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9 - A Metapragmatic Aspect of Politeness: With a Special Emphasis on Attentiveness in Japanese

from Part II - Concepts and Cultural Norms Underlying Politeness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2019

By
Saeko Fukushima
Edited by
Eva Ogiermann  and
Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
Eva Ogiermann
Affiliation:
King's College London
Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
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Summary

Focusing on emic understandings in Japanese relational networks, Fukushima’s chapter scrutinizes from a metapragmatic perspective the relationships between attentiveness and four other concepts: consideration, empathy, altruism and helping behavior. Fukushima’s exploration is based on data elicited through a questionnaire based on a visual analog scale distributed to 132 Japanese participants and their written logs on what concepts or expressions best describe attentiveness. The extent to which these concepts differ is further investigated through focus group data. Findings obtained from the questionnaire show that all four concepts are related to attentiveness, with empathy being the most closely related. The written part of the questionnaire refers to stages of attentiveness and concepts such as self-sacrifice and help. The focus group data reveal nuanced differences among the concepts investigated, identifying differences between attentiveness and altruism or helping behavior that have not been discussed in previous research. Fukushima concludes that the concepts taken up in this chapter provide a ‘heart perspective’ on politeness and interpersonal relationships.

Keywords

Second-order politeness
Type
Chapter
Information
From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness
Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives
 , pp. 226 - 247
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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