Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36433654

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Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Formal forms or verbal strategies? Politeness theory and Japanese

business etiquette training
Cynthia Dickel Dunn
Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology, University of Northern Iowa, Baker Hall 356, Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0513, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 30 September 2010
Received in revised form 3 June 2011
Accepted 6 June 2011
Available online 27 July 2011

This article analyzes the concepts of politeness that are manifest in Japanese business
etiquette training in relation to the politeness theories of Brown and Levinson (1987) and
Ide (1989, 2006). The analysis is based on participant-observation of five workforce
development companies that specialize in providing seminars in business manners for
new employees at a variety of Japanese companies. Intended for native speakers, these
classes provide insight into the types of politeness that are considered particularly
important for young Japanese to master as they enter the business world. Approaching
both Volition and Discernment as language ideologies, the analysis examines the
deployment of these ideologies in the Japanese business context. Although the manners
training incorporates attention to both formal forms such as honorifics (Ide, 1989) and the
types of verbal strategies described by Brown and Levinson (1987), both types of
politeness are presented in the training in terms of discernment, or conformity to social
norms, rather than as individually motivated strategic choices.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Politeness
Honorifics
Language socialization in the workplace
Japanese

1. Introduction
Honorifics in the sense of grammatically encoded expressions of deference have long been central to the
conceptualization of politeness in Japanese. Japanese scholars have challenged the universality of Brown and Levinsons
(1987) politeness theory by arguing that it does not adequately account for honorific systems which involve obligatory
choices among linguistic forms which directly index social roles and relationships (Ide, 1989, 2006; Matsumoto, 1988, 1989).
Ide (1989, 2006), in particular, has argued that honorific use in Japanese is governed by principles of wakimae, namely the
discernment of social norms, in contrast with the strategic manipulation of linguistic forms based on individual volition
which is presumed in the influential politeness theory of Brown and Levinson (1987).
More recently, the focus of politeness studies has shifted from the construction of universal theories of behavior to the
examination of politeness as an ideological process (Pizziconi, 2006). Theorists have focused on speakers own evaluations of
politeness, neither as accurate nor distorted reflections of some underlying system, but rather as sites of ideological struggle
(Eelen, 2001; Mills, 2003). In light of this critique, both laypeoples metalinguistic commentaries and scientific politeness
theories themselves are critiqued as culturally situated, ideological evaluations of behavior rather than as neutral
descriptions. Just as Ide (1989, 2006) and Matsumoto (1988, 1989) uncovered Western biases in Brown and Levinsons
politeness theory, their own work has been critiqued as presenting an ideology of appropriate honorific use which contrasts
with the diversity of actual practices (Fukada and Asato, 2004; Pizziconi, 2003).
Other contributors to this series use interactional data to challenge ideologies of honorific use as uniform, normative, and
rule-governed. The approach in this initial article is rather different, focusing instead on examining the processes through
which ideologies of honorific use and politeness are reproduced in one segment of Japanese society. Treating both wakimae
E-mail address: Cyndi.Dunn@uni.edu.
0378-2166/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.003

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C.D. Dunn / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36433654

