Chinese and Japanese vague refusal speech act: similarities and differences
The influence of Confucian ideology on propriety in polite refusal in China and Japan. Elucidation of the similarities and differences of the Chinese and Japanese speech act of vague refusal at the grammatical and pragmatic levels of its implementation.
| 08.10.2023 | |
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Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Chinese and Japanese vague refusal speech act: similarities and differences
Jiang Qingchuan, PhD Student
Kyiv, Ukraine
Annotation
Any language is not only a part of the culture but also its carrier. Different national languages embody their unique traditional culture and at the same time are a reflection of the national way of thinking of their speakers, national customs, social values, etc. According to the division into "high-context" and "low-context" cultures, which was proposed by Hall E. T. (1959), China and Japan appear to be the representatives of high-context culture. In a high-context culture, the main transmission of information depends on the context. A large amount of information strongly depends on the context, while only a small part of the information is conveyed with the help of lingual forms. High-context cultures emphasize indirect ways of expression. That is, in Chinese and Japanese languages, only a small part of the information is transmitted verbally, while the main part of it is provided through the context and circumstances of communication. Meanwhile under the influence of the ideology of Confucianism, the avocation of "propriety" is reflected in the demand for people's polite behavior in both China and Japan. Therefore, when interacting with people, one has to pay more attention to preserving the face of others and minimizing the threat to others' faces, in particular with the help of euphemistic and subtle language expressions. Refusal is such a speech act that threatens the face of all communication participants. Therefore, in Chinese and Japanese lingual cultures, the vague speech act of refusal is usually exercised in order to avoid expressing the intention of "rejection" directly with the help of vague and unclear expressions, so as to leave a buffer zone for both parties. On the one hand, to reduce the threat of losing face by both counterparties; on the other hand, to maintain good interpersonal relations. However, each of the two languages has its own typological and cultural characteristics, and in this article, the author sets the main goal- to find out the similarities and differences between the Chinese and Japanese vague refusal speech acts based on the grammatical and cultural peculiarities of the languages in focus. Keywords: high-context culture, low-context culture, refusal speech act, vague refusal, face-threatening act.
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Introduction
As a part of the culture, language is not only a cultural phenomenon, but also a carrier of culture. Any national language contains the nation's unique traditional culture and reflects the way of ethnic thinking, social psychology, national customs, value orientation, social concepts, etc. According to the outlining of the "high- context culture" and the "low-context culture" proposed by the scholar Hall E. T. in his book "The Silent Language" in 1959, both China and Japan are typical representatives of high-context culture [8, p. 99]. In a high-context culture, the transmission of information depends on the context. A large amount of information is not encoded into the communication process through language but is mainly understood by the communicators according to the context and circumstances of the communication, and only a small part of the information is conveyed with the help of lingual forms. High-context cultures emphasize indirect ways of expressing ideas, opinions, and communicating content.
Influenced by the ideology of Confucianism, China advocates "propriety". In daily life, people always uphold the idea "harmony is the most valuable", and in social etiquette, they follow the etiquette of "respecting others and degrading oneself" alongside "humility and comity" as the main principle of interacting with one another. Japan is also influenced by the statements of Confucianism, which are also reflected in the demand for polite behavior. When interacting with people, one has to pay more attention to preserving the face of others, in particular with the help of euphemistic and subtle language expressions. Therefore, refusing speech acts as a speech behavior that threatens the face of the other party and is supposed to contain certain lingual strategies to preserve at the maximum extent the other party's face, to maintain the harmony and stability of interpersonal relationships.
In order to reduce the damage to the face of the other communicating party in the process of refusal speech acts implementation (especially in high-context cultures), the indirect refusal speech act is widely used. The latter is mostly represented by the vague refusal speech act. Thus, within high-context culture use of a vague refusal, rather than a direct and explicit refusal, reflects respect for the other communicating party and abides by the social norms of polite behavior. The article tries to introduce and analyze the vague refusal speech act in high-context lingual cultures of China and Japan, in order to give a brief induction and summarization of what vague refusal speech acts are, and to make a comparative analysis of such speech acts in Chinese and Japanese.
1. High-context culture in China and Japan
In his book "Beyond Culture", the famous scholar Edward T. Hall introduced in detail the characteristics of high-context and low-context cultures [8, p. 99]. High-context culture is also called strong communicative context culture, which means that information transmission depends on the context. A large amount of information is not encoded into communication through language but is mainly understood by communicators according to the context, conditions and situation of their communication, and only a small part of the information is conveyed through language. In high- context cultures, understanding what the speaker is saying, the meaning of what is being said is considered the responsibility of the listener, not the speaker. Therefore, high-context culture requires the listener to understand the communicative content and the speaker's implications according to the communicative context and the speaker's non-verbal elements of communication.
