Honorific speech in Japanese

The system is very extensive, having its own special vocabulary and grammatical forms to express various levels of respectful, humble, and polite speech.

Respectful language (Japanese: 尊敬語, Hepburn: sonkeigo) is a special form or alternative word used when talking about superiors and customers.

For example, when a Japanese hairdresser or dentist requests their client to take a seat, they say "O-kake ni natte kudasai" (「お掛けになってください」) to mean "Please sit down".

Some of these transformations are many-to-one: 行く, iku (go), 来る, kuru (come), and いる, iru (be) all become いらっしゃる, irassharu, and 食べる, taberu (eat) and 飲む, nomu (drink) both become 召し上がる, meshiagaru.

The normal Japanese word for person hito (人) becomes kata (方) in respectful language.

Some linguists distinguish this from kenjōgo (whose purpose is to raise up the recipient of a polite action by lowering the speaker), calling it instead teichōgo (丁重語) "courteous language", and defining it formally as:[3][4] This category was first proposed by Hiroshi Miyachi (宮地裕).

[5][6] Teichōgo, as an addressee honorific, is always used with the teineigo (-masu) form, the politeness sequence (using "go" as an example) being 行く, 行きます, 参ります (iku, ikimasu, mairimasu).

Thus, Japanese-speaking company executives would introduce themselves and their team by saying "I am Gushiken, the president, and this is Niwa, the CEO", dropping the honorific that would otherwise be expected when referring to another person.

[1] One aspect of keigo is adding the prefix o- or go- to a word and used in conjunction with the polite form of verbs.

In finer classifications, the above example is classified as word beautification—rather than honorific speech—as the speaker is voicing a general opinion regarding tea and rice crackers and is not intentionally deferential towards the listener.

Similarly, the out-group (外 soto) addressee or referent is always mentioned in the polite style (though not necessarily with honorifics).

Children generally speak using plain informal speech, but they are expected to master politeness and honorifics by the end of their teenage years.

For example, a sentence like jon ga sensei o o machi suru (John waits for the teacher) is unlikely to occur.

For example, meshiagaru, the polite verb for "to eat", when turned into meshiagare, the imperative, becomes the response to the set phrase itadakimasu.

Beyond simply increased politeness, this form is more formal, and is used when addressing a group, or as a general instruction, rather than directed at a particular person.

There are many exceptions, however, where the o- prefix is used for Sino-Japanese words, including お茶 o-cha "tea", お大事に o-daiji-ni "get well", お電話 o-denwa "telephone", お稽古 o-keiko "practice", お宅 o-taku "home/you", and many others.

There is also one common exception for the go- prefix, ごゆっくり go-yukkuri "slowly", where the main word is clearly not of Chinese origin.

There are some words which frequently or always take these prefixes, regardless of who is speaking and to whom; these are often ordinary items which may have particular cultural significance, such as tea (o-cha) and rice (go-han).

A notable example is 利益 ri-eki "benefit, profit (e.g., business)" and 御利益 go-ri-yaku "divine favor, grace"; plain ri-yaku is sometimes used, but go-ri-eki is generally not.

Honorific prefixes can be used for other items, possibly for a comic or sarcastic effect (for example, o-kokakōra, "honorable Coca-Cola").

Foreign loanwords (gairaigo, except those that come from Chinese; see above) seldom take honorifics, but when they do o- seems to be preferable to go-.

For example, Hanako (花子) would be referred to as O-hana (お花), Harumi (春美) would become O-haru (お春), Yuki (雪) would become O-yuki (お雪), and so on.

Rarely, 御 is used instead as an honorific suffix, notably in 甥御 oigo "your nephew" and 姪御 meigo "your niece".

The character 御 has other readings, notably on (kun'yomi) and gyo (on'yomi), as seen in on-sha (御社, your company, literally "honorable company") and gyo-en (御苑, imperial garden, literally "honorable garden"), but these are not productive (they are not used to form new words, but only in existing words).

This may be spelt in kanji in multiple ways, including (御御御汁, honorable-honorable-honorable soup), but also as (御味御汁, honorable flavor honorable soup) (味 = mi, flavor), and the 御御御〜 spelling may be considered ateji, punning on 御 and 味 both having the reading mi.

[11][12] Fukada and Asato stress the significance of power and distance as two variables that should be considered when evaluating Japanese politeness as Japan is a vertical[13] society.

[18] Matsumoto criticised the Universal Politeness Theory and emphasises the sensitivity of the usage of honorifics in Japanese.

She defines honorifics as relation-acknowledging devices that take the hierarchical position of the participants in a conversation more into account.

[19] However, Fukada and Asato comment that Matsumoto only shows examples which only show the lack of convertibility of English expressions of request into Japanese and do not universally prove that Japanese indirect utterances are not considered polite and do not count as a negative politeness strategy to save face.

[14] Around 1900, Japanese grammarians characterized honorifics as being part of a wider system 待遇表現 taigū hyougen, "expressions indicating the way you treat people," which included not only polite or respectful language but also disparaging or pejorative terms and verb suffixes.