Honorifics: The cultural specificity of a universal mechanism in Japanese

What is it about?

In this article I discuss both the structural features of the system of Japanese Honorifics and the reasons why they are socially significant. The paper describes honorifics from the viewpoint of their indexical properties, that is the various associations that come to define their "meaning" by various social groups.

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Why is it important?

While other works have referred to the indexical properties of Japanese honorifics, this paper provides a systematic description of the system of Japanese honorifics as indexicals, and an introduction to many themes relevant to this reconceptualization: interpretive schemata, reflexivity, or language ideologies.