High-context cultures emphasize indirect ways of expressing ideas, opinions, and communicative content. In a high-context culture, a direct expression will not only appear sloppy and abrupt, but it will also give the impression of not doing things seriously and making decisions prudently. Especially when discussing issues, raising different points of view, and making requests to the other party, communicators in high-context cultures are more tactful and vague in their speech because of fear to offend or embarrass the other party.
Within the Chinese lingual culture, the study of "propriety" and "humility and etiquette" conduct in interpersonal communication is being advocated. Chinese scholar Gu Yueguo put forward five rules of politeness based on the mix of modern politeness and ancient "ritual": self-denigration maxim, address term maxim, refinement maxim, agreement maxim and maxim of virtue [3, p. 10]. In addition, the Chinese culture pays attention to the hidden beauty of language; in addition, the expression is too straightforward and straight to the point, which often gives a bad impression of being superficial and lacking cultural upbringing. In particular, when implementing the refusal speech acts, more attention should be paid to the face of the other party, and the degree of contusion to the face of the other party should be minimized as much as possible.
Vague refusal is a good strategy, which presupposes the use of vague expressions (some of which even seem to be affirmative expressions in the language form); these vague expressions create a vague effect in pragmatics, and finally, let the other party understand by him/herself what is being said. For example, "A" makes an invitation to invite "B" to dinner, and "B" replies:"?a" (Maybe let's talk about it later.). It looks like a "yes" answer, but when exactly to talk about it again? This is a good example of a vague expression in Chinese. The vague refusal speech acts are usually adopted and spread in the Chinese culture, within which keeping the face of the other party is very important.
The same is true for Japan. The Japanese culture also advocates the statement "harmony is the most important thing" because refusal is a kind of speech act that goes against others' good intentions and threatens others' face. That's why the Japanese usually use very euphemistic expressions in order to refuse. Japanese studies on speech acts of refusal were started by the scholar Takuro Moriyama, who outlined four types of the refusal speech act: the "straightforward type"; the "lie type"; the "procrastination type" and the "prevarication type" [6, p. 8]. Some scholars have pointed out that the Japanese prefer to refuse ambiguously, and trying to avoid refusing directly is one of the recognized ways of polite behavior in Japanese society. In addition, coupled with the characteristics of the Japanese language (lexical, sentence pattern) itself, the "ambiguous" characteristics of refusal expression are demonstrated incisively and vividly.
Keiko Ueda, a Japanese scholar, listed sixteen ways to avoid saying "no" in Japan [9, p. 185]. Later on, the other study listed 50 ways to say "No" in Japanese; it was conducted by Daniel Maciejewski [1, p. 34]. For example, when one looks for a job in Japan and receives negative written feedback after the interview, it does not contain a single word "no" throughout the whole text. One more example. There is an interesting fact that was shared on an intercultural communication forum: Japanese negotiators tend to use the word "no" less than twice every half hour in bargaining simulations, while Americans use "no" five times every half hour, Koreans - seven times, and Brazilian executives - forty-two times.
similarity difference propriety refusal pragmatic china japan
2. The vague refusal speech act in China
The socalled euphemistic and implicit language form is an implicit language form of expression, which is dealing not with literal meaning but presupposes an implication in a specific context. It is realized depending on the context and is flexible and changeable in accordance with context changes. The vague method, which is a method of making refusals politely with vague expressions to get mutual benefit by both parties in the conversation [2, p. 47], lies in provocative words deliberate omission, and using sentences with more ambiguous meaning as well as conveying the discourse information ambiguously and uncertainly.
Such kind of vague language is often a kind of hint about the content of the discourse as a whole, oriented at the expression of uncertainty or just subjective opinion, that makes the original affirmative tone tend to soften, such as "\(maybe)A (afraid)As (not for sure)A ?D (who knows)AD(seems like)A? (heard that)A ? (it is said that)Az (I think)A?? (in my opinion)A ?o (from my point of view)" and so on. For example, "ss?Is?AߡA??O?C"(I'm afraid it won't work! But don't worry, I will try my best to help.); "?\L" (I may have something to do tonight). Chinese people often use vague expressions as a means of moderation. A seemingly ambiguous answer in Chinese is actually a tactful expression of the speaker's refusal. In addition, although the respondent adopts a seemingly affirmative attitude in the answer, the information conveyed by the words has obvious ambiguity and uncertainty. That is, for example, no specific commitments are made, time and place are not clear: "I" (next time!); "VI"(let's do it some other time!); "?aI" (let's talk about it later!). These expressions are regarded as all-purpose sentences used to politely refuse others in Chinese. For example, facing the boy's invitation, if the girl always says "let's make appointment next time!", then it can be understood that she has no interest in this boy at all, and politely refuses the boy. Such responses with ambiguity and uncertainty are often seen as the polite refusals in the Chinese lingual culture.