discernment and volition as language ideologies (rather than as underlying principles which govern language use), I
explore how both honorifics and other forms of linguistic politeness are presented to young Japanese workers through the
linguistic ideology of wakimae.
The context for this analysis is training seminars in business etiquette which are provided to new employees at many
Japanese companies. In Japan, the shift from being a student to entering full-time employment is seen as a major life
transition in which young adults take on new roles as shakaijin, contributing, adult members of society. A major part of this
transition involves shifts in their self-presentation and language use, particularly in developing their skills in the more
formal, honorific registers of Japanese. Despite the fact that most college students have engaged in part-time work, they are
frequently seen as ill-prepared for the behaviors and language use that are expected in the business world. Consequently,
many companies provide recently hired graduates with training in polite language use and other aspects of business
etiquette as part of their new employee orientation (Wetzel and Inoue, 1999). Although some companies provide this
training themselves, there are also burgeoning numbers of firms specializing in workforce development training which
provide one or two-day seminars on bijinesu man business manners for employees of other companies.
This article will examine how politeness is taught in these business manner courses, with particular focus on the types of
verbal politeness in which students are explicitly instructed. The study uses the business manner training to investigate local
theories of politeness, including how specific forms of linguistic behavior are constructed as normative ideals. Honorific
language is presented in the training courses as part of a larger semiotic system of polite behaviors including both extralinguistic forms, such as dress and posture, and many of the verbal politeness strategies identified by Brown and Levinson
(1987). Rather than being governed by opposing principles, verbal strategies as well as honorific use are presented in the
training as a matter of conformity to the social conventions of the business world.
2. Politeness theory in the Japanese context
Brown and Levinsons politeness theory, first published in 1978 and reissued in 1987, grew out of an attempt to explain
similarities in polite usage in languages as different as British and American English, Tzeltal (a Mayan language spoken in
Mexico) and Tamil (spoken in India). Brown and Levinson began by constructing, tongue in cheek, a Model Person
endowed with two presumed universal face wants, namely positive face, the desire to be approved of, and negative face, the
desire to be unimpeded (Brown and Levinson, 1987:58). Building on this, they then elucidated two broad types of politeness
that speakers from any cultural background might use to redress or mitigate potentially face-threatening acts (FTAs).
Positive politeness, also known as involvement politeness (Bailey, 1997), is oriented towards the hearers positive face wants
and involves actions which show approval, understanding, or solidarity towards the hearer. Negative politeness, also known
as restraint politeness, is oriented towards the hearers negative face wants and includes actions which mark the
interactors unwillingness to impose on others, or which lessen potential imposition. These strategies can include hedging
statements, making requests indirect, being apologetic, or simply NOT demanding the others attention to begin with
(Bailey, 1997:330). Examples of negative politeness given by Brown and Levinson include such things as phrasing requests as
questions, showing deference, and apologizing.
As discussed above, the universality of Brown and Levinsons model was challenged by Japanese scholars who argued that it
did not account adequately for politeness phenomena in languages which include elaborate honorific systems. Ide (1989)
distinguishes between two different mechanisms for politeness, namely the use of formal linguistic forms and verbal strategies.
Formal forms, such as honorifics, involve selection among lexical or morphological alternates which differ solely in their level of
formality. The other type of politeness, described by Brown and Levinson, involves verbal strategies such as turning imperatives
into interrogatives, adding negation, and so forth. Ide (1989, 2006) argues that these two mechanisms for politeness are
governed by different behavioral principles. Drawing on work by Hill et al. (1986), she argues that formal forms such as
honorifics involve discernment, or conformity to social conventions (wakimae), whereas verbal strategies allow for speaker
volition, or active choice to accomplish individual intentions. Wakimae is thus a matter of reading the listeners, situation, and
other factors and then matching the appropriate linguistic form to the situation; failure to produce the appropriate form may
lead to negative evaluation by others (Ide, 2006). Ide argues that both types of politeness are in fact universal, but that certain
languages may emphasize one more than the other. As she puts it For the speaker of an honorific language, linguistic politeness
is above all a matter of showing discernment in choosing specific linguistic forms, while [for] the speaker of a non-honorific
language, it is mainly a matter of the volitional use of verbal strategies to maintain the faces of participants (Ide, 1989:245).
More recent empirical work has demonstrated that actual honorific use is more fluid and flexible than Ide suggested.
Studies of naturally occurring discourse have found that it is common for speakers to shift between honorific levels, even
when speaking to the same addressee, in order to index shifts in stance and self-presentation (Cook, 1996, 2008; Dunn, 1999,
2005; Geyer, 2008; Ikuta, 1982, 2008; Maynard, 1993, 2008; Saito, 2010). Speakers have also been found to shift honorific
levels (in both directions) in order to mitigate face-threatening acts (Fukada and Asato, 2004; Geyer, 2008; Sukle, 1994). This
body of research demonstrates that honorific use is not simply a matter of mechanical conformity to social norms; rather,
speakers use their knowledge of the indexical meanings of these forms to actively construct desired social roles and
relationships. In her more recent work, Ide acknowledges the possibility of such style shifting and notes that violations of
wakimae can create new social meanings (Ide, 2006:108112).
Eelen (2001), however, critiques both Ide and Brown and Levinson for ignoring the quintessentially evaluative nature of
politeness. Rather than locating politeness in speaker behavior, he locates it in the evaluative judgements made about

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behavior and argues for greater analytical attention to the strategic nature and contestation of those evaluations. Eelens
work invites us to consider politeness as a form of language ideology, defined by Irvine as the cultural system of ideas about
social and linguistic relationships together with their loading of moral and political interests (1989:255). He suggests
greater attention, not only to speech behavior itself, but to how concepts of politeness are represented and contested in
evaluative judgements and metalinguistic discourse.
This paper follows this latter approach by examining the metalinguistic construction of politeness in Japanese business
manners training. It does so through an examination of the different types of linguistic and non-linguistic behavior that are
taught in Japanese business manners courses as well as how those behaviors are framed for the students. The business manners
training presents both formal forms and verbal strategies as integral aspects of polite behavior in the business world. Yet both
types of politeness are presented in business manners training as primarily a matter of conformity to social norms, rather than
as strategic choices to accomplish individual communicative goals. That is, the training consistently emphasizes discernment
over volition, even when dealing with politeness strategies which clearly fit Brown and Levinsons theory.
3. Japanese Business Manners training
This analysis is based on participant-observation of business manner courses offered by five different training companies in
the Tokyo area during the spring of 2008. All but one of the companies were initially identified through a Google search for
companies providing business manners training (bijinesu man kenshu). I then contacted the companies via email to explain my
research and ask permission to attend one of their courses. I made contact with one additional company through a personal
introduction. Of the eight companies I contacted, five granted permission to observe or attend one of their seminars. I
participated in two of the seminars as a student, paying the course fee and participating along with the other students. For the
other three courses, I sat in the back of the room and observed and took notes without participating. Two of the courses were
designed specifically for employees of particular companies. The other three were open seminars which were attended by
employees from a variety of different companies (employers included an insurance firm, wedding hall, hotels, a graphic design
company, and several small manufacturing firms). The size of the classes ranged from five to twenty students. I was able to audio
record two of the training sessions in their entirety. I also obtained a copy of the training materials for a sixth course that I was
not able to attend. In addition, I interviewed four of the instructors and three students from the courses I attended. Transcribed
examples (below) are all taken from JAL Academy training sessions recorded on March 45, 2008.
Although the five courses considered here differed somewhat in their sequencing and presentation, much of the basic
content was the same in all of the courses (see Table 1). The training was not limited to verbal forms of politeness, but covered
behaviors in a wide range of modalities. For example, three of the five courses had a section on personal appearance with check
sheets for ones hair (clean and neat, appropriate length, natural color), clothing (properly ironed, not dirty or torn, appropriate
colors and styles), feet (properly polished shoes, no sport socks), and so forth. This section of the course was termed
midashinami, literally body etiquette in Japanese. In other words, polishing your shoes, having your hair neatly trimmed and so
forth was presented, not only as a matter of making a good impression, but as proper etiquette or good manners.
Politeness training also covered vocal and facial expression as well as proper movement. Students were reminded to smile
both in person and when speaking on the telephone. They were also trained in the use of their voices including enunciation,
projection, using a higher than normal pitch when saying standard greetings, and responding with a loud, prompt Hai! when
called on by superiors. Four of the courses included a section on movement with training in how to sit, stand, walk, and hand
over objects. All of the courses had a section on bowing which covered both posture and timing, such as remaining bent at the
correct angle for the correct number of seconds. Students also received instruction in the ritualized details of how to exchange
business cards and in how to determine correct seating order at a conference table, in a taxi, and so forth. Thus, politeness
training in these courses is not limited to verbal politeness, but encompasses a wide range of modalities including clothing,
voice, facial expression, and movement. This coordination of linguistic politeness with other semiotic systems of etiquette is
also noted by Wetzel and Inoue (1999) in their study of training in telephone etiquette in a large Japanese company.
All of the courses included sections on polite language which will be discussed below. There were also specific sections on
answering the telephone including practice at taking a message, explaining that the person is not currently available, and

