Saturday, July 21, 2007

Speech styles

First, I'd like to clear up a misconception. The previous entry was not inspired by anger nor do I have anything personal against the Japanese. I love this country, and I love the Japanese people & language (except for the Kanji part, but luckily I can blame the Chinese for that ^_^). I feel like I've learned a lot from their culture so far, but I'll save that bit for another entry.I wanted to continue the previous discussion with a comment on speech styles. If you are already familiar with the difference between direct & distal Japanese speech styles you can probably just skip this paragraph. The short of it is that the Japanese have different verbals as well as endings depending on who they are speaking to and whom they are speaking about. For example to a friend I might say "Sorya hashi da yo" Those are chopsticks. To an adult I'd probably say "Sore wa, ohashi desu" (same meaning), and to a costumer (this is a bad example but just to make one...) "Sore wa, ohashi de gozaimasu" (note same gozaimasu as in Arigatoo gozaimasu). All with the exact same meaning but with different degrees of what is often called "careful" speech style and politeness. The general assumption is that its easy to speech in direct style (it feels natural to a Japanese and they speak only that language amongst family so until they get into school they don't really learn much of the specifics. Even adults will practice usage of polite verbals as part of job training (for females this can extend as far as changing the intonation, tone, pace, and pitch of their voice; once you enter an elevator or listen to an announcement this becomes very obvious). As far as verbals are concerned I'll just give these examples: Da (plain), desu (distal), de gozaimasu (humble; self reference), de irassyaimasu (honorific; reference to a superior). All those mean "is". To go: iku, ikimasu, mairimasu, irassyaimasu. I could do this for ever verb but eh, not point. If you're still curious there is always google.
The issue: When a Japanese walks into a store they are spoken to with language packed full with distal, polite, honorific, and humble verbals. This establishes something equivalent to what resembles the old nobility-servant relationship, however understand its more of a custom than an actual setup of social rank. For example the same type of verbals are used in commercials and advertisement. Now when I walk into the store 50% of the time I receive the same verbals and another 50% of the time I'm spoken to in direct style. I'm at a lost still as to what the individuals are thinking when they switch to direct style since typically you only use this when their is a clear difference in rank or if you are close friends with the person. However, as the Japanese do, if I don't know someone I use distal speech style which is a neutral if not polite way to speak even if you don't use the polite verbals. Thus I'm personally kind of offended when I'm spoken to in direct style rather than the usual distal style they should be using. I've got a few ideas though to what's going on in their head:

1) Direct style is the same forms you find in the dictionary (i.e. when you learn a new word) and it seems natural so perhaps its: "Direct style is easier to understand"

2) "Ah its a foreigner. It won't make a difference either way so no need to go through the effort of using polite speech" (this last one becomes more prominent when I'm followed by a Japanese person into a store or at a hotel reception desk).

3) If its an older shop keeper, "Ah its a youngin' " hence direct speech becomes more appropriate for an older person speaking to me.

4) "Wow this kid speaks Japanese!" at which point in order to be friendly they slip into the comfortable, informal direct style used normally around family and close friends. (This seems more appropriate when you consider that the Japanese also use speech styles to adjust the social distance between the listener and speaker. For example articles and essays are usually written in direct style, my theory, to make the reader feel inherently closer to the author's opinion and viewpoint, rather than placing the author far from the reader hence further from his viewpoint/opinion.

Another interesting point is that contrary to what you may think, in an argument with a friend or significant other it is rude to use distal style/polite verbals. It places the other person further away, as if you've never met them, hence because a useful tool to express contempt or anger towards someone who you would usual speak to in direct casual style. It also can be used to express the "distance"/difference between the speaker's opinion and that of the listener.
I came to Japan over spring break as well as a year and a half ago before I started my Japanese studies. Over spring break I never noticed the differences in speech style nor took any heed to use of direct style, but as you spend more and more time in Japan you start to become more sensitive to the speech styles people are using as well as the verbals and speech styles you yourself choose to use. Even now depending on which sensei I'm speaking with or writing an email to, I use different degrees of polite speech. Sometimes too much pushes the teacher away when she would rather feel like there is a natural student-teacher relationship that blends almost into a friendship [some of the student use direct style when speaking with Morita sensei which I think is crazy but eh, she doesn't protest nor does she use distal either]. I've got another teacher, a strict older lady, who I use the utmost respectful careful polite speech I can come up with. This also means that an email which would take me 1min to write to in english, or about 5 minutes if it were to a Japanese friend, takes around 30min to an hour to write for this specific teacher. In the end, I think its this unavoidable effort or for the Japanese, the extra step, that makes distal and polite verbals inherently courteous speech.

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