Cover not available
Part of
Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on grammar, interaction and culture
Edited by Mutsuko Endo Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto and Junko Mori
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 285] 2018
► pp. 125–148

Chapter 5
Superiors’ directives in the Japanese workplace

Are they all strategic?

 | University of Hawaii at Manoa
One of the criticisms against Brown and Levinson’s universal theory of politeness (1987) is the assertion that discernment politeness is more important than volitional politeness in Japanese society (e.g., Ide 1989; Hill et al. 1986). Contrary to this claim, studies that have analyzed actual discourse in the Japanese workplace report abundant volitional politeness strategies. These opposing views raise a question as to where and to what extent Japanese speakers use volitional strategies or observe discernment in the workplace. To answer this question, this chapter investigates superiors’ directives in new employee orientation sessions in a Japanese company. It finds a tendency among superiors to observe discernment when issuing procedural directives and to use negative and positive politeness strategies when issuing non-procedural directives.
Keywords: directives, politeness, politeness strategies, discernment politeness, volitional politeness, workplace discourse, Japanese, pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Types of directives: Procedural and non-procedural directives
  • 3. Studies on directives in the Japanese workplace
  • 4.Data and methodology
  • 5.Superiors’ directives in the orientation sessions
    • 5.1Procedural directives
    • 5.2Non-procedural directives
    • 5.3Non-exclusivity between type of directive and linguistic forms
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Appendix
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.285.05coo
References (31)
References
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Byron, Andrew S. 2006. “The Role of Indirectness and Honorifics in Achieving Linguistic Politeness in Korean Requests.” Journal of Politeness Research 2: 247–276.Google Scholar
Cook, Haruko M. 2008. “Organization of Turns, Speech Styles and Postures in a Japanese Elementary School.” In Japanese Applied Linguistics: Discourse and Social Perspectives, ed. by Junko Mori, and Amy Ohta, 80–108. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Dunn, Cynthia D. 2011. “Formal Forms or Verbal Strategy? Politeness Theory and Japanese Business Etiquette Training.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 3643–3654. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eelen, Gino. 2001. A Critique of Politeness Theories. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan. 1976. “Is Sybil There?: The Structure of Some American English Directives.” Language in Society 5: 25–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Furo, Hiroko. 1996. “Linguistic Conflict of Japanese Women: Is That a Request or an Order?” In Proceedings of Fourth Berkeley Women and Language Conference, ed. by Natasha Warner, Jocelyn Ahlers, Leela Blimes, Monica Oliver, Suzanne Wertheim, and Melinda Chen, 247–259. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Geyer, Naomi. 2013. “Discernment and Variation: The Action-oriented Use of Japanese Addressee Honorifics.” Multilingua 32(2): 155–176. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1980. “Directive-response Speech Sequences in Girls’ and Boys’ Task Activities.” In Women and Language in Literature and Society, ed. by Salley McConnell-Ginet, Ruth Borker, and Nelly Furman, 153–173. New York: Prager.Google Scholar
Gu, Yueguo. 1990. “Politeness Phenomena in Modern Chinese.” Journal of Pragmatics 14(2): 237–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hill, Beverly, Sachiko Ide, Shoko Ikuta, Akiko Kawasaki, and Tsunao Ogino. 1986. “Universals in Linguistic Politeness: Quantitative Evidence from Japanese and American English.” Journal of Pragmatics 10: 347–371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ide, Sachiko. 1989. “Formal Forms and Discernment: Two Neglected Aspects of Universals of Linguistic Politeness.” Multilingua 8: 223–248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Kimberly. 1992. “A Question of Context: Directive Use at a Morris Team Meeting.” Language in Society 21: 427–445. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel and Mills, Sara. 2013. “Rethinking Discernment.” Journal of Politeness Research 9(2): 133–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mao, LuMing R. 1994. “Beyond Politeness Theory: ‘Face’ Revisited and Renewed.” Journal of Pragmatics 21: 451–486. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1988. “Reexamination of the Universality of Face: Politeness Phenomena in Japanese.” Journal of Pragmatics 12: 403–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2003. “Reply to Pizziconi.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1515–1521. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maynard, Senko. 1993. Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mulholland, Joan. 1994. “Multiple Directives in the Doctor-patient Consultation.” Australian Journal of Communication 21: 74–85.Google Scholar
Okamoto, Shigeko. 2010. “Politeness in East Asia.” In Interpersonal Pragmatics (Handbooks of Pragmatics, Vol. 6), ed. by Miriam A. Locher and Sage L. Graham, 71–100. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Saito, Junko. 2011. “Managing Confrontational Situations: Japanese Male Superiors’ Interactional Styles in Directive Discourse in the Workplace.” Journal of Pragmatics 43: 1689–1706. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Searle, John R. 1969. Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 2001. “The Limits of Awareness.” In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 328–40. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Smith, Janet S. 1992. “Women in Charge: Politeness and Directives in the Speech of Japanese Women.” Language in Society 21(1): 59–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sunaoshi, Yukako. 1994. “Mild Directives Work Effectively: Japanese Women in Command.” In Cultural Performance: Proceedings of Third Berkeley Women and Language Conference, ed. by Mary Bucholtz, A. Caitlin Hines, Anita C. Liang, and Laurel A. Sutton C, 678–690. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Takano, Shoji. 2005. “Re-examining Linguistic Power: Strategic Uses of Directives by Professional Japanese Women in Positions of Authority and Leadership.” Journal of Pragmatics 37: 633–666. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1994. Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies, Vol. 7. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Vine, Bernadette. 2004. Getting Things Done at Work. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wisner, J. R., Jr. 1967. “Requests Forms in a Hospital Setting.” Unpublished Term Paper.Google Scholar
Yu, Ming-Chung. 2003. “On the Universality of Face: Evidence from Chinese Compliment Response Behavior.” Journal of Pragmatics 35: 1679–1710. DOI logoGoogle Scholar