Table 1
Typical contents of business manner training.
Initial Framing: Purpose of the Course
Self-Introductions or Greetings
Personal Appearance (Midashinami Body Etiquette)
Facial and Vocal Expression
Movement (Walking, Standing, Sitting, Bowing, Handing Objects, Pointing)
Keego and Kotobazukai Honorifics and Speech Style
Telephone Manners
Seating Priority
Exchanging Business Cards
Making Visits and Receiving Guests
Goal Setting

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so forth (see Wetzel and Inoue, 1999). Following each of these separate sections, there was typically a role play of people
from one company visiting another which allowed people to put together all of the different verbal and non-verbal
components. In all cases, the training ended by asking the students to set personal goals for improving their self-presentation
and polite behaviors in the workplace.
4. Honorifics training in the business manner courses
All of the manner courses had sections on language use under the headings Keego and Kotobazukai Honorifics and
Speech Style. The time spent on these topics ranged from thirty minutes to two hours, with approximately half of the time
devoted specifically to honorifics. Students were provided with worksheets to fill out the correct honorific equivalents for
common verbs such as go, come, eat, do, and so forth. This included both the use of suppletive forms for verbs such as go or do
and the formation of regular honorific verbs through patterns such as o-Vstem-ni narimasu (respect form), Vstem-rareru
(respect form), or o-Vstem-shimasu (humble form). Following this, students were often drilled on the correct forms by the
instructor or placed in pairs to drill each other. One student later told me that this was the most valuable section of the course
for him because it clarified which verbs are classified as respect forms and which are humble forms.
Students varied in their comfort and facility with the use of honorific verb forms. Some filled out the worksheets very quickly
and easily, while others struggled to remember some of the correct forms. In some courses, the drills were followed by
conversation practice in which students were instructed to speak to each other using respect forms for the addressee and
humble forms for themselves. The conversations tended to be extremely stilted, with frequent hesitations and nervous laughter
that were reminiscent of conversation practice in foreign language classrooms. During a break in one of the classes, I overheard
two co-workers in the restroom engaging in mocking and exaggerated use of elaborate honorific formulae. In this off-stage
context, they displayed for each other a distancing from the professional roles they were learning to enact in the training.
The ultimate goal of the manners classes is the coordinated enactment of a polite, professional self. Although honorific use
is clearly an important component of these courses, many of the instructors also noted that honorific use alone is not
sufficient, and indeed, may not even be the most important aspect of politeness. As one JAL instructor put it,
Ano watashitachi wa kotobazukai to iu to daitai keego to sugu omoigachi desu yo ne?
Tokoro ga ano donata to ohanashi shite mo owakari no y ni, ano keego dake dekite ite mo sukarenain desu yo.
Gyaku no iikata o suru to, keego o machigatteita to shite mo, hij ni akarui. ano hakkiri meer ni kikoeru toka, sore kara aite o
omoiyatte, yasashiku itteru h ga yohodo sukaremasu. . ..
Ano kotoba ni kanshite wa, watashi wa keego wa sukoshi chigatta to shite mo,
akarusa ya yasashisa ga areba, watakushi wa kab dekiru to shinjiteimasu.
Um when we say kotobazukai [word choice] we usually tend to think immediately of honorifics, right?
But as you know, no matter to whom you are speaking, just being able to use honorifics alone will not make you well liked.
Or to put it the other way around, even if you make mistakes in honorific use, if you speak very cheerfully and um clearly and
precisely, speaking kindly and showing consideration for the listener, then that is more likely to make people like you. . ..
Um, when it comes to language use, I personally believe that even if you make a few small mistakes in honorifics, you can
cover for that if you are cheerful and kind.
[JAL Academy seminar, Instructor A, 3/4/08]
The point is not that honorifics are unimportant, but that other aspects of communication such as speaking clearly, smiling,
and showing a positive attitude are as, if not more important, than verbal forms alone. This is why the business manner
courses spend considerable amounts of time on training students in vocal and facial expression, body movement, etc. as well
as verbal forms of politeness.
A second JAL instructor graphically illustrated the importance of matters such as posture and facial expression through a
contrast in two different apologies which differed in their honorific level:
Example 11
(1)
Honda-san,
(2)

sakihodo

wa dmo

shitsuree

itashi-mashi-ta.
do[-HON]-ADHON-PAST

Honda-TI

recently

TOP very

rude

Honda-san,

sakihodo

wa honto ni

shitsuree

shi-mashi-ta.

