A Metapragmatic Aspect of Politeness: With a Special Emphasis on Attentiveness in Japanese

要旨

Focusing on emic understandings in Japanese relational networks, Fukushima’s chapter scrutinizes from a metapragmatic perspective the relationships between attentiveness and four other concepts: consideration, empathy, altruism and helping behavior. Fukushima’s exploration is based on data elicited through a questionnaire based on a visual analog scale distributed to 132 Japanese participants and their written logs on what concepts or expressions best describe attentiveness. The extent to which these concepts differ is further investigated through focus group data. Findings obtained from the questionnaire show that all four concepts are related to attentiveness, with empathy being the most closely related. The written part of the questionnaire refers to stages of attentiveness and concepts such as self-sacrifice and help. The focus group data reveal nuanced differences among the concepts investigated, identifying differences between attentiveness and altruism or helping behavior that have not been discussed in previous research. Fukushima concludes that the concepts taken up in this chapter provide a ‘heart perspective’ on politeness and interpersonal relationships.

主題