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1POLITENESS IS A FUNDAMENTAL FEATURE OF COMMUNICATION AMONG PEOPLE IN DIFFERENT
CULTURE
Khazratova Kunduz Mamaraimovna
Senior English teacher of the Uzbekistan State World Languages University,
Uzbekistan https://doi. org/10.5281/zenodo. 10702696
Abstract. Politeness is a social phenomenon that can be investigated in each language withinside the world. Every language has its own way of expressing through the speakers relying on their tradition and consequently politeness principle suffers from shortcomings that decrease its performance in the analysis of the act of communication. It is hypothesized that politeness strategy used is positive politeness whilst the negative is not used right here withinside the coming data, and it could be considered as a type of etiquette which is not the same as one society to another. Both types of politeness strategies contain preserving and readdressing the social distance among the speaker and the hearer. The goal of the study is to analyze the types of politeness strategies might be proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987), the use of discourse analysis which is found out that politeness is used in lots of approaches to construct and maintain the friendly mood.
Keywords: politeness, impoliteness, Japanese lingua-culture, Uzbek lingua-culture, discourse, communicative style.
The Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On Science and scientific activity "Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan dated October 29, 2020 No. PF-6097 tasks provided for by the resolution, including "Development of science until 2030, in order to ensure the implementation of the "Development Concept" this scientific and practical activity was carried out.
Strategies of Positive Politeness:
Positive politeness strategies aim to establish and maintain a friendly and harmonious relationship between the speaker and the hearer. They involve showing appreciation, solidarity, and respect towards the hearer.
Positive politeness strategies can include the use of compliments, expressions of gratitude, and expressions of solidarity with the hearer's interests and feelings.
These strategies are used to enhance the social bond between the speaker and the hearer, by emphasizing shared values, interests, and positive attributes.
Forms of politeness are linguistic means of expressing various kinds of social relations between the speaker, his interlocutor and the people in speech. In comparison with European languages, Uzbek and Japanese have many features in this regard, of which the two most significant are the presence of not only lexical, but also grammatical forms of politeness,
Politeness strategy is a strategy in the use of language related to the use of good and polite verbal communication, which can make communication work cooperatively. In terms of communicating, politeness strategies are very important to avoid conflicts in communication which means avoiding face-threatening acts of the hearer. Politeness strategies can vary depending
on the context and culture. It is important to note that different cultures and languages may have their own unique ways of expressing politeness. From many perspectives, politeness is a universal phenomenon, however, as numerous cross-cultural studies have shown understanding of politeness, as well as politeness norms differ across cultures (e.g. Leech 2005, Leech & Larina 2014, Larina 2008, Marquez 1999, among many others). The way people communicate is guided by cultural values which shape their communicative styles. The aim of the study is to explore how the Uzbek and Japanese understand politeness and how Uzbek and Japanese cultural values shape the style of interpersonal interactions. We analyze the norms and politeness strategies focusing on a few speech acts which are regularly performed in everyday interactions, namely addressing, asking for request, thanking and complimenting. It was analysed drawing on Politeness theory, speech act theory, cross-cultural pragmatics and discourse analysis, research on identity construction and the impact of politeness on communicative styles. Our findings confirm that in Uzbek culture, distance and equality are highly valued people value greatly closeness, age and status. The norms are negotiable and changeable across cultures and that linguistic politeness strategies are embedded in cultural context and ideologies of conduct.
INTRODUCTION
Politeness is a fundamental feature of communication among people, which nowadays attracts a great interest of scientists from various fields, such as sociolinguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, intercultural communication and others. Primarily, the main theories of politeness concentrated on illuminating politeness within a particular culture and then, on comparing politeness forms and practices cross-culturally.
Politeness is a culturally constructed concept. Watts (2003) claims that the lexemes polite and politeness and the terms matching them in other languages may vary in meaning and connotations associated with them (Watts 2003: 14). The conceptualization of politeness also differs across cultures. In Britain it is mostly associated with consideration of others, good manners and linguistic etiquette, based on keeping distance and respecting other"s privacy, while in Greece and Russia with consideration of others through kindness, warmth and friendliness (see Sifianou 1992, Larina 2009).