Honda-TI

recently

TOP very

rude

do-ADHON-PAST

Ms. Honda, I apologize for my rudeness the other day.

[JAL Academy seminar, Instructor B, 3/5/08]

1
Glossing: ADHON, addressee honorific; COP, copula; DO, direct object; GEN, genitive; +HON, subject honorific;
HON, nonsubject honorific; HP,
honorific particle; NOM, nominalizer; PASS, passive; PAST, past tense; PRES, presumptive form; QM, questionmarker; QT, quotative; SU, subject marker; TI,
title; TOP, topic marker. With the exception of Example 1, numbered examples are taken from the course worksheets. The worksheets are all quite similar,
and most of the examples are found in varying forms on multiple worksheets.

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Table 2
Examples of stylistic variation in Workplace Phrases and Expressions.
Meaning of expression

Undesirable

Desirable

1.
2.

1st person pronoun

Apology

3.

Who is it?

Watashi
Sumimasen.
Gomen kudasai.
Dare desu ka?

3.
4.
5.

He/she is coming soon.

What is the issue?
I understand.

Sugu kimasu.
Nan no y desu ka?
Wakarimashita.

6.

Agreement. That is correct.

S desu.

Watakushi
Mshiwake gozaimasen.
Osoreirimasu.
Donata desh ka?
Dochira-sama desh ka?
Sugu mairimasu.
Dono goyken desh ka?
Kashikomarimashita.
Shchi itashimashita.
Say degozaimasu.

Although both are polite apologies, the first phrase uses the humble verb itasu, while the second uses the regular verb suru.
Thus, the first phrase would normally be considered more polite and deferential. However, the instructor enacted the first
phrase in a very perfunctory way with a shallow and sloppy bow. The second phrase was performed with a contrite
expression and a deeper bow. She commented that the first apology creates a bad impression whereas the second would be
more likely to result in forgiveness. Simply using honorific phrases is insufficient if ones voice and body language do not
match what is being said.
5. Verbal strategies in the business manner courses
Following the section on keego, the instructors gave the students another worksheet on Shokuba Ygo Workplace
Expressions. In these worksheets, the left-hand column had various phrases that were said to be undesirable or
mistaken, and the students were asked to change the expression to a desirable or correct one. The training classes
instructed students in a variety of verbal strategies for making the undesirable utterances more polite. These included
replacing less formal forms with more formal stylistic alternates, using apologies to cushion the Face-Threatening Act,
phrasing requests as questions rather than imperatives, and avoiding negatives.
5.1. Stylistic alternation
One technique for correcting the undesirable phrases involved substituting more formal stylistic variants for less formal
ones. This included not only substituting honorific verbs or nouns for plain ones, but also other types of stylistic alternations.
For example, one common apology expression in Japanese is sumimasen. This phrase is, however, considered insufficiently
formal for the workplace, and students were instructed to substitute other apology phrases such as mshiwake gozaimasen or
osoreirimasu.2 Similarly, in asking someone on the telephone who they are, one can replace the plain dare who with donata
which also means who or dochira-sama which is even more polite or honorific. The polite form of the copula, desu can be
replaced with the presumptive desh (roughly equivalent to perhaps) or the subject honorific de irasshaimasu. Thus, the
three expressions in example 2 communicate increasing levels of deference although the English translation is identical:
Example 2
Donata

desh

ka.

Who COP QM

Who[+HON]

COP(PRES)

QM

Who is it?

Who is it?
Dochira-sama

de

irasshai-masu

ka.

Which-TI

COP

be[+HON]-ADHON

QM

Dare desu ka

Who is it?
Table 2 (above) gives other examples of such stylistic alternates from the class worksheets.
5.2. Verbal strategies: cushion words and question forms
The majority of the phrases listed on the Workplace Expressions worksheets involved this type of stylistic alternation
which fits very well with Ides (1989) concept of politeness through the use of formal linguistic forms. However, in many
cases changing the phrase to a desirable expression required the use of other strategies in addition to stylistic alternation.
One such verbal strategy involves the use of what the instructors called kusshon kotoba cushion words, namely the use of an

See Table 3 for literal translations of these phrases.

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Table 3
Examples of Cushion Phrases.
Osoreirimasu ga. . .
Shitsurei desu ga. . .
Mshiwake gozaimasen ga. . .
Yoroshikereba. . .
Otesu o okake shimasu ga. . .

I am fearful but. . .
It is rude but. . .
There is no excuse but. . .
If you dont mind. . .
I am sorry to trouble you but. . .

apology phrase to precede and cushion the Face-Threatening Act. Several of the courses provided students with a list of
such phrases (see Table 3). For example, when asking someones age, one should first apologize using one of the cushion
phrases from Table 3:
Example 3
Shitsuree desu ga,

o-ikutsu

desu ka?

Rude

HP-how-old

COP QM

COP but

Excuse me but, how old are you?

Another politeness strategy that was taught in the business manner courses involved using question forms rather than
imperatives when making requests. In example 4, kudasai is the imperative form of the subject honorific verb give, roughly
equivalent to please. Although the verb is honorific, students were told to replace the imperative form with the question
form itadakemasu ka, literally may I (humbly) receive?3:
Example 4
Kochira

ki-te

kudasai.

This-way

to

come-and

give[+HON]

Please come this way.

! Kochira

o-koshi

itadake-masu

ka?

This-way

to

HP-come

receive[-HON]-ADHON

QM

Could you come this way?

