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Annotated Bibliography on
Compliments in Japanese
An interview with 56 participants (20 Americans in
the US, 18 Japanese in the US, and 18 Japanese in Japan) revealed that the
Americans gave compliments much more frequently than the Japanese – Americans reported
to have given a compliment in the previous 1.6 days whereas Japanese had only
done so in the previous 13 days. Some of
the findings: most frequently praised features were appearance and personal
traits among Americans and acts, work/study, and appearance among
Japanese. American used a wider range of
adjectives than Japanese who used fewer adjectives and adjectives with less of
a range in meaning. In responding to
compliments, Americans tended to accept compliments or justify or extend them;
Japanese questioned their accuracy, denied them, explained
the reason why they were not deserved, or responded by smiling or saying
nothing at all. The closer the relationship was, the more frequently Americans
gave compliments, while Japanese were less likely to offer praise. Female speakers in both cultures were more
likely to give and receive compliments. The
authors also report their findings from a questionnaire given to 260 Japanese
and 260 American participants. Although preferred
strategies of expressing admiration were similarly indirect among both the
American and Japanese participants, Japanese preferred noting one’s own
limitations twice as much as Americans and relied on non-verbal communication
much more frequently. Americans
preferred giving praise to a third party twice as much as Japanese. Some other findings are in relation to
gender, topic focus, and communicative partners. Daikuhara,
M. (1986). A study of compliments
from a cross-cultural perspective: Japanese vs. American English. Working
Papers in Educational Linguistics, 2 (2), 103-134. 115 compliment exchanges were collected in natural
conversations by 50 native speakers of Japanese and analyzed in terms of age,
gender, relationships, situations, and non-verbal cues. The most frequently
used adjectives in the compliments were: ii
‘nice/good,’ sugoi ‘great,’ kirei ‘beautiful/clean,’ kawaii ‘pretty/
cute,’ oishii ‘good/delicious,’ and erai ‘great/deligent.”
The “I like/love NP” pattern never
appeared in the data. Although there was
a great similarity between compliments in Japanese and English (as was found by
Wolfson, 1981) with regard to the praised attributes, in Japanese, compliments
about one’s ability or performance (73%) or character (rather than one’s
appearance) were common. While Americans
praised their family members in public, the Japanese seldom complimented their
spouses, parents, or children as this would be viewed as self-praise. Ninety-five percent of all responses to
compliments fell into the “self-praise avoidance” category, which included
rejection of the compliment (35%), smile or no response (27%), and questioning
(13%). The author argues that
compliments in Japanese seem to show the speaker’s deference to the addressee
and this perhaps creates distance between the interlocutors. The addressee fills in this gap by rejecting
or deflecting the compliment in order to sustain harmony between the
interlocutors. Furukawa, Y. (2000). “Home”no joukenni kansuru ichikousatsu [An observation on conditions for
compliments]. Nihongo nihon bunka kenkyuu [Research on the Japanese Language and Culture], 10,
117-130.
The
author illustrates through examples that compliments reflect not only sociocultural
values but also personal values and standards, and defines the compliment in
consideration of the recipient of the compliment and closeness and status of the
interlocutors. The paper also includes
analyses of written compliments, compliments directed at a third party, and
other functions of compliments using data from newspapers and books. Furukawa, Y. (2001). Gengo kinou
dounyuueno ichi shian: “home” wo chuushinni [Introducing linguistic functions: Compliments
among other functions]. Nihongo nihon bunka kenkyuu, 11, 57-72. Compliments
directed at someone who is of higher status are considered a face-threatening
act in Japanese, yet native speakers use a number of strategies to retain
respect and politeness while realizing the act.
The author argues that no textbook or research has completely analyzed
such potentially face-threatening use of speech acts and begins by listing the
situations that require particular strategies and commenting on common errors
made by learners. The situations in
interaction with those of higher status include: when one does a favor or
receives one, when one has more knowledge or experience, when one is at
advantage, when one gives a compliment, when one invades the hearer’s private
territory, when one refers to the hearer’s misfortune, when the hearer makes
some sort of an error. The article also
includes some sample dialogues in which a person of lower status compliments another
of higher status. Koike, H. (2000). “Home”eno hentouni
kansuru fukuji bunkateki hikaku: Taijin kankei betsu, seibetsu, sedaikan [A comparative study of responses to compliments
in terms of subcultures: Interpersonal relations, sex, and generations]. Shinshuu Daigaku Kyouiku Gakubu Kiyou [Journal of
the Faculty of Education], 100, 47-55. Analyses
of responses to compliments were based on the data from natural conversation in
which research assistants complimented their friends and family members in authentic
situations. The response strategies in
the data obtained from 326 native speaking subjects were examined separately
for interpersonal variables, generations, and gender. The author also came up with her own
categorization based on past studies (acceptance, rejection, and neutral
responses, and sub-strategies in each).
