Pragmatic Functions of Humble Forms in Japanese Ceremonial Discourse

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Pragmatic Functions of Humble Formsin Japanese Ceremonial Discourse

Traditional analyses describe Japanese honorific use as determined by situational factors.By contrast, this article takes an agent-centered approach to demonstrate how Japanesespeakers use humble forms to perform a variety of pragmatic functions in ceremonial discourse. The analysis demonstrates that even in ceremonial speech contexts, speakersare not consistent in their use of humble forms, but rather shift between humble and non-humble forms to index shifts in footing and the social persona they present to the audi-ence. [honorifics, Japanese discourse, speech styles, style shifting, speaker agency]

Amajor focus of research in linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics hasbeen the relationship between patterns of language use and social context.Work in these areas has focused on describing general patterns of language

use in relation to contextual features, often in the form of “rules” of use. Yet theactual range of speaker practices cannot be accounted for by models that present lin-guistic variation as a rule-governed response to contextual features. Thus, Romaine(1984) critiques variationist sociolinguistics for creating overly deterministic modelsof language use that ignore speaker agency. Studies of style and code shifting haverepeatedly found that speakers not only shift varieties when shifting from onespeech situation to another but also shift styles or codes within speech situations toredefine the situation or the associated social roles and relationships. These patternsof shifting have been conceptualized as contrasts between situational and metaphor-ical shifting (Blom and Gumperz 1972), responsive and initiative shifts (Bell 1984),and unmarked and marked code choices (Scotton 1988). Similarly, phonological vari-ation has increasingly been seen as an active construction of identity rather than asimple reflection of the speaker’s preexisting social characteristics (e.g., Coupland2001; Eckert 2000). These new approaches have attempted to incorporate under-standings of speaker agency and creativity into our models (Ahearn 2001). Morebroadly, linguistic anthropologists have sought to demonstrate that language usedoes not simply reflect a preexisting social reality, but is part of what constitutes thatreality (Goodwin 1990; Cameron 1990; Duranti 1992; Hill and Manheim 1992).

This article addresses these issues of speaker agency and linguistic variation withregard to Japanese honorific use. Traditional analyses present honorific use as deter-mined by situational factors such as the relative social status of the interlocutors and the formality of the speech situation. Yet traditional models of honorific use asrule-governed and obligatory cannot adequately account for the variation found inactual discourse. Empirical evidence shows that speakers are not always consistentin their use of honorifics, even when talking about the same person in the same

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol. 15, Issue 2, pp. 218–238, ISSN 1055-1360, electronic ISSN 1548-1395.© 2005 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests forpermission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rightsand Permissions website, at http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

■ Cynthia Dickel DunnUNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN IOWA

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Humble Forms in Japanese Ceremonial Discourse 219

speech situation. Understanding these complex patterns of shifting honorific levelsin actual interaction requires us to move beyond structural analyses to examine howspeakers use honorific forms to accomplish various pragmatic functions across avariety of speech contexts.

In what follows, I take an agent-centered approach to analyzing honorific use inthe context of Japanese wedding celebrations. I first provide an overview of theJapanese honorific system and traditional models of honorific use and then reviewrecent empirical work that demonstrates variation in honorific use that cannot beaccounted for within the traditional structural models. I then present an analysis ofthe use of one particular type of honorific, the humble forms, in congratulatoryspeeches at five Japanese wedding receptions. Rather than seeking to identify situa-tional factors that determine honorific use, I examine how speakers used these formsto accomplish a variety of pragmatic functions. Speakers were not consistent in usinghumble forms throughout their entire speech, but rather shifted between humbleand non-humble forms in ways that indexed shifts in the social persona they pre-sented to the audience.

An Outline of the Japanese Honorific System

Japanese honorifics can be divided into two main categories: addressee honorifics,which index deference to the addressee of the utterance, and referent honorifics,which index deference to the referent of the utterance (Shibatani 1990). On theaddressee axis, virtually every utterance in Japanese requires a choice between directand distal forms of the predicate (Jorden and Noda 1987)1:

1a. Sasaki-san wa hanashi-ta. (Direct form)Sasaki-TI TOP speak -PAST

1b. Sasaki-san wa hanashi-mashi-ta. (Distal form)Sasaki-TI TOP speak -DIST-PAST

“Mr./Ms. Sasaki spoke.”