One of the JAL instructors explained why question forms are more polite as follows:
Demo nani nani shite kudasai, nani nani shite kudasai, nani nani shite kudasai
yori mo, tama ni wa ka, ireta h ga yasashii insh o aite ni tsutaeru koto ga
dekimasu yo. Naze? Kore [kudasai] meereekee desu yo ne. Kore [itadakemasu]
miraikee desu yo ne.
Kochira e kite kudasai. ((harsh voice))
Kochira e okoshi itadakemasu ka? ((higher, softer voice))
Hai. Yes, no, ieru no wa dochira desu ka? Kore wa [the first] m jibun no
kimochi oshitsuketemasu yo ne. Kochira ni okoshi itadakemasu ka tte ittaraba,
kitto kite wa kureru dar keredomo, yes, no ieru no wa aite desu yo ne. Desu
node, nanka yasashii insh o aite ni tsutaeru koto ga dekimasu.
Rather than saying please do this, please do this, please do this, you can create a nicer impression on the addressee if you
sometimes add ka [ka is the particle that marks an utterance as a question in Japanese].
Why? This [kudasai] is the imperative form. This [itadakemasu] is the future tense.
Please come this way. ((harsh voice))
Could you come this way? ((higher, softer voice))
Yes. Which one [do you answer with] a yes, no? This one [the first] pushes your own desire. If you say, Could you come
this way? they will probably come, but the person who says yes or no is the addressee. Because of this, you can
communicate an impression of kindness to the addressee.
[JAL Academy seminar, Instructor B, 3/5/08]

3
The translation of indirect speech acts is particularly problematic because phrasings often do not correspond exactly. Although the logic of the indirect
speech act is often similar, which specific phrases will become conventionalized in different languages is not predictable. For example, when speaking on
the telephone, Shsh omachi itadakemasu ka is not exactly Could you please hold for a moment? because the Japanese phrase questions, not the
addressees ability, but rather whether the speaker can receive the favor of them holding or waiting. I have tried to strike a balance of providing
translations that show the syntactic transformation while also being idiomatic in English and approximating the politeness level of the phrase in Japanese.
Readers interested in more precise or literal translations may consult the glosses.

C.D. Dunn / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36433654

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The instructors explanation neatly tracks Brown and Levinsons analysis of negative politeness as displaying at least token
respect for the freedom and autonomy of the addressee. In this case, she also varied her prosody to emphasize the perceived
politeness level of the two forms, with the polite imperative being said in a harsher voice and the question form phrased in a
higher pitch.
For many of the examples on the Workplace Expressions worksheets, stylistic alternation alone was not considered
acceptably polite. Students initial response to the worksheet problems often involved simply translating the phrase into a
higher honorific level. In such cases, however, the instructors consistently stopped them and reminded them to use the other
strategies as well, as in the following excerpt:
Instructor:

Hai yonban desu.

[Worksheet prompt:]

Dare desu ka?

Hai X-san?

Yes, number 4.

[Worksheet prompt:]

Who is it?

Yes, Ms. X?

Hai k iu bi kusshon kotoba o tsukeru to ne, sore dake de yasashii

insh ni narimashita. Hai.
In this case, if you use cushion phrases, that alone will create a nice
impression. Yes.
Student:

Dochira sama desu ka.

Who is it?

Instructor:

Kusshon kotoba oboete rasshaimasu ka?

Do you remember any cushion phrases?

Student:

Aa.
Oh.

Instructor:

Hai, s desu ne. Hai dono y na.

Yes, thats right. Yes, what type [can you think of].

Student:

Osorerimasu ga, dochira sama desu ka.

Excuse me but, who is it?

Instructor:

Ii desu ne. Hai, osorerimasu ga, dochira-sama desu ka?

Very good. Yes, excuse me but, who is it?

[JAL Academy seminar, Instructor B, 3/5/08]

In all of these scenarios, the correct response involves a combination of shifts in honorific level and various verbal strategies;
neither alone is considered sufficiently polite. In contrast to their production of honorific verb forms, students showed no
discomfort or lack of fluency in producing these verbal strategies. Yet in the context of the worksheets, they tended to focus
only on upgrading the honorific level and often had to be reminded to use the other strategies as well. This speaks to the
powerful ideological linkage between honorific use and politeness that is challenged in the other papers in this series.
5.3. Avoiding negatives; accentuate the positive
A final politeness strategy involved avoiding negatives and always speaking in the affirmative. One aspect of this strategy
involved linguistic transformations to avoid negative morphemes:
Example 54
Seki ni i-mas-en. !

Seki o hazushi-te ori-masu.

Seat at be-ADHON-NEG

Seat DO be-out-and be[-HON]-ADHON

Hes not at his desk. !

He is away from his desk.

Similarly, rather than saying that someone will not return until four, one should phrase this as will return by four.
Students were told that the negative morpheme masen sounds cold, harsh, and unkind (tsumetai; kitsui; fushinsetsu). One
way to avoid negatives is by substituting the verb kaneru to be unable for the negative ending. Although kanemasu (the
addressee honorific form of kaneru) incorporates the negative meaning of cannot, the verb ending itself is positive, allowing
the speaker to avoid using the negative masen morpheme:

The Japanese phrasing is ambiguous as to the gender of the person. I have therefore alternated genders in different examples.

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3650

Example 6
!

Wakari-mas-en.
Understand-ADHON-NEG

I dont understand.

Wakari-kane-masu.
Understand-unable-ADHON
I am unable to understand.

