linguistic rituals for thanking in japanese: balancing obligations

jun ohashi

"The data of this investigation are naturally ocurring telephone conversations which took place in the Japanese enf-of-year gift-giving seaosn, seibo."

"This study reveals that conversational participants cooperate to achieve a mutual pragmatic goal of 'debt-credit equilibrium'."

"o-rei does not free the debtor form debt."

"the mutual and reciprocal aspects need to be taken into account."

"The norm of reciprocity--the social obligation to reciprocate benefits to one another--is claimed to be universal (Goulder, 1960)..."

"THe social goal of reciprocity is not debtless or creditless state in social relationship, but the continuation of the relationship."

rei can mean politness/social hierarchy or a bow

"'the giver and the thanker collabortate in the development of a successful thanking episode' (Eisenstein and Bodman, 1993: 74)"

"were also told that any conversations they had reservations about presenting to the researcher should be erased....The transcripts ...are simplified and modified for the purpose of this study."

"A(11) can be interpreted as a topic change to end an o-rei. This exmaple is unique because the beneficiary changed the topic. In other xamples it was always the benefactor who changed the topic."

"benefactive verbs emphasises imbalance and 'ie ie' denigrates it."

"...'thanking' and 'apologizing' are hardly distinguishable in Japanese; they are closely related in the indebtedness the speaker feels towards the interlocutor."

speakers repeat "'No, not at all'."

"It is often the case that doomo is used alone, that is, the later parts are unsaid. The frequent se of doomo supports the view that Japanese native speakers may not be conscious of distinguishing the speech act of thanking and apology in particular contexts where the speaker needs to express indebtedness."

"Imbalance is overtly acknowledged by beneficiary and the imbalance is dneied by benefactor."

"Such a sudden topic change, which is initiated by the benefactor, is observed frequently in the data."

"Working on the debt-credit equilibrium emerged clearly as a common practice outside a family circle."

'The more intimate the interlocutors were, the more a 'complimenting-gladness' pair tended to emerge. This is clearly a norm for intimate situations."

"Both ends of the continuum of social distance tend to have predictable sequences; the minimum end tends to be complimenting-gladness', while the maximum end tends to be 'thanking, apology, debt-sensitive speech formula, and/or a benefactive verb-denial."

"Working on debt-credit equilibrium is observed as a default except for conversations between family members."

"Overlaps:
When conversationsl participants work together on debt-crdit equilibrium, overlapping speech frequently ocurred. In otehr words, as soon as the beneficiary indicates his/her pragmatic intention of compensating debt, even partially with thanking apology, debt-sensitive formulae or a benefactive verb, the benefactor counteracts with a 'dneial'. A 'denial' serves the pragmatic function of de-burdening the beneficiary, thus, it often overlaps, or at least is latched with the beneficiary's attempt to work on o-rei. This conversational overlap or harmony is also evidence that mutual work on the debt-credit equilibrium is in operation. If I use the notion of face, as a motivational drive, derived from Goffman (1967:5): "the positive value a person effetively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken during a particular contact", the state of being in debt without an acknowldgment is dishonorable, and for the benefactor, claiming that s/he is a creditor is seen as arrogant and a social disgrace. 'Dnial', as an expected follow up of beneficiary's acknowledgement of benefit/debt, may in fact care for both beneficiary's and benefactor's face."

"This supports Apte's description of thanking (verbalization of gratitude) in Marathi and Hindi, that is "verbalization of gratitude indicates a distant relationship" (Apte, 1974:75), and thus it should be avoided among family members."