In Chinese, there is one more feature of the vague refusal speech act: the speaker tries to omit some information in order to give a second party a chance to save the face: "튴?znN..." (I appreciate your kindness...); "VI?i..." (I'm afraid tomorrow's report...). Usage of the ellipsis leaves space for the addressee, anticipates the direct mentioning of irritating words that express rejection, and let the other party fill in missing content and grasp the conveyed idea. This peculiarity of the Chinese vague refusal speech act leaves a buffer zone for saving the face of the other party and preserves (maintains) the harmonious interpersonal relationship between the two parties.
Context plays the most important role in the Chinese language. As the Chinese researcher Ma Ringo has demonstrated in his article "Saying "yes" for "no" and "no" for "yes": A Chinese Rule", - an outsider, especially an outsider from a "low-context culture", will tend to take the "yes" message literally as an explicit form of agreement [7, p. 259]. However, within the Chinese culture, the authenticity of a "yes" message is usually established through contextual and nonverbal cues, and the surface level is ignored.
3. The vague refusal speech act in Japan
Similarly, in Japanese, there also exists a way of expression which consists in stopping in the middle, leaving the meaning of half of the utterance abandoned for the other party to speculate. For example: After the inviter makes an invitation, the invitee uses the following expressions, such as: "͂..." (Today, it's a little ...j; "ςAx̂..."iOn the second thought it turns out to be this time...j; "Ałlł..." (Yeah, but me alone.). The task of filling in and guessing the meaning of the utterance is still left to the inviter because the second half of the sentence is "not convenient". Such incomplete and euphemistic expression leaves a buffer zone between two parities of communication so that the addressee party will not feel too disappointed and frustrated by being rejected.
Such auxiliary words as "", "", "ǂ" and other are often used at the end of utterances in Japanese conversations, such as: "ʂɗ\͂܂" (I have no other appointment); "ł]ɉ\グ ̂ł." (I would like to follow your wish); "Cłǂ" (I really want to help you). These auxiliary words "", "" and "ǂ"which appear at the end of the sentence, have no lexical meaning, but they fulfill a pragmatic function. That is, they hide the real intention of the speaker, and the hidden (omitted) content usually has the opposite meaning to the first part of the sentence. Some studies have listed ten situations with omitting after "'", and here is one of them, where the rejected content is actually omitted. Therefore, the implication of these three sentences is like: "In fact, there is no arrangement, but I can't accept your invitation", "I really want to do it according to your idea, but I still can't accept your proposal", "I really want to help you, but there's nothing I can do". The pragmatic function of the auxiliary words helps to avoid saying the direct "no", and omits the verbal exposure of the rejection, thereby reducing the damage degree of rejection to the addressee's face.
Also, some symbolic adverbs have a negative lexical or grammatical semantic function, that is, they might be followed by negative content which is usually in opposition to the other party's expectations. Such as: "^ioi", " /", "t'di" and "fefy". These kinds of words have lots of meanings. Coupled with the semantic or grammatical functions of this kind of words, the whole meaning of the sentence will not be so easy to grasp only through the superficial meanings of the written words. Therefore, special attention should be paid to their function in different contexts. Such as the typical adverb "", "͂/ς", "ǂ" and "܂". Because of the limited time of preparation for the upcoming exams, when facing the invitation:" (Let's go have tea or something?), the answer: "" (Well...) here is one of the good examples of its classic usage. In this context, it is used to deliver an implied meaning of being in discomfort about the invitation.