Once again, however, the politeness strategies taught in the courses went beyond the manipulation of linguistic form to
encompass other strategies. Students were reminded, for example, to use cushion phrases before using any of the above
statements. They were also encouraged to go beyond just refusing and instead offer the person some type of alternative plan
(daian) to meet their needs:
Example 7
Wakari-mas-en.
Understand-ADHON-NEG
I dont know.
! Mshiwake gozai-ma-sen

ga,

Apology

but

exist[-HON]-ADHON-NOT

Excuse me but,
watakushi

de

wa

wakari-kane-masu

node, shirabe-te

mairi-masu.

COP

TOP

know-unable-ADHON

since find-out-and

go[-HON]-ADHON

since I dont know the answer, I will go find out.

Once again, students often initially focused just on changing the linguistic form of the worksheet prompt and had to be
reminded to use the other strategies as well. For example the following discussion took place in one of the classes in response
to the worksheet prompt Seki ni imasen [She]s not at her desk:
Instructor: Hai kyuban desu.
Hai tatoeba, denwa ga ee Yamada kach irasshaimasu ka? to itte,
Yamada kach ima seki ni inakattaraba,
Seki ni imasen. ((Emphasizing the sen)) Sen de wa nai desu yo ne.
Hiteekee no owaranai de, su de owarasu to shitara, X-san, Y-san?
Student: Hazushite orimasu.
Instructor: Hai, s desu ne.
Mshiwake gozaimasen, tada ima seki o hazushite orimasu. to itta h ga yasashii desu.
Demo k iu hitee o suru toki, taisetsuna no wa, ima seki o hazushiteiru to iu koto o, aite ni tsutaete sore de kee ka tte iu to
s ja nai desu yo ne.
Aite wa hanashitai kara denwa kaketekitan desu yo ne.
Kanarazu, (taikan5) donna daian de mo ii desu node, daian o motte kuru s iu shukan o tsukete itadaku to, totemo
shinsetsuna insh ga arimasu yo ne.
Hai, ofutari de, anata deshitara donna daian o mottekimasu ka?
Yamada kach irasshaimasu ka?
Mshiwake gozaimasen, tadaima seki o hazushite orimasu. Hai, sono ato? tte?
((students murmuring))
Student: ((Inaudible))
Instructor: Hai, s desu ne.
Hai sanjuppun hodo de modoru yotee de gozaimasu. Modorimashitara, gorenrakuitashimash ka? toka.
Instructor: Alright, number nine.
Yes, for example, if the person on the phone asks Is Section Head Yamada there?, and Section Head Yamada is not at
her desk,
Shes not at her desk. ((Emphasizing the not)) You want to avoid the not right?
In order to avoid ending with a negative form and end with su [the affirmative], Ms. X, Ms. Y?
5
The use of parentheses in the transcript indicates a word that could not be clearly heard. The wording within the parentheses represents a best guess on
the part of the transcriber.

C.D. Dunn / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36433654

3651

Student: She is away from her desk.

Instructor: Yes, thats right.
If you say, Im sorry, but at the moment she is away from her desk, that sounds better.
But in this type of situation, the important thing is that if you just communicate that shes away from her desk, that
alone is not okay.
The whole reason the person called is because they wanted to talk to her.
Therefore ( ), any type of alternative is fine, but if you get into the habit of providing an alternative plan, that will
really create an impression of kindness.
So, the two of you, if it was you, what kind of alternative could you offer?
Is Section Head Yamada there?
Im very sorry, but shes currently away from her desk. Then, after that?
((students murmuring))
Student: ((Inaudible))
Instructor: Yes, very good.
Yes, something like, She plans to be back in about thirty minutes. Shall I have her call you when she returns?
[JAL Academy seminar, Instructor B, 3/5/08]
In this example, the student begins by simply correcting the sentence from a negative to a positive ending, but this is not
considered sufficient by the instructor. She first implicitly corrects the student by adding an apology phrase and then talks
about the need to provide the caller with some sort of alternative, such as having the person call them back, offering to take a
message, or asking if someone else might be able to handle the matter. Thus, when correcting phrases such as Hes not here,
I dont know, We dont have any, and so forth, students were encouraged both to use phrasing which avoided direct
negatives and to think about possible solutions. The instructors prompted students to go beyond polite phrasing alone to
adopt an attitude of actively trying to meet the other persons desires.
When working on the initial Workplace Expressions worksheets, there was a consistent tendency for the students to
focus solely on changing the linguistic form of the utterance to a higher-level honorific one. Even when they had been told
about cushion phrases, phrasing requests as questions and so on just an hour before, students still tended to forget those
aspects until explicitly prompted by the instructor. It may be that the nature of the task, namely correcting decontextualized
phrases, encouraged this type of myopic focus on linguistic form alone to the exclusion of the other strategies they had been
taught. Later in the class, however, students practiced politeness forms in role plays of scenarios such as answering the
telephone or visiting another company. In that context, the students successfully incorporated, not only the correct honorific
phrasings, but also the other types of strategies such as apologies and offering alternatives. Such role plays also allowed the
students to put into practice what they had learned about appropriate movement, facial expression, and vocal quality. Thus,
the structure of the courses was to first dissect each aspect of polite behavior in isolation and then to have the students enact
them all simultaneously in role play scenarios.
6. Japanese politeness training: discernment or volition?
Clearly, many of the verbal strategies described above resonate with those outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987), whose
list of negative politeness strategies includes both apologies and the use of questions to make requests. For the instructors of
the business manner courses, neither formal forms nor verbal strategies alone are sufficient to guarantee politeness. Rather,
it is the combination of these two, together with appropriate bodily comportment, that is necessary for appropriate polite
behavior in the business world. From this perspective, using an apology phrase before making a request is just as much a
matter of conformity to social conventions as is using the correct honorific. Thus, verbal strategies are not always linked to
speaker volition, but may themselves be relatively ritualized acts of social conformity (Pizziconi, 2003).
In addition, the distinction between formal forms and verbal strategies may blur in actual practice. In the business
manner classes, verbal strategies are taught in relatively formulaic terms including both formulaic phrases and specific
syntactic transformations. What these basic-level courses do not do is provide students with practice in managing
challenging communicative situations such as dealing with an irate customer, asking ones boss for vacation time, or other
events which would require conscious manipulation in order to achieve individual goals. Although many of the seminars
included role plays, these were tightly scripted and did not include conflict situations in which speakers might need to
actively strategize effective responses.
Instructors in the courses emphasized that their goal was to teach kihon no man which may be translated as either basic
manners or standard manners. This emphasis on the mastery of standardized forms is consistent with traditional forms of
Japanese pedagogy, particularly in the traditional arts (DeCoker, 1998; Hare, 1996). Yet this does not mean that the forms
taught are empty or meaningless. Rather, standard forms are valued precisely as the external manifestation of socially
approved attitudes. When I asked one of the instructors what constituted good kotobazukai (language use or word choice),

