Referent Honorifics

Contextual Factors for Referent Honorifics

How referent honorifics are understood and evaluated depends on who is speaking, who is listening, and the shared social norms of the community. This section looks at status, group identity, and first meetings as key contextual factors.

By コトバ君 ・ Japanese Honorifics ・ ~10 min read

Contextual Factors

In their normative use, referent honorifics are a way for the speaker to show respect to a referent. This respect comes from the vertical distance these forms create:

• with respectful language, the referent is raised above the speaker
• with humble language, the speaker is lowered below the referent

In both cases, the end result is the same: the respected referent ends up elevated, reflecting the social status difference between them.

Matching Evaluations: Speaker and Listener

Whether a referent honorific is actually received as respect depends on whether:

• the speaker’s evaluation of the relationship and context
• matches the listener’s evaluation of that same relationship and context.

Japanese speakers are particularly sensitive to social status, and in some cases (for example, person reference terms used to address or refer to first, second, or third person), they are required to mark these hierarchical distinctions in language.

Using a referent honorific is a voluntary choice to overtly mark recognition of a social status difference. This is different from polite language, which, although influenced by status, mainly serves to create horizontal social/psychological distance, not vertical hierarchy.

Shared Knowledge of Status

Understanding relative social status in common relationships is important in Japanese culture, even when the situation does not demand that this be reflected in language. If you are unfamiliar with typical status relationships, you should read here (coming soon).

This shared understanding of status in everyday relationships is part of cultural knowledge among Japanese native speakers, and it is from this shared knowledge that all use of referent honorifics grows.

Social Norms and When Honorifics Are Used

Alongside this “common sense” understanding of status, native speakers also have a feel for the social norms that govern honorifics in different contexts.

Of course, the idea of “native speakers” as one single, homogenous group is problematic. There is a lot of variation based on:

• age
• gender
• region (some areas hardly use honorifics at all)

Still, in terms of a mainstream standard Japanese (標準語 hyōjungo), based on the Tokyo dialect – the kind of language you would hear on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) – there are collectively shared norms.

The use of referent honorifics is not grammatically required.

It reflects a choice based on cultural norms.

In general, the threshold for using respectful language is high, which is why it can be thought of as auxiliary, not an essential part of politeness. Most of the time it is limited to:

• highly formal contexts
• first interactions between strangers, especially in service situations with clients or customers
• relationships where the status difference is considerable

Community Norms: Not One-Size-Fits-All

As with all kinds of honorific language, the social norms around referent honorifics are:

• dynamic, and
• determined by the community in which the interaction takes place.

Some norms are society-wide, such as the awareness that the vertical distance created by these forms is simply too great for many everyday relationships. For example:

• a younger brother would not normally use respectful language to his older brother, despite the status difference
• most juniors (kōhai 後輩) would not use respectful language towards their seniors (senpai 先輩)

Other norms are community-specific and must be learned and negotiated inside that community.

Example (my workplace community)

In one workplace, respectful language is commonly used by those with the title of section manager and below towards bureau chiefs and above.

In some rare cases, staff below the section manager also use respectful language towards their section manager.

Without actual experience in that specific workplace community, it would be impossible to know exactly when respectful language is appropriate. A different workplace (a different community) will have its own pattern of who uses respectful language to whom.

Individual preferences can also shape these norms. For example, a supervisor might strongly prefer to keep things informal and sign all emails with “4649” (yoroshiku よろしく) rather than more formal honorifics. Some members of the office may adopt this habit too, showing how individuals can negotiate and shift the norms within a community.

Group Identity

When a speaker uses referent honorifics, they are not only creating vertical distance as an expression of respect; they are also marking group identity.

From the speaker’s point of view:

• the person being elevated is treated as an out-group member
• that same person is also an out-group member from the perspective of other members of the speaker’s in-group

Anything that has an honorific form – actions, objects, and other parts of speech – has to follow this group identity rule.

Honorifics as Subject Markers

Because of this group-based usage, referent honorifics also gain a secondary function: they can help identify the subject in sentences where Japanese does not make the subject explicit.

You can think of it like this:

• a respectful verb is a “you (or someone in your group) does” verb
• a respectful noun is a “your (or your group’s)” noun
• a humble verb is a “I (or someone in my group) do” verb
• a humble noun is a “my (or my group’s)” noun

This is similar to how Japanese uses different words to talk about the speaker’s own feelings, desires, and wants, compared to those of other people.

For example, ~tai たい vs. ~tagaru たがる

First Meetings

In first meetings, the social status of the referent is often not clear. The speaker has to infer it based on:

• the referent’s appearance and manner, and
• the context.

Some situations are straightforward:

• a clearly older referent
• a referent who is an obvious holder of power (such as a police officer)

In these cases, it is reasonable to assume that the referent has higher social status.

Likewise, when the speaker is clearly older, or is the one who holds power, the speaker can safely assume their own higher status. Even then, using referent honorifics is still a choice, based on what the speaker wants to achieve in the interaction.

In more ambiguous situations, where social status is harder to guess, a speaker may choose respectful and humble language as a way to:

• show respect, and
• humble themselves in relation to the other person.

Sometimes this is reciprocated, with both speakers using respectful and humble language towards each other in order to:

• avoid fixing a clear hierarchy, and
• reduce the risk of causing offence.

Another way of understanding this kind of exchange relates to non-conventional uses of referent honorifics. This will be taken up in more detail here (coming soon).

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