those of higher status (think, for instance, of the ways in which employees may be careful of their speech to a boss, even one they've worked with for a long time, and even in informal situations.)

The verb choices one makes for any given utterance depend on the status relationship one has with the listener, whether they are both members of an 'in-group' or not, the kind of situation they are in, and what each wants to accomplish (ask a favor, or offer help, for instance.) In English this might turn out to be something like "Mom, I need the car tonight," or "Dad, c'n I use the car t'night?" There are a host of variations that would color this request in keeping with the factors given above. The same factors and variations are used in Japanese, too. And as in the U.S., even the same pair of people, doing roughly the same thing, have a lot of options for how they speak to each other.

In Japanese, among the verbs that have different forms for different in-group/out-group encounters and different hierarchical statuses are the verbs for giving and receiving (Again, English can do this too, with words like "offer," "bestow," "grant," "confer," and "present." But we usually, especially in speech, make do with "give" and "get" for most transactions.) In Japanese, verbs for giving and taking are very important in summarizing the relative statuses of the conversants.

The following chart from Maynard's An Introduction to Japanese Grammar and Communication Strategies summarizes the variations:

Verbs of Giving and Receiving

  1. Kureru: Speaker receives
    Kudasaru: Giver is higher than receiver/speaker
    Kureru: Giver is equal or lower than receiver/speaker
     
  2. Ageru: Speaker gives
    Sashiageru: Giver/speaker is lower than receiver
    Ageru: Giver/speaker is equal to receiver
    Yaru: Giver/speaker is higher than receiver
     
  3. Morau: Speaker or third person receives
    Itadaku: Speaker/receiver receives from someone higher
    Morau: Speaker/receiver receives from someone equal or lower

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