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she responded that the most important thing was to be able to effectively communicate ones feelings or heart to the other
person (aite ni jibun no kokoro ya kimochi o kichinto tsutaeru). However, when I asked whether it was more important to be
correct or to communicate the appropriate feeling, she responded by rejecting the dichotomy I had proposed: Naze
tadashiku suru no ka to iu to, yahari, sono kimochi ya kokoro o tsutaeru tame ni, kichinto hanashimash ne to When asked why
we should speak correctly, it is of course in order to communicate those feelings that we need to speak properly. [Interview
with DoCreation manner instructor, March 27, 2008.]
Another instructor explained to his class that some people say that as long as one is whole-hearted and sincere, the little
details dont matter. He pointed out, however, that your customers and superiors cannot see into your heart. Therefore, the
only way that you can sincerely express your respect for them is through attention to details such as personal appearance,
language use, and appropriate greetings. As he put it, Ningen to ningen no tsunagari, reegi to iu koto o kangaeteiru toki ni,
sugata to kokoro mattaku onaji gurai taisetsu da to iukoto o wakatte itadakitain desu. What I want you to understand is that
when you think of etiquette as creating a connection between people, form and feeling are both equally important. [Green
Sun manners training, recorded April 10, 2008.] Kondo (1990) describes similar pedagogical attitudes in the Ethics Training
she studied in the late 1970s. At the Ethics School as well, instructors emphasized meticulous conformity to the details of
form as an avenue to the development of mature self which sincerely enacts required social roles. As Kondo puts it, . . .it is
first by keeping the rules which define the form, even if ones understanding is incomplete or one disagrees with them, that a
sincere attitude is eventually born (Kondo, 1990:107).
In contrast to the general focus on social convention, one training company stood out as emphasizing individual expression
and agency. Unfortunately, I did not discover this company until after the regular training season, so I was not able to observe
any of their classes, but I did talk with company representatives and received a copy of their training materials. Link and
Motivation Group is a relatively young company, having been founded in 2000. Their standard entry-level training course is a
Business Stance course which focuses on problem solving, team building, and professional presentation skills. They found,
however, that some of their client companies also wanted a more traditional business manners course which would focus on
teaching standard business etiquette. They thus developed a one-day business manners course.
In the training materials for this course, business manners are framed as rules or conventions that the new employee
must master in order to accomplish his or her goals in the workplace:
Man wa, bijinesu fiirudo ni okeru ruru de aru. Jibun no ishi o tsutae,
yaritai koto o yatteikutame ni wa, mazu wa ruru o shiri taigen dekiru koto
ga fukaketsu. (Ruru no naka ni tobikomi, yaritai koto o jitsugen shiy!)
Manners are the rules of the business world. In order to communicate
and accomplish your own goals, knowing and embodying the rules is
essential. (Lets plunge in to the rules to achieve our goals!)
[Link and Motivation Training materials; Darwin Basic no Zentais]
The course objectives include not only learning the conventions, but also being able to adapt the standard forms to any
situation and use them for ones own purposes:
Ksu no mokuhy:
Kihon man no shutoku
Kihon o norikoe, sono toki, sono ba ni jita tekitna gend o toru tame no kanten
no shutoku
Korera o suru koto ni yori, bijinesu fiirudo ni oite shinrai kankee o kizuki, jiyu o
kakutoku dekiru (jibun no yaritai koto o jitsugen shite ikeru) to iu kangaekata no
rikai
Course objectives:
To acquire standard manners
To develop a perspective that allows one to go beyond the standard by using the
behaviors that are appropriate to the time and situation
To understand how doing this allows one to build trust and gain freedom within
the business field to be able to accomplish the things you want to do
[Link and Motivation Training materials; Darwin Basic no Zentais]
Thus, on the one hand, the training material emphasizes learning to use the appropriate form for each situation, but this is
framed in terms of individual agency and accomplishing ones own goals. This emphasis on learning the social conventions as a
means to accomplishing individual goals may have greater appeal to younger Japanese who are often more individualistic than
older generations (Matsumoto, 2002). Yet it is also consistent with traditional philosophies of learning which see mastery of
standard forms as a necessary prerequisite for the eventual ability to transcend those forms (Hare, 1996). The fact that this
company developed their business manners training in response to customer demand suggests that training in the forms of
standard politeness is still considered an important goal, at least by the higher echelons at many Japanese companies.

