The Importance of “Place” in Japanese Politeness: Implications for Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Analyses
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Michael Haugh
Abstract
It has long been the contention of various scholars that Brown and Levinson's notion of face, in particular the concept of personal autonomy associated with negative face, is not appropriate for explaining politeness in Japanese. However, there has been little work on what might constitute a suitable alternative. In this paper, it is proposed that the concept of “place,” which has long occupied an important position in Japanese philosophy and language studies, is fundamental to instances of politeness in Japanese. It is suggested that Japanese politeness involves concern about both the “place one belongs” (inclusion) and the “place one stands” (distinction). Examples are then given to show how the concept of place can be useful in understanding politeness phenomena both cross-culturally and interculturally.
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Making Space for Bilingual Communicative Practice
- Generalized Holographic Visions of Language in Vygotsky, Luria, Pribram, Eisenstein, and Vološinov
- The Importance of “Place” in Japanese Politeness: Implications for Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Analyses
- The Pragmatics of Well and Bueno in English and Spanish
- Linguistic Pragmatics: A Discipline Bedeviled by its Own History? Implications for Intercultural Studies
- Reply to Rajagopalan
- Book Reviews
- Contributors to this Issue:
Articles in the same Issue
- Making Space for Bilingual Communicative Practice
- Generalized Holographic Visions of Language in Vygotsky, Luria, Pribram, Eisenstein, and Vološinov
- The Importance of “Place” in Japanese Politeness: Implications for Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Analyses
- The Pragmatics of Well and Bueno in English and Spanish
- Linguistic Pragmatics: A Discipline Bedeviled by its Own History? Implications for Intercultural Studies
- Reply to Rajagopalan
- Book Reviews
- Contributors to this Issue:
