TY - JOUR
T1 - Applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to a non-Western culture
T2 - Evidence from Japanese Facework behaviors
AU - Kiyama, Sachiko
AU - Tamaoka, Katsuo
AU - Takiura, Masato
N1 - Funding Information:
You are a member of a student club. Today, you are at a meeting to choose a club leader for next term. The candidates are another member and you. The club is of some reputation and the club leader is a good position for making contacts and creating connections on- and off campus. You are eager to be the leader. The other candidate also appears to be ambitious. You are both required to give a speech before all the members of the club. The interlocutor is to speak first. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Shingo Tokimoto, Kieran G. Mundy, Michael P. Mansbridge, and Yayoi Miyaoka as well as two anonymous reviewers of the SAGE Open for their valuable comments and suggestions on previous versions of this article. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grants 24652080 and 23320106.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - To examine applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to facework in a non-Western culture, we conducted a questionnaire survey of native Japanese speakers. A rank order of influences on facework behavior was investigated among the five factors: (a) intrinsic factor (Ri; that is, effects caused by difference in settings), (b) contextual factor (Rc; that is, effects caused by difference in types of interlocutor's contradictory attitudes), (c) power factor (P; that is, effects caused by age difference with the interlocutor), (d) distance factor (D; that is, effects caused by difference in familiarity with the interlocutor), and (e) gender factor (G; that is, whether the participant is male or female). Results revealed that factors related to the intrinsic content of the situation (Ri) and the interlocutor's attitudes (Rc) had stronger influences than those of the inter- and intrapersonal factors of P, D, and G. Based on these findings, we conclude that Brown and Levinson's formula is applicable to a non-Western culture, Japan.
AB - To examine applicability of Brown and Levinson's politeness theory to facework in a non-Western culture, we conducted a questionnaire survey of native Japanese speakers. A rank order of influences on facework behavior was investigated among the five factors: (a) intrinsic factor (Ri; that is, effects caused by difference in settings), (b) contextual factor (Rc; that is, effects caused by difference in types of interlocutor's contradictory attitudes), (c) power factor (P; that is, effects caused by age difference with the interlocutor), (d) distance factor (D; that is, effects caused by difference in familiarity with the interlocutor), and (e) gender factor (G; that is, whether the participant is male or female). Results revealed that factors related to the intrinsic content of the situation (Ri) and the interlocutor's attitudes (Rc) had stronger influences than those of the inter- and intrapersonal factors of P, D, and G. Based on these findings, we conclude that Brown and Levinson's formula is applicable to a non-Western culture, Japan.
KW - Brown and Levinson's politeness theory
KW - Face-saving
KW - Face-threatening
KW - Facework
KW - Japanese
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U2 - 10.1177/2158244012470116
DO - 10.1177/2158244012470116
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84883256701
SN - 2158-2440
VL - 2
SP - 1
EP - 15
JO - SAGE Open
JF - SAGE Open
IS - 4
ER -