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7. Conclusions
The metalinguistic discourse of Japanese business manners classes presents idealized norms which are not necessarily
isomorphic with actual politeness practices in Japanese workplaces.6 The training does, however, give insight into both
Japanese ideologies of politeness and how those ideologies are constructed and reinforced through a particular set of
pedagogical practices. We have seen that business manners training incorporates both formal forms such as honorifics and a
wide variety of verbal strategies, confirming that both aspects of language use, as well as other types of embodied actions, are
central to the understanding and enactment of polite behavior in the Japanese business world. Many of the verbal strategies
taught in the business manner classes are identical to those outlined by Brown and Levinson (1987). Not only do the instructors
explicitly teach negative politeness strategies such as apologies and phrasing requests as questions, but their explanations of
why these forms are polite closely track those of Brown and Levinson. Yet in contrast to the analysis of Ide (1989), these verbal
strategies were not taught in the classes as matters of individual choice or volition. Rather, both honorific forms and other verbal
strategies were presented primarily as a matter of learning and conforming to the social conventions of the business world. Even
the verbal strategies were presented in relatively formulaic terms that did not call for a great deal of creativity.
This type of training is consistent with a traditional emphasis on mastery of form in Japanese pedagogy (DeCoker, 1998;
Hare, 1996), and instructors often stated that the purpose of manner training is to teach basic or standard manners (kihon
no man). The way that verbal politeness is presented in business manners courses exemplifies Japanese ideologies that
emphasize conformity to social norms more than individual agency or self-expression. Japanese are comfortable valuing
both tatemae (conformity to social convention) and honne (inner feeling) without necessarily requiring them to be
congruent. Rather, they are seen as appropriate to different social situations, with the expression of honne frequently
reserved for intimate, backstage contexts (Doi, 1986; Dunn, 1999; Tobin, 1992). The type of professional interaction with
customers and clients targeted by the manners courses is a tatemae situation par excellence. The training accordingly focuses
on enabling students to produce an impeccable display of deference using the most stereotypically formal registers of
Japanese. This reflects a customer-service ethos which is oriented more towards the expression of negative politeness and
ritualized deference than to positive politeness or prescribed displays of friendliness.
Manners training is thus aimed at enabling the appropriate display of tatemae behaviors. It is in how these new
employees choose to implement the forms introduced in the manners training in their moment-to-moment interactions
with clients, customers, superiors, and coworkers that individual volition is most likely to come into play. In contrast to the
traditional view of these as concepts as opposing dichotomies, I would argue that it is a speakers wakimae knowledge that
makes possible the successful deployment of volition. As Scotton has argued with regard to code switching more generally,
social norms do not determine speakers linguistic choices, but rather provide frameworks for the interpretation of those
choices (Scotton, 1988). Wakimae allows a speaker to know how particular (non)honorific forms will be interpreted in a
given context and thus to choose (strategically) the ones likely to have the desired social effects. Furthermore, speaker
agency is just as present (although perhaps less visible) in following social norms as in flouting them. None of this, however,
is covered in the manners classes which focus solely on improving students competence in the conventionally most formal
and deferential politeness forms.
Research on Japanese politeness has tended to dichotomize honorifics and other types of politeness strategies, often
focusing on one to the neglect of the other. The data presented here show the need for greater attention to the interaction of
these two forms of politeness, in speech practice as well as prescriptive discourses. It is beyond the scope of this article to
address the question of how volition and discernment function in actual interactions, an issue which is addressed by other
contributors to this volume. Rather, the analysis has been oriented towards describing how wakimae can be analyzed as a
language ideology, as indeed can Western preoccupations with individual agency and verbal strategy. The analysis provides
further evidence of the importance of the wakimae perspective in Japanese perceptions of language use, demonstrating that
the wakimae ideology governs the pedagogical presentation of both honorifics and verbal strategies in Japanese business
etiquette classes. I have thus pointed in the direction of viewing wakimae and volition as competing language ideologies
which may be deployed in ways which vary across both cultural and situational contexts. The very same linguistic form can
be portrayed from either a more individual-centered or a more socially centered perspective. Thus, the link between
linguistic forms and their ideological construal is itself variable.
Role of the funding source
The University of Northern Iowa had no involvement or influence on the study design; in the collection, analysis and
interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Acknowledgements
This research was conducted with the support of a Professional Development Assignment from the University of Northern
Iowa which allowed me to spend the spring of 2008 as a visiting foreign research scholar at the University of Tsukuba.
6
For example, studies of directive use in actual workplaces describe a much wider variety of strategies for making requests than are presented in the
manner courses (Rinnert and Kobayashi, 1999; Takano, 2005).

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C.D. Dunn / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 36433654

I would like to thank Risako Ide for serving as my sponsor at the University of Tsukuba, Chihiro Ogura for assistance with
transcription, and Shigeko Miyajima for facilitating access to one of the training companies. I am grateful to instructors and
other employees of the following companies for their gracious cooperation with my research: Do Creation, Green Sun,
JAL Academy, Link and Motivation, PanNations, and Temp Staff. A shorter version of this paper was presented at the 11th
International Pragmatics Conference in Melbourne, Australia. I am grateful to Haruko Cook, Janet Shibamoto-Smith, and the
anonymous reviewers for comments which were helpful in revising the paper.
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Cynthia Dickel Dunn is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa. Her research interests include politeness, style-shifting, and
language ideologies.