2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Pragmatics of Honorifics- Making a theoretical framework and its verification through usages.
| Project/Area Number |
16520255
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Linguistics
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| Research Institution | Reitaku University |
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Principal Investigator |
TAKIURA Masato Reitaku University, Faculty of Foreign Studies, Professor, 外国語学部, 助教授 (90248998)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Keywords | honorifics / politeness / point of view / distance / deixis / honorifics in dialects / Japanese-Korean contrast |
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| Research Abstract |
The achievement of this research project is summarized as follows in accordance with its initially held goals, (i) Establishment of a.theoretical framework of Japanese honorifics in terms of pragmatics.
Japanese theories of honorifics are divided into two groups as to whether they focus on the aspect of 'use' or not.
Theories emphasizing human relationships 'discernment' suggest the following two points.
Honorifics should be seen as l inguistic 'behavior', which express the speaker's discernment of human relationships in conversational fields.
The relative system of Japanese honorifics is one in which the speaker expresses the human relationships seen from the hearer's, not the speaker's, viewpoint.
(a) Connecting Japanese theories of honorifics and Brown＆Levinson' s politeness theory.
In terms of human relationships discernment, the issues of honorifics can be viewed as those of politeness concerning interpersonal distance.
Thus, honorifics are re-defined as follows.
Honorifics are linguistic
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means which put interpersonal distance (and hence avoidance-based politeness).
(b) Establishing a pragmatic framework to hold the whole of the 'distance' relations from the hearer's viewpoint.
Kuno's theory of 'viewpoint and empathy' makes it possible to account for the semantic functions of honorifics in terms of the 'distance' relations from the hearer's standpoint.
(iii) Seeking ways to apply the pragmatic theory of viewpoint and distance to Japanese dialects and other languages.
As to Japanese dialects, those of central Kink! are interesting, which have the '-hard type of forms. They are expected to have both of the distal and the proximal types of forms, and thus, their system of expressing interpersonal distance to be different from that of the standard Japanese. Among other languages, Korean seems the best to compare with Japanese, in that the modern Seoul dialect organizes interpersonal distance into two series of speech styles, where the vertical and the horizontal distance are coded differently. Less
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