Explicit Politeness And Forms Of Its Manifestation In Speech Acts Of Japanese Business Discourse

Abstract

This article examines the lexico-grammatical and pragmatic ways of manifesting an explicit form of politeness in some expressive and motivating speech acts. Among the expressive speech acts, apology and gratitude were chosen. Directive situations of communicative etiquette are presented by the analysis of the motivating speech act of the request. Politeness, as a communicative-pragmatic category, is explicated in communication, first of all, through verbal communicative etiquette or speech etiquette. Based on the analyzed material, it seems appropriate to express the opinion that politeness in Japanese is manifested in expressive and directive speech acts to the greatest extent.

An analysis of the speech features of explicit politeness in Japanese business discourses, taking into account the contact and distant functions of etiquette units, showed that these functions depend on such factors as status, age, the degree of familiarity of the communicants, group affiliation "friends or foes", the situation and place of the discourse ... Based on the analysis of speech acts of apology and gratitude, expressing explicit politeness in Japanese business communication, it was revealed that they can perform the functions of contact and distance.