Although both of these sentences mean “Mr./Ms. Sasaki spoke,” they convey adifferent self-presentation to the addressee. The direct form communicates intimacyand spontaneous self-expression and is widely used between family members andclose friends. By contrast, distal forms index a more disciplined, public presentationof self (Cook 1996). They are frequently used among more distant acquaintances andin business situations or other formal settings. They can also be used to show defer-ence to an addressee of higher status (Cook 1998).

In addition to the use of distal forms, there is also a set of referent honorifics thatindex deference to a specific person who may or may not be the addressee. For exam-ple, if the speaker wished to show deference to Sasaki, the speaker could use a sub-ject honorific (Japanese sonkeigo) which indexes deference to the person who is thesubject of the sentence. This deference to Sasaki is, at least in principle, independentof the speaker’s self-presentation with respect to the addressee:

2a. Sasaki-san wa o-hanashi nina-tta. (Subject Honorific, Direct)Sasaki-TI TOP HP-speak H� -PAST

2b. Sasaki-san wa o-hanashi ninari-mashi-ta. (Subject Honorific, Distal)Sasaki-TI TOP HP-speak H� -DIST-PAST“Mr./Ms. Sasaki spoke.”

There is also a set of humble forms (Japanese kenjyoogo)2 which the speaker canuse for self-reference as a way of showing deference to someone else, usually the per-son to whom or for whom an action is being done. Thus in the sentence “I spoke toMr./Ms. Sasaki,” the use of a humble verb to describe the speaker’s actions shows

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deference to Sasaki:

3a. Watashi wa Sasaki-san ni o-hanashi shi -ta. (Humble, Direct)I TOP Sasaki-TI to HP-speak H- -PAST

3b. Watashi wa Sasaki-san ni o-hanashi shi -mashi-ta. (Humble, Distal)I TOP Sasaki-TI to HP-speak H- -DIST-PAST

“I spoke to Mr./Ms. Sasaki.”

For both types of referent honorific, there are also some verbs that have specialsuppletive forms that can be used instead of the regular honorific endings (e.g., thesubject honorific form of taberu [to eat] is meshiagaru).

The Japanese language thus provides speakers with grammatical resources forindexing their social relationship and self-presentation with respect to both theaddressee and the person about whom they are speaking. For most verbs involvinghuman subjects, speakers are faced with both a choice between distal versus directforms (on the addressee axis) and a three-way choice on the referent axis between nouse of referent honorifics, subject honorific (for others), or humble form (for self).Figure 1 shows the possible permutations of these choices for the verb “to go.”

Previous Research on Japanese Honorifics

Traditional analyses of Japanese honorifics have focused on elucidating the grammatical and pragmatic rules governing their use. Grammatical analyses havepresented referent honorific use as determined by the presence of someone “sociallysuperior” to the speaker as the subject or argument of the verb while the use ofaddressee honorifics (distal forms) is governed by situational factors including theaddressee (e.g., Harada 1976; Neustupny 1978). Even more pragmatically orientedaccounts have sometimes presented honorific use as an obligatory, rule-governedresponse to specific contextual features such as the social identity of the addressee orreferent and the overall formality of the speech situation (e.g., Ide 1982; Matsumoto1989). Ide (1989) argues that honorific use in Japan is primarily a matter of discern-ment, or compliance with social conventions, and that the use of honorifics in certaincontexts is socio-pragmatically obligatory.

While there clearly are sociolinguistic norms for honorific use, these norms are notuniform across all of Japanese society nor do they completely determine speakers’honorific choices. Large-scale surveys of self-reported honorific use have demon-strated age, class, gender, and regional variation in terms of which forms are usedin specified situations (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo 1957; Ogino 1980; Ogino,Misono, and Fukushima 1985). These surveys asked respondents to report whichform they would use to say a specific phrase to a specific addressee. Such surveys arewell designed to elicit demographic variations in idealized norms for use, but these

Figure 1Possible forms of the verb “to go” in Japanese.

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idealized norms may not always correspond to actual speech behavior (Agha 1993;Bates and Benigni 1975). Furthermore, because such surveys elicit only isolatedphrases in hypothetical situations, they are inherently unable to investigate whetherand how speakers shift honorific levels within speech events.

