How respectful and humble language work in Japanese
Introduction to Japanese Referent Honorifics
~6 min read
Table of Contents
In a nutshell: You’ll learn what referent honorifics are, why they feel tricky, and how this course moves from decoding (recognising meaning) to encoding (using forms yourself).
Referent Honorifics: It’s “Hierarchy” Time
Referent honorifics are where Japanese really flexes its honorific muscles.
Their expressive meaning encodes vertical distance — in other words, hierarchy — toward a particular person.
When most people hear “honorifics,” this is usually what comes to mind.
Okay, you probably don’t use the word “referent” but there’s a good reason to use this jargon.
Why? Because the referent is the person being referred to in a sentence.
”Do you come here often?”
”Did Jake come here often?”
The first sentence refers to “you” the 2nd person being talked to. The second sentence refers to “Jake” the 3rd person being talked about.
Referent honorifics make it possible to show respect to people both present and not. This is possible because they encode vertical relationships into the language for our listener to hear.
There are two kinds:
○ Respectful language: sonkeigo 尊敬語そんけいご
○ Humble language: kenjōgo 謙譲語けんじょうご
These are unlike anything found in European languages, and they’re also rare among the world’s languages. Being able to indicate the vertical relationship between the speaker and the person being referred to — whether that person is present in the conversation or not — is a unique and powerful tool.
Key idea:
Referent honorifics is just a fancy way of saying words that create vertical distance with a person, whether that person is present in the conversation or not.
“They’re So Complicated!” (Not Exactly)
Contrary to what most learners (and native speakers) think, referent honorifics are not nearly as complicated as one is led to believe.
If there’s difficulty, it usually lives here:
○ not “How do I form this?”
○ but “Should I use this here?”
That said, compared with addressee honorifics (desu/masu):
○ referent honorifics come in many shapes and sizes
○ but is often more straightforward in its use and meaning
Key idea:
Referent honorifics can look scary, but most difficulty isn’t in the forms themselves. It’s in knowing when and where to use them.
Normative First, Everything Else Later
Most of the time, referent honorifics are used normatively — meaning, they match what their names suggest:
○ Respectful language: the speaker is choosing forms to express respect.
○ Humble language: the speaker is choosing forms to express humility.
However, respectful and humble language can also be used to express meanings that have nothing to do with being respectful or humble.
For now, to get acquainted with referent honorifics, we’ll temporarily suspend those non-normative uses and focus on the use implied by their names.
Competence Starts with Decoding
Becoming competent in referent honorifics begins with decoding.
Step 1: Awareness
The first step is awareness:
○ familiarity with the fundamental respectful and humble forms
○ familiarity with the contextual factors that lead to their use
Step 2: Interpretation
The second step is interpretation: examining the social meanings of respectful and humble language.
Then Comes Encoding
Then comes the encoding process.
To successfully encode referent honorifics, you must learn to use respectful and humble forms to communicate social meanings in ways that are:
○ Identifiable; and
○ appropriate to the Japanese community.
This is a process of trial and error that I’ll leave up to you.
Referent Honorifics Section Outline
Contextual Factors First
Context plays an important role in interpreting the meaning of referent honorifics.
Referent honorifics are a speaker’s optional way to show respect by creating vertical distance:
Both choices depend on how the relationship and situation are being evaluated.
Therefore, to decode the meaning we are going to need to understand some of the contextual factors. These include:
○ In-group / out-group (ウチ・ソト) rules (respectful for out-group, humble for in-group)
○ Benefit (who is benefiting from the action)
○ Ownership (who does an object belong to)
A quick foundation in contextual features will have us ready for the rest of the course.
Then Comes Respectful language
This is for a few reasons:
○ It’s more frequently encountered than humble language.
○ Talking respectfully to others is more important than talking humbly about yourself.
○ It provides all the key skills for humble language later.
Respectful language divided into parts of speech:
○ Verbs
○ Nouns
○ Adjectives
○ Adverbs
These too are introduced in terms of frequency and importance. (Respectful language is famed for it verbaliciousness)
Then, Humble Language
After respectful language, this section will be a walk in the park. Humble language is in many ways a mirror image of respectful language, and a less detailed image at that.
Again, parts of speech:
○ Verbs
○ Nouns
Note that humble language has no adjectives and no adverbs.
Dynamic Referent Honorifics (Everything in Flux)
With all the forms covered, it’s time to re-introduce a little chaos.
Context is always changing and our referent honorifics are going to change with it. Luckily with a few simple patterns, we’ll be ready to encode and decode meaning even with the world in flux.
Lastly, Non-normative Referent Honorifics
I know I’m a broken record by this point but:
There are no one-to-one mappings between honorific form and meaning.
○ respectful language ≠ only “the speaker intends to be respectful”
○ humble language ≠ only “the speaker intends to be humble”
Up till this point, we ignored the uses of referent honorifics that didn’t match the use implied in their name – but no more!
We’ll cover some of their most common – nothing to do with hierarchy – uses:
○ Humour
○ Identity
○ Commercial honorifics ( バイト敬語ばいとけいご )