June 2009アーカイブ

In this website I have received some questions on linguistic politeness. I'd like to introduce some of them here, and respond to them.

Before I introduce the questions, allow me to introduce the authors. I hope they will not mind that I omit formal titles, as it is hard for me to identify their respective genders from their names. (The English language is so gender conscious, isn't it? Japanese titles are gender neutral.)

Meryem from Morocco, who is writing a MA thesis on politeness, asked me for a further explanation of discernment/wakimae. Indeed, I must say that I have not publicized enough on this concept. Gusnawaty Anwar from Indonesia, who is writing a dissertation on politeness asked advice and direction regarding research on linguistic politeness.

Zainab from Malaysia, who has expressed interest in my work on linguistic politeness, asked 'if it is worth studying language use patterns, particularly honorifics, in connection with language shift among the Japanese expatriate community.' Hiva from Iran is currently working on Terms of Address and politeness and has asked me to recommend some of my work.

As I read these messages I realized that linguistic politeness has become one of the hot topics in the field of pragmatics. I believe that this flows naturally from our common interest in friction-less communication. I wonder if the idea of living in a world without friction is what attracted many of us to the International Pragmatic Association. I know this is certainly something which has always captured my thoughts.

Studies in linguistic politeness have developed in the field of pragmatics since the Robin Lakoff's seminal work, 'The logic of politeness: Or minding your p's and q's' (1973), which was developed by her student Stephen Levinson and his partner Penelope Brown. The framework on linguistic politeness developed by Brown & Levinson (1978,1987) has had a tremendous influence on this topic. However, as Brown and Levinson themselves admit, that framework is not enough to deal with every aspect of linguistic politeness, particularly those which involve socio-cultural elements. It is in this area in particular where papers containing indigenous perspectives will play a critical role. The countries I have received messages from, Morocco, Indonesia, Malaysia and Iran, are areas where Islamic culture is dominant. Perhaps this means that the concept of discernment/wakimae as an alternative or supplementary framework of linguistic politeness might be more relevant to people who live observing strict religious doctrines.

As a way to respond to these requests, I have made two of my papers readable on this website in the Bibliography section.

1. 2002c "The Speaker's Viewpoint and Indexicality in a High Context Culture". Bunka, Intaakushon, Gengo [Culture, Interaction, and Language] (eds. with Kuniyoshi Kataoka). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo, 3-20.
   
2. 1992c "On the Notion of Wakimae: Toward an Integrated Framework of Linguistic Politeness". Mosaic of Language: Essays in Honour of Professor Natsuko Okuda. Mejiro Linguistic Society (MLS), 298-305

I hope that they will spark a new dialogue that will continue to move our field forward.

The 11th International Pragmatics Conference is just around the corner. I hope you will come equipped with outfits for the winter weather.

I am presenting a paper in the panel called 'Emancipatory Pragmatics: The Search for Cultural Parameters in Interactional Discourse,' on Thursday, July 16th. The title of my talk is "'The coffee is ready': The logic of ba or field and language practice." The thesis of my paper is twofold: First, I argue that a speech act such as 'the coffee is ready' cannot be satisfactory explained by Speech Act Theory. Second, I argue that the cases such as these call for the logic of ba as an alternative framework for reductionism. The logic of ba is a useful frame of thinking to explain 'wakimae', the integral concept of linguistic politeness in a high context culture.

Last September I gave talks at The Center for Ethics of Science and Technology in Chulalongkorn University, and The National Institute for Development Administration, both in Bangkok, Thailand, The University of Paris-Sorbonne in Paris, France and at Salento University, in Lecce, Italy.

In October my colleagues and I went to Sebha University, Libya to do research collaboration with students and faculty members. We were able to obtain 27 sets of the comparable discourse data called Mr. O Corpus in Libyan Arabic. The results of this research will be presented at the conference's plenary talk by Yasuhiro Katagiri, titled: "Finding Interactional Parameters: A Method of Emancipatory Pragmatics." Dr. Mayouf will be giving presentation on discourse data in Libyan Arabic in 'Emancipatory Pragmatics: The Search for Cultural Parameters in Interactional Discourse' panel.

In March 25-27 of this year, we hosted The Third International Workshop on Emancipatory Pragmatics at Japan Women's University. On the first day, we focused on Libyan language and culture, and were honored to host inviting two cultural experts on Libyan culture. We also had extensive discussion on the freshly collected and transcribed Libyan Arabic discourse data. On the third day, we focused on the logic of ba. We were honored with the presence of Dr. Hiroshi Shimizu who pioneered the ba theory. Three participants came from the US, five came from Europe, one from Libya, and one from Korea.

All these activities are meant to be part of an effort to 'let the wind blow from multiple directions' as I stated in 2007 in my opening address as president of the 10th IPrA in Goethenberg, Sweden. Here is an excerpt from my speech:

After I was elected President last year, I visited the University of Antwerp, where the headquarters of this organization have been situated since its founding, and discussed with Jef what we could do during the coming six years of my presidency. As a result of the fact that the new president was selected from the non-European, non-American members, we thought some new directions for the studies of pragmatics might be in order. One such new direction would be to change the direction of the academic debate from unidirectional to multidirectional. What I mean by this is that modern scholarship in pragmatics has originated in the West and been disseminated all over the world, while little knowledge has been gleaned from other parts of the world. Even though we acknowledge the great academic contributions from the West, it might be time for us to learn from different areas of the world, areas that have their own traditions, in order to attain a better understanding of the complexity of practice of the human race.

I am looking forward to meeting and learning from you at Melbourne.