The precise understanding of what is conveyed in a certain context could be easily grasped by native speakers, while the foreigners usually have difficulties understanding the real pragmatic meaning. In another case, if somebody gets the invitation to a party, and replies like: płς..." (As a very shy person...), it means he or she is not inclined to go to the party but uses the vague refusal speech act. The adverb "ς" (it turns out to be) is usually preceding a negative answer. The adverb "ǂ" (seems like/ still have a feeling of dissatisfaction) can be used to express feelings that are difficult to be satisfied even after thinking and reasoning. The expression "ǂ[łȂł" is frequently used to denote the intention of the utterance " It seems like not quite convincing ". The adverb "܂" is also usually followed by the negative form of the sentence, for example, as for the request: "pŎĂ" (Please answer the questions in English.). "Ap͂܂..." (Eh, English... ). The whole meaning of the utterance implies: "Eh, I do not like English " or "Eh, I'm not good at English" or some other negation. Expressions with positive meanings may also be converted into expressions with negative meanings due to different contexts. Such as "łB"iI see), "łˁB"iIt looks right to me).
Shibata Takeshi claimed that this kind of expression at the first glance seems to mean "yes", but in fact, it is neither "yes", nor "no": just an ambiguous phrasing [5, p. 111]. The literal meaning is translated into English as an affirmative expression, but the real pragmatic semantics depends on the deep analysis of the context within which these "positive expressions" are being used, that is, literal understanding appears to be not always reliable in the high-context cultural background.
As Li Zhaohui mentions, after listening to the other party's proposal, the Japanese first always say "ł" (It looks right to me) regardless of whether he/she agrees or not, and only then the topic is introduced [4, p. 74]. This also reflects that the successful extraction of pragmatically engaged information within high-context cultures is not mainly determined by what is verbally expressed, but mostly depends on the broader context and cultural characteristics of communication. There are also some typical lexical and idiomatic expressions in Japanese. Such as "O" (actively) which contains the emotion of agreement to the other party's wishes; "lĂ܂" (I'll consider it); "Ă܂" (I'll take it into consideration) and so on. Sometimes they can often be used together, for example, "ɂ͂ł܂ǁAOɍl Ă݂܂" that means:
"Although I can't answer you right away, I will actively consider it as you wished". As was shown in Zhou Geyang' study, the Japanese frequently use positive evaluation when implementing the refusal speech act. And they usually take the "Yes-but" sequence, which is regarded as one of the most essential features in the Japanese refusal speech act [10, p. 160]. The "yes" part is literally clear, however, the "but" part is often expressed ambiguously which confuses much the foreigners-addressees.
Conclusion
Both Chinese and Japanese lingual cultures belong to so-called high-context cultures and are strongly influenced by Confucianism. Confucianism strongly observes "propriety" and advocates peace and harmony in interpersonal relationships. Meanwhile, in a high-context culture, the main part of the information is provided through context, while only a small part of it is transmitted verbally. These common cultural features predetermine some similarities in the form and mode of the refusal speech act in both cultures. Refusal speech act is regarded as a face-threatening act. When implementing it, it is necessary to consider saving the other party's face to the greatest extent so as to maintain a good interpersonal relationship. In both Chinese and Japanese, ambiguous expressions of refusal are often adopted, the purpose of which is to give each other a buffer zone, allowing the other party to speculate on the speaker's hidden true intention of rejection. Therefore, vague refusal speech acts are very common in both Chinese and Japanese lingual cultures.
On the other hand, due to the typological characteristics of each regarded language, there are peculiar lexical and grammatical features in Japanese if compared with Chinese. It is widely known that the Chinese language belongs to the root, amorphous languages while the Japanese language is characterized as an agglutinative one. In terms of euphemistic and vague expressions, the characteristics of Japanese agglutinative language itself are typically representative of its high-contextcultural attributes. It makes information transmission extremely dependent on context and unpredictable. As mentioned above, the meaning of the sentence, which attaches one auxiliary word "" at the end of utterances in Japanese conversation, will be different in different contexts. However, there is no such type of vague expressions in Chinese. Therefore, the expression of vague refusal speech act in Japanese is relatively more euphemistic and diverse.
Besides, some lingual and cultural differences in the refusal speech acts might be determined by geographical location and natural living conditions, as well as unique collective cultural psychology and other important factors. Japan is an island country with a single nationality, so it is easy for people to communicate with each other. Over time they have formed a shared culture of their own - "ȐS`S" (heart to heart) and unique psychology - "#x" (a strong sense of dependence). Japanese people can understand each other without talking too much, and the speaker has a strong sense of dependence on the other party's thoughtfulness and understanding, which result in the Japanese often giving foreigners the feeling of half-talking and confusing them. Therefore, vague refusal speech acts in Japanese with its unique cultural psychological elements are more complicated, and more difficult to be understood precisely.
The perspective of this study might be outlined as accentuating the comparative analysis on the base of exploring the underlying reasons for similarities and differences in Chinese and Japanese refusal speech acts implementation from the viewpoint of high-context culture.
References
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