Our behavior against other people is affected by our age, sex, relationship between the interlocutor, social position, and the society and the culture which we brought up. Social linguistics is a field which studies our communication correlating with ...
Our behavior against other people is affected by our age, sex, relationship between the interlocutor, social position, and the society and the culture which we brought up. Social linguistics is a field which studies our communication correlating with those variations. In this thesis I compare the distances to other people between Japanese and Koreans from the viewpoint of social linguistics.
The distance to other people can divide into the psychological distance and the physical distance but physical distance can be regarded as the figure of psychological distance. I considered the psychological distance from the results of a Questionnaire about speech-level choice by the politeness theory of Brown & Levinson(1987) and I considered the physical distance from the results of a Questionnaire about the choice of seats. The goal of this study is to investigate the differences between Japanese and Koreans with regard to a sense of the distance to others.
The followings are the summaries of the examination and the main conclusions that can be drawn from this study.
1. The summary of the examination about the psychological distance.
The research was executed in May, 2008 for 94 university students living in Daegu, Korea and for 93 university students living in Tokyo, Japan. It was executed in a school time as a group examination using questionnaires. The followings are the results.
(1) The expression of request: Both of Japanese and Koreans use the politeness strategy① (Do FTA<Face Threatening Acts> without redressive action, baldly) and the politeness strategy③ (Do FTA with redressive action: negative politeness) properly by relationship between the interlocutor. Japanese use those words like “sorry” which buffers FTA but almost no Koreans use such an expression on the other hand.
(2) The expression of advice: The reference about appearance of the interlocutor is regarded as interest in the person for Koreans so they tend to refer about appearance of others frequently. On the other hand, those references are seemed to belong to a private territory for Japanese so they tend to refrain from referring.
(3) The expression of displeasure: When a close friend is late for the appointment time, Japanese ease the FTA with soft- spoken. On the other hand, Koreans express displeasure as a joke and the way is regarded as politeness strategy② (Do FTA with redressive action: positive politeness).
When they do not get a reply to the message which they sent the day before with cellular phone, Koreans tell unpleasantness to a close friend directly, while Japanese choose strategy⑤ (Don't do FTA) and do not tell unpleasantness to any interlocutor.
(4) The expression of refusal: Koreans refuse directly to a close person and refuse indirectly to a distant person. On the other hand, Japanese do not refuse directly even though the person is familiar and try to secure Face of the interlocutor using various politeness strategies together.
(5) The expression of persuasion: Koreans tend to persuade the partner using the strategy① while Japanese tend to do what they want at will. Supposedly it is because Japanese try to avoid doing the FTA by the argument.
2. The summary of the examination about physical distance.
The research was executed from December, 2007 to January, 2008 for 250 university students living in Daegu, the surroundings and Seoul in Korea and for 172 university students living in Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan. It was executed in a school time as a group examination using questionnaires. The followings are the results.
(6) When they take a class, Korean woman and Japanese man and woman prefer to take a seat on the right side of a close friend. While when they take an examination Korean man and woman and Japanese woman prefer the back seat of a close friend.
(7) In case of the distant people in a social position or age like a professor and a student, or a senior and a junior, the relationship between the interlocutors affects the physical distance for both of Japanese and Koreans. Koreans tend to near a familiar professor or senior and Japanese tend to keep distance from a distant professor or senior.
(8) When they find a close friend or senior in the library, many Koreans try to approach the person to show closeness, however Japanese tend to take a far seat respecting the one's privacy.
(9) The choice of seating and psychological distance is not so different from Japanese and Koreans against a close person. However to a distant person like an unfamiliar friend or a senior, psychological distance of Japanese is farther than Korean one.
Altogether In this thesis I compared the sense of distance to other people between Japanese and Koreans according to the results of researches, we can see the difference of sense about territory and notion of “in-group” and “out-group” at the both aspects of the psychological and the physical distance.
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