Japanese and Javanese Perceptions of the Concept of Politeness in Their Languages: Cross-Cultural Analysis

ABSTRACT

Brown and Levinson’s theory on politeness stated that politeness is universal. However, through cross-cultural analysis, the findings in some languages differ. This language differentiation of the politeness use raises some interesting questions concerning the evaluation by its native speakers on the concept of politeness in both languages. This study uses an open questionnaire form to collect data both for Japanese native speakers and Javanese native speakers. In total 153 participant have submitted the completed questionnaire, and the aged ranged were from 18 to 60 years old. The questionnaire consist of five questions on the perception of politeness in daily communication. Although Japanese and Javanese both have honorific levels and both as a negative politeness-oriented language. Due to cultural and social differences, the point of view of how they use hierarchical levels differs. In this study, significant findings also found that Javanese people think using honorific speech were polite. However, in Japanese, being polite means using Keigo and showing a good attitude and respect to the interlocutor.

KEYWORDS:

• Concept of politeness
• intercultural politeness
• verbal communication
• japanese speech levels
• unggah-ungguh

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the DIPA UNNES No. DIPA-042.01.2.400899/2019 [DIPA UNNES No. DIPA-042.01.2.400899/2019].

Notes on contributors

Lisda Nurjaleka

Lisda Nurjaleka is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Language and Art, Universitas Negeri Semarang in Semarang, Center Java, Indonesia. Her research interest is sociolinguistics focused on politeness, conversation analysis, intercultural communication. She can be reached at [email protected].

Silvia Nurhayati

Silvia Nurhayati is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Language and Art, Universitas Negeri Semarang in Semarang, Center Java, Indonesia. Her research interests is in Second Language Acquisition mainly on Japanese learners. She can be reached at [email protected]

Rina Supriatnaningsih

Rina Supriatnaningsih is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Language and Art, Universitas Negeri Semarang in Semarang, Center Java, Indonesia. Her research interests include interlanguage pragmatics, pragmatics and Sociopragmatics. She can be reached at [email protected]