For these reasons, more recent studies have investigated honorific use in naturallyoccurring discourse. Such research has demonstrated that speakers often shiftbetween distal and direct speech styles even in the course of a single speech situation.Shifts between distal and direct have been found to index shifting degrees of empa-thy or social distance (Ikuta 1983), hierarchical levels of discourse structure (Ikuta1983; Maynard 1993), varying degrees of awareness of the addressee (Maynard 1993),and shifts between a more public versus personal presentation of self (Cook 1996;Dunn 1999). Thus the use of addressee honorifics is not simply determined by the sta-tus of the addressee or other situational factors; nor is it simply a matter of the speakeridentifying and following social norms for that speech situation. Rather, speakers shiftbetween distal and direct to communicate subtle shifts in the speaker’s presentationof self and stance toward the addressee. There have been considerably fewer empir-ical studies of referent honorific use, but here too the evidence suggests that speakersare not always consistent in their use of honorifics, even when speaking about thesame person in the same speech situation (Okamoto 1999; Yamaji 2000).

Thus, empirical research on honorific use in actual discourse demonstrates complexpatterns of variation that cannot be accounted for by models that treat honorific useas an obligatory, rule-governed response to situational factors. In this article, I movebeyond structural analyses to examine how speakers use honorifics to perform a vari-ety of pragmatic functions in actual discourse. Following Agha (1993), I argue that hon-orific forms do not directly index status, but rather deference entitlement.3 Speakerscan use such deference indexes in a variety of different ways in different speech situa-tions. Rather than treating honorific forms as an automatic reflection of situationalfactors, I approach these forms as resources that speakers use to communicate socialmeanings. This is not to claim that speakers always consciously strategize about theirhonorific use, nor that honorific use may not be relatively routinized in many situa-tions, but it is to put the focus on speakers as actively creating and communicatingsocial meaning. Nor does this approach deny the importance of social norms.As Scotton (1988) argues, social norms do not determine speakers’ choices, but they doconstrain how those choices are interpreted. It is precisely speakers’ knowledge of thesocial norms for honorific use that allows them to use these forms to accomplish theircommunicative goals in specific speech contexts. Defining honorifics in terms of thelinguistic expression of deference, rather than as a direct indexing of social status, putsthe focus squarely on the agency of the speaker in communicating social meanings.

In this article, I use this approach to analyze the use of honorifics, specifically hum-ble forms, in speeches at five Japanese wedding receptions. My interest is less in deter-mining the factors that influence honorific use than in identifying the variouspragmatic functions they are used to accomplish. I first provide an overview of the cer-emonial speech style used in this context, including a quantitative analysis of the useof both addressee and referent honorifics by different speakers. The subsequent analy-sis focuses on the use of humble forms to perform various pragmatic functions includ-ing elevating the status of the newlywed couple, elevating the audience, and framingthe speech event as a ceremonial speech genre. Finally, I explore how style shiftingbetween humble and non-humble forms indexes shifts in the speaker’s presentation ofself. Humble forms were used to enact a conventionalized “wedding speaker” rolewhile shifts to non-humble marked shifts to a more everyday voice or social persona.

Situational Context and Data

This analysis focuses on Japanese wedding speeches as an example of a highlyconventionalized speech genre in which honorific use is normatively expected.Contemporary Japanese wedding receptions are generally held in commercial wedding halls and follow a standardized format (Edwards 1989). The reception


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begins with a speech by the ceremonial go-between who announces the marriageand introduces the couple to the assembled guests. The couple usually ask a work-place superior, former teacher, or male relative of the groom to take the role of go-between for the ceremony and reception. The go-between’s speech is followed byspeeches by “honored guests” of the groom and the bride, usually former teachers orworkplace supervisors. A toast signals the beginning of the meal, and the eating anddrinking are punctuated by additional speeches as well as breaks for the couple tochange costumes and for photo opportunities of the couple posing by the weddingcake. After workplace superiors and former professors have spoken, there arespeeches by high school and college friends of the couple.

The data consist of transcripts of eighteen speeches given at five wedding recep-tions that took place in the Tokyo area between 1990 and 1994. Videotapes of thereceptions were collected from recently married friends and acquaintances and arenot statistically representative of any particular population. I did not personallyattend any of the weddings. The brides and grooms were all college educated and thespeakers generally held white-collar occupations. The analysis will focus on speechesby the ceremonial go-betweens, the honored guests of the groom and bride who speakdirectly after the go-between, and high school or college friends of the couple whospeak later in the reception. There were twelve male and six female speakers (Table 1).

Table 1List of wedding speakers.

Wedding AGo-Between A Male, groom’s professor(I was not able to obtain recordings of speeches by other guests at this wedding.)

Wedding BGo-Between B Male, bank manager, groom’s workplace superiorHonored Guest B1 Male, bank manager, groom’s workplace superiorHonored Guest B2 Female, bride’s professorFriend B1 Male, college friend of groomFriend B2 Female, college friend of bride

Wedding C(Speech by go-between contained many inaudible sections and could not be analyzed.)Honored Guest C1 Male, civil service, groom’s workplace superiorHonored Guest C2 Female, bride’s professor, colleague of the bride’s fatherFriend C1 Female, college friend of bride

Wedding DGo-Between D Male, electronics company, groom’s workplace superiorHonored Guest D1 Male, electronics company, groom’s workplace superiorHonored Guest D2 Female, bride’s professorFriend D1 Female, college friend of brideFriend D2 Male, college friend of groom

Wedding EGo-Between E Male, groom’s professorHonored Guest E1 Male, chairman of the board at high school where groom teachesHonored Guest E2 Male, colleague of the bride’s fatherFriend E1 Male, same-age work colleague of groom

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Quantitative Analysis of Honorific Use in Wedding Speeches

In speaking at a wedding, people take on a speaking role as go-between, honoredguest, or more generally “guest speaking at a wedding.” These roles are enacted inpart through the use of what I shall refer to as a “ceremonial speech style.” This styleis characterized by extensive use of distal forms in both subordinate and mainclauses, very formal degozaimasu forms of the copula, and referent honorifics. Thissection provides a quantitative overview of the frequency of these honorific forms inthe eighteen wedding speeches considered here.

Distal and Degozaimasu Forms

All clauses were coded as either distal (desu or V-masu forms) or direct (da, copulaabsence, or the direct form of verbs). The distal form generally occurs in the main(sentence-final) clause. When distal forms also occur in subordinate clauses, thisindexes a very formal speech situation. Therefore, main and subordinate clauseswere analyzed separately. Sentence-final clauses without conjunctions were coded asmain clauses. Because clauses ending in the conjunctions ga and ke(re)do(mo) gener-ally function as independent clauses in spoken discourse, they were also counted asmain clauses. Clauses ending in all other conjunctions, the gerundive (Vte form), orVstem forms were treated as subordinate clauses. The Vte form can take either director distal form. The clause-final Vstem form is a more formal and literary variant thatrarely appears in conversational discourse but is sometimes found in public speak-ing. For this reason, it is treated as equivalent to the distal form in this analysis.

Table 2 shows the percentage of distal use in main and subordinate clauses.Speakers generally used very high frequencies of distal forms throughout theirspeeches. For the main clauses, all but one of the speakers used at least 70 percentdistal forms, and eleven used 90 percent or more distal forms. The use of distal andVstem forms in subordinate clauses ranged from 19 percent to 82 percent. Eleven ofthe eighteen speakers used these forms for over half of all subordinate clauses.

In addition to the desu form of the copula, there is also an even more formal anddeferential degozaimasu form. Therefore, all occurrences of the copula in main clauseswere further coded as direct (da or absent), distal (desu), or very formal (degozaimasu,the gozaimasu form of adjectives, deirasshaimasu, and dearimasu). The final column inTable 2 shows the percentage of copula forms in main clauses that occurred in thevery formal forms. Here there was considerable variation with seven of the speakersusing very formal forms for at least 70 percent of copula forms while six speakersused the very formal forms 20 percent or less.

Referent Honorific Use

For the analysis of the referent honorifics, each verb in main, subordinate, andembedded clauses was coded as describing either the speaker, the couple (bride,groom, or both), or other people. Verbs used to describe the couple’s actions werecoded for the use of subject honorifics, while verbs describing the speaker’s actionswere coded for the use of humble forms.

Verbs used to describe the couple’s actions were coded as either containing subject honorifics or not containing subject honorifics. The following forms werecounted as subject honorifics: o-Vstem-ninaru, V(r)areru, o-Vstem desu, Vn degozaimasu(describing the couple), and suppletive forms. Compound verbs were counted as asingle verb and were coded as subject honorific if any part of the compound con-tained a subject honorific form (e.g., both shite-irasshaimashita and sarete-ikimashitawere counted as a single subject honorific verb).

Verbs describing the speaker were coded as either humble or non-humble. The following forms were coded as humble: o-Vstem-suru, o-Vstem-itasu, o-Vstem-mooshiageru, Vn degozaimasu (describing the speaker), and suppletive forms.Compound verbs were treated similarly to those for subject honorifics.

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Table 3 shows the frequency of referent honorific use to describe both the couple(subject honorifics) and the speaker (humble). All of the speakers used subject hon-orifics at least once to describe the bride or groom, but no speaker was completelyconsistent in using subject honorifics for every reference to the couple. Nor werespeakers consistent in using humble forms to describe their own actions. In general,the go-betweens used the highest frequency of referent honorific forms while thespeakers with the lowest levels of usage were all younger friends of the couple.

The data demonstrate that Japanese wedding speeches are characterized by a ceremonial speech style involving high frequencies of distal forms in main clauses, frequent use of distal and Vstem forms in subordinate clauses, degozaimasu forms, andreferent honorifics. As discussed above, there are many situations in which Japanesespeakers use distal forms in sentence-final position both with and without referent honorifics. The combination of referent honorifics (subject honorifics and humbleforms), degozaimasu forms, and distal forms in subordinate as well as main clauses marka ceremonial speech style that is much more formal than a style characterized only bythe use of distal forms in sentence-final position without the use of referent honorifics.

It is also clear, however, that speakers at these five weddings maintained this ceremonial speech style to varying degrees throughout their speeches. Such varia-tion both within and between speakers cannot be accounted for by structural models that treat referent honorific use as a reflexive response to factors such as the

Table 2Distal and Degozaimasu forms in Japanese wedding speeches*

Main Clauses Subordinate ClausesCopula Forms in

Main Clauses

Total Total % Distal Total % VerySpeaker Clauses % Distal Clauses or Vstem Copula Formal

Go-Between A 78 100% 37 54% 21 90%Go-Between B 36 97% 19 53% 9 78%Go-Between D 68 91% 15 80% 33 18%Go-Between E 106 97% 51 82% 27 15%Hon. Guest B1 26 88% 17 65% 17 88%Hon. Guest B2 35 71% 44 27% 18 44%Hon. Guest C1 50 88% 39 64% 31 77%Hon. Guest C2 23 87% 27 52% 9 78%Hon. Guest D1 40 98% 22 59% 17 76%Hon. Guest D2 47 89% 32 31% 25 24%Hon. Guest E1 24 54% 39 54% 11 73%Hon. Guest E2 27 78% 16 25% 13 31%Friend B1 10 90% 11 64% 5 60%Friend B2 11 100% 7 29% 5 20%Friend C1 32 97% 15 53% 5 40%Friend D1 38 97% 21 19% 26 8%Friend D2 24 100% 21 19% 16 19%Friend E1 25 92% 30 37% 16 6%

*Main clauses include sentence-final clauses and clauses ending in the conjunctions ga and ke(re)do(mo). Subordinateclauses include clauses ending in the gerundive (Vte) form, the Vstem form, and all conjunctions except ga andke(re)do(mo). Very formal forms of the copula include degozaimasu, the gozaimasu form of adjectives, deirasshaimasu,and dearimasu.

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social status of the referent or the formality of the speech situation. Rather than usingreferent honorifics consistently throughout their speeches, speakers shifted betweenthe ceremonial speech style and a somewhat less formal style that involved the use ofdistal forms with little or no use of referent honorifics and degozaimasu forms.Understanding such patterns of style shifting requires us to go beyond structuralanalyses to consider how speakers use honorific speech levels as linguistic resourcesfor communicating social meanings. The remainder of this article focuses on elucidat-ing the pragmatic functions served by the use of humble forms in wedding speeches aswell as the social meanings communicated by shifts between humble and non-humble.

Pragmatic Functions of Humble Forms in the Wedding Speeches

Humble verb forms are one component of the ceremonial speech style that is normatively expected in the context of giving speeches at a wedding. The use ofhumble forms conventionally indexes deference to the person who is the recipient orbeneficiary of the action. The use of humble forms to describe one’s own actions thus“humbles” the speaker by expressing deference to someone else. In the context of thewedding speeches, this expression of deference serves several pragmatic functionsincluding elevating the status of the couple, elevating the status of the audience, andmarking the speech event as a ceremonial speech genre.

Humble Forms to Elevate the Status of the Couple

Various aspects of the wedding reception function to focus attention on the newlyweds and create their special, elevated status as bride and groom. Wedding

Table 3Referent honorific use in Japanