Politeness when native Japanese speakers and Uzbek Japanese learners give warnings about prohibited acts: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background Based on signs prohibiting certain actions, people warn others using imperative forms of the verb or give a soft warning using politeness strategies. This study investigates actual situations in which native Japanese speakers and Uzbek learners of Japanese give warnings about prohibitions. Methods This study compared warnings given by native Japanese speakers and Uzbek Japanese learners regarding prohibited acts. After clarifying the difference between prohibition and warning of prohibitions, we proposed a classification scheme for the latter speech act in terms of politeness. Data were elicited using a discourse completion task. Results The results showed that the Japanese speakers tended to mitigate warnings by implementing two politeness strategies: expression in hedged forms and positioning the warning as a rule. The Japanese speakers used expressions such as “It is prohibited” to indicate that they warned as a rule. Such expressions may cause the hearer to feel that the speaker is an overbearing person who wields authority. To avoid this risk, the Japanese speakers used hedges, such as “Looks like it’s prohibited,” or “It says it’s prohibited,” to make it clear that the right to forbid is not with them but with the public authority. In contrast, the Uzbek learners of Japanese tended to implement their politeness strategy as an apology to compensate for the explicit warning. They tended to apologize in situations where the Japanese speakers would not. Conclusions The present study presented a framework for categorizing warning of prohibitions. This framework can be applied to languages other than Japanese, Uzbek, and Japanese by Uzbek learners.