Subjects in their 30’s tended to either express thanks(25%), or reject
the compliment and offer humble comments (44%), while those in their 60’s
mostly responded favorably, often accepting the compliment. Among family members, rejection and humble comments
were found much less frequently than in other interpersonal situations, but
speakers tended to sound proud or offer positive comments. In responding to work-related people, such a positive
tendency drastically decreased and rejection, humble responses, and thanks
occurred five times as frequently as in family relationships. Responses to friends were found somewhere in
between. Women used rejection, humble
comments, and thanks more often than men, while men responded proudly or
expressed shyness more than women. Nakamura, H. (1989). Eigono homekotoba
[Compliments in English]. The
author provides his impressions of compliments in English in comparison with
those in Japanese. Nomura, M. (1998). “Home” eno hentouto “reigi tadashisa”no futatsuno kijun [Replies to compliments and two standards of
“politeness”]. International journal of
pragmatics, 10, 19-32. The
author uses 40 complimenting conversational excerpts in Japanese taken from
television broadcasts and popular magazines and argues that there were two
forms of politeness: one related to the relationship between the parties
involved in the conversation (“local politeness”) and the other related to the
surrounding environment (“global politeness”). The
author provides his impressions and historical analysis of use of compliments
in Japanese in comparison with that in English, using such concepts as: fugenno bitoku, gengo fushin, and uchi/soto.
Terao,
R. (1996). Home kotobaeno hentou
sutairu [Response styles to compliments]. Nihongogaku [Japanese Linguistics], 5, (5), 81-88. Using
901 responses to compliments from TV talks shows and
authentic conversations, the author focuses on characteristics of compliment
responses in Japanese in this article.
Compared to Holmes (1986) (although the taxonomy is slightly different)
where acceptance types occurred 60% of the times, acceptance was found less
than a third (30%). Rejection was used
much more frequently in Japanese (25%) than in English (10%). By drawing examples and analyzing some lexical
items (e.g., dakewa, nomi, igaito, kekkou, warito ichou, chotto,
sukoshi(wa)), the
author points out that even in acceptance types in Japanese, there were humble
comments that speakers offered. Speakers
also used various other semantic strategies to avoid self-praise and admiration
for their family members (e.g., offering negative comments and perspectives). Torikai,
K. (1985). Homekotoba, oiwaino kimari
monku [Idiomatic expressions of complimenting and
congratulating]. Eigokyouiku [English Teachers’ Magazine], 1, 12-14. This
is a short article that introduces some typical expressions of complimenting
and congratulating in English. Yokota, J. (1986). Homerareta tokino hentouni
okeru bokokugo karano shakai gengogakuteki teni.
[Sociolinguistic transfer from the native language in the responses to
compliments]. Nihongokyouiku
[Journal of Japanese Language Teaching], 58, 203-223. This research was conducted to
test a hypothesis that American learners of Japanese tend to transfer their L2 pragmatic
norms in accepting compliments directed to their family members rather than
deflecting or refusing them as Japanese speakers would normally do. Nineteen
learners of Japanese took the DCT that included 5 items in which the speakers
were complimented and another 5 where their family member was complimented both
by a same-gender friend of their age.
Their responses were compared with those by 20 native speakers of
Japanese and those by 21 native speakers of American English (responded in
English). The responses were categorized
into acceptance, deflection, and rejection, each in combination with upgrading,
offering comments, shifting topics, downgrading, returning a compliment, and
joking. In her taxonomy, native speakers
deflected the compliments more than half of the time. Although they accepted and rejected a
compliment about 25% of the time respectively, they tended to make the acceptance
and rejection ambiguous by adding negative comments (avoidance of
self-praise). Learners seemed to believe
that rejection was most polite (overgeneralization) and rejected compliments
about 40% of the time. Although most natives deflected or rejected compliments directed at
their family members, learners tended to accept them (70%). |
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