Even Uzbeks of modest means are extremely generous toward their guests. When a stranger arrives at an Uzbek household, he is first invited and offered tea and other refreshments. Only then does the host ask who the guest is and why he has come.
Uzbek etiquette is very elaborate. For example, it is considered impolite to enter or exit a room before a person of higher status. Frequently a group of Uzbeks will pause before entering a building to insist that someone else enter first. The intricacies of such courtesies may take a long time to learn.
When Uzbek men meet, they greet each other with their right hand on their chest. Generally, the younger man initiates the greeting and then the senior one responds. The senior man may extend a hand for a handshake, but it is not the custom for the younger one to do so first. When Uzbek women meet they often use a different form of greeting than do men. When adult women greet each other or youths they place their right hand on the left shoulder of the other person. But when a woman greets an adult man she places her right hand on her chest and generally maintains a distance from him.
We limited ourselves to the study of the discourse and explore the norms and politeness strategies in a few speech acts which are regularly performed in everyday interactions, namely asking for request, thanking, and complimenting. First, we will discuss some theoretical issues concerning culture and communication. Further we will present some preliminary results of our research focused on the Uzbek and Japanese respect, understanding of politeness and their impact on everyday interactions in the context.
Japanese culture is a set of values that puts importance on social harmony and hard work. Up until the 10th century, Japanese culture was similar to the Chinese culture, but the rise of the samurai in the Heian Period and the isolation during the Edo Period changed the rules of society. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with relatively simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. The key concept in understanding behavioral differences resulting from differences of backgrounds is culture (Guirdham 1999: 48). This is a subject which has attracted a great amount of attention in both the communication as well as the management literature. There are many and distinct definitions of culture.
Japan's culture of formal politeness, defference and respect is reflected in the long winded language of apology and the linguistic etiquette for social matters such as declining an invitation. Linguistics covers all aspects of linguistics as they pertain to the Japanese language—from issues in phonetics, phonology, and syntax to sociolinguistics, the history of the Japanese language and its teaching as a foreign language.
Degrees of politeness Hierarchy is one of the foundations of Japanese culture, and this also extends to language. It is important to be aware of your social status in relation to the person with whom you are speaking, so that you do not accidentally offend them with too common or familiar speech. The different degrees of politeness in Japanese require their own sentence structure. The polite forms - collectively referred to as keigo- can be divided into three main categories. Teineigo is a common form of politeness that is suitable in most situations. The characteristics of teineigo are the verb suffixes desu and masu. Some words are almost exclusively used in the teineigo form, regardless of the situation, such as ocha - tea or okane - money. Sonkeigo is a form that designates respect. It is used when the speaker is addressing people who are in a higher social position than themselves, such as a boss, customers or older people. The speaker does not use it to refer to themself or their immediate family. Kenjougo is a form that designates humility. The speaker uses it to refer to themself and their immediate family in a humble way, especially when talking to people in high social positions. Under no circumstances should it be used to refer to other people.
Tipping is not part of Japanese customs and can sometimes even be considered insulting. Local guides are the only persons to whom it is customary to leave a tip, but this is still entirely discretionary. Public baths, or onsens, are popular in Japan. Always check the etiquette before you go, but a good general rules is that before taking a public bath, wash your whole body and hair and rinse well in one of the dedicated showers, it is very much frowned upon to enter with soap or suds on you. When you enter a temple, house or a ryokan, be sure to take off your shoes. It's very bad manners to keep them on. Almost all places will have slippers for you to wear indoors. However, remove all footwear before stepping on tatami. In Japan, the respect for the elderly is a sacrosanct rule, and this includes anybody that is older than yourself. If sitting on the ground, don't switch from side-to-side or leg-to-leg, and if sitting on a chair, do not turn your feet towards anyone.
Posture is very important and seen as a sign of good education and manners. In temples and shrines, carefully follow the instructions of behavior and talk quietly. Only cross the street when the pedestrian light is green. If going to somebody's house, taking a small gift is very polite, such as wine, chocolates or flowers.
METHODOLOGY
The study pursues three main objectives: (a) to find out how Japanese and Uzbek understand politeness, (b) to make a comparative social and cultural analysis of Japanese and Uzbek politeness which shape the style of interpersonal communication (c) to investigate how these values manifest in interpersonal interactions. The data for the analysis were obtained from two questionnaires. The goal of the first questionnaire was to specify and elaborate Japanese and Uzbek understanding of politeness and reveal the main cultural values on which politeness is based. In the first questionnaire, the Japanese and Uzbek objects were asked to give definition of politeness, describe a (im)polite person and bring an example of polite and impolite behavior.
The second questionnaire was aimed at discursive data collection. It was designed in the form of Discourse Completion Task. The Japanese and Uzbek objects were given a short description of some situations with the specification of the setting and family relationship between the persons and asked to complete the dialogues in a way they find most natural. The questionnaire was designed to elicit requesting, response to request, thanking, response to thanking, and complementing. As we have not finished the process of empirical data collection, in this paper we will present some preliminary results which we obtained drawing on Politeness cross-cultural pragmatics and communicative styles theory.
We focus on the following research questions:
1. How do Uzbek and Japanese people understand politeness?
2. What cultural communication are in the core of Uzbek and Japanese politeness?
3. How do Japanese and Uzbek communicative politeness strategies manifest in everyday interaction?
DISCUSSION
Uzbek Politeness
The happiness of every nation depends on the good upbringing of young people, the peace and comfort of the states. A person will definitely be a happy if he is well-educated.
An individual in society feels the obligation to follow his statutes due to his attachment to society within the framework of his economic capabilities and spiritual level. In order to educate young people to be confident, strong, intelligent, it is necessary to turn the norms of etiquette. Family holiness plays a key role in the content of the Uzbek family's relations in society.
The analysis of the responses obtained from the Uzbek objects show that most of them define politeness as: showing respect to people in manners and in words ,respecting privacy and keeping distance, respecting equality of rights, respecting other people"s feelings.
Based on the answers, the most emphasized phrases in the Uzbek objects" definitions of politeness are: "having a respectful behaviour and manner toward people","showing respect to people" and "understanding them". Therefore, it could be concluded that Uzbek people stress obviously on "showing respect to people",or, in other words, "treating people with respect" as the most common definition of politeness. Many of the respondents have indicated that to show politeness and to be polite one should say polite words often. In their opinion, saying "Marhamat"
"please" and "Raxmat", "Tashakkur" "thank you" often in daily conversations shows respect to other people and facilitates social interactions. Among polite words, they also mentioned the apologizing phrase "Kechirasiz" "(I'm) sorry" which is used in many occasions, e.g. "when one interrupts someone", "when one is late to an appointment" or even "when one has booked a seat on a train and somebody has occupied their place mistakenly". A careful study of the answers revealed that "Kechirasiz"(I'm) sorry" to the Uzbek is not phrase for apologizing, but also it is a polite behavioral strategy for making respectful social interaction with other people.
Thus, our results show that the Japanese definitions of politeness are consistent with the Uzbek polite speech, including "equality", "independency", and "privacy". In interpersonal interactions, they also value "social etiquette" and "manners" as a manifestation of polite behavior in this culture. In other words, from their perspectives, sticking to social etiquettes constitutes the most principal part of Uzbek politeness.
Japanese Polite communication
The analysis of the Japanese objects" responses shows that most of them define politeness as: a)respecting elder people b) honoring persons in a higher status such as teachers and seniors d)respecting social etiquetts e) being extraverted
Japanese people consider "respecting elder people' as an absolute definition of politeness. Based on these responses, the most emphasized phrases in the Japanese participants" definitons are: "respecting elder people", and "honoring elders" . With delving more into the presented definitions of politeness by the Japanese objects, we can see that "respecting elder people" constitutes the most principal part of politeness in this culture.
Our findings also show that a significant number of Japanese objects have indicated "respecting family members'', friends and colligues as definition of politeness. Since a teacher in Japanese culture is a highly respected person, it was not surprising to see frequently "respecting teachers" as a definition of politeness among the Japanese responses. The most typical phrases in these definitions are: "paying a considerable attention and respect to teachers".
As our findings indicate a considerable number of Japanese objects have emphasized on " respecting social etiquettes" as a definition of politeness.
The relations are built on the principle of interdependency which manifests in helping and supporting each other. In this culture, it is totally polite, if you offer to keep somebody company or extending a helping hand towards others in order to do things together. In fact, this type of behavioral orientation in Japanese politeness system is conceived as an obvious manifestation of respectful feelings, courtesy and goodwill towards other people. Some examples show that helping a blind person to pass the road, helping a woman to carry a shopping heavy bag, helping elders to get on or off the bus or train are instances which confirm the above characteristics of politeness in Japanese culture.
This popular type of behavior once again shows that elders - as well as seniors - are highly appreciated and respected in this culture because of their worthy experiences which have been accumulated over the years. At the same time this is the best strategy for being polite and paying respect to people in this culture.
Discourse Analysis
In our analysis of general Uzbek and Japanese discourse, we have focused on a few speech acts, which were elicited by the designed situations. These speech acts were requesting, response to requesting, response to thinking, addressing and complementing.
However, in Uzbek and Japanese the form of request depends on the context. According to our findings, as well as our ethnographic observations, young generation addressing their elderly people perform request indirectly and in an extra polite manner through long indirect utterances: Elder people in the conversation with youngest prefer direct style. In most cases their request is formulated without "please" or "may".
Responses to requests have also revealed some interesting differences.
There is another major difference in the etiquette of the eastern regions of the West, which is now the question of the rule of law in the West over morality, and in the east over morality over law.
Uzbek and Japanese youth do not look straight at parents. They are reverent towards adults and follow traditional moral rules. Youth education in both states is formed in the family and in the community.
Speaking and listening make up the culture of conversation important aspects of circulation. Therefore, the etiquette of treatment itself is seen in moral institutions such as kindess, calm, gentleness.
In Uzbek families, they are friendly and unofficial as in the situation below in the family members response to the request of their children for some money for buying a birthday present:
Sure. How much do you need? I will give you money next week.
Responding to their parents" request Japanese teenerges demonstrate less independence and more obedience to their parents in comparison with their British counterparts. Instead of negotiating their parents" request, they demonstrate their permanent willingness to immediately react to it.
Another situation which also manifests some stylistic differences between Uzbek and Japanese family discourses, is thanking. Here we can also observe some culture-specific differences. As our findings show, in Uzbek families, thanking from parents towards children and from children towards parents is performed more or less with the same frequency and in the same way.
It is really kind of you.
Thank you very much. It shows your kindness.
To intensify their gratitude to parents for their kindness Japanese children use complimentary polite phrases such as "that is really kind of you", "how could I appreciate you".
CONCLUSION
In this paper we explored Uzbek and Japanese concepts of politeness. We aimed at highlighting how Uzbek and Japanese and understand politeness, what cultural communicatin shape this understanding and explore how communicative politeness strategies manifest in everyday interactions in the company and family setting. For that purpose, we designed two questionnaires which provided us with empirical data.
Our findings obtained through contrastive analysis have shown that Uzbek and Japanese understanding of politeness include: (a) showing respect to people in manners, (b) respecting and keeping distance, (c) respecting equality of rights, (d) respecting other people"s feelings. These characteristics of politeness are consistent with the Uzbek communication, including "equality", "independence", "distance". Japanese understanding of politeness consists of: (a) respecting elder people, (b) honouring persons in a higher status (such as teachers and seniors) following social etiquettes.
The discoursive analysis of everyday intractions has provided us with interesting results, which confirm that in communicative behaviour people are guided by their cultural life and notion of politenss. In Japanese society apply more formal speech acts towards older age people, their style is more indirect and elaborate.
Thus, our findings is of statements: In different societies people speak differently. These differences in ways of speaking are profound and systematic.
Different ways of speaking, different communicative styles, can be explained and made sense of, in terms of independently established different cultural values and cultural priorities.
In this paper we presented our preliminary results. In order to have more detailed results, concerning preferable politeness strategies and features of communicative styles in Uzbek and Japanese lingua-cultures we are going to continue our qualitative as well as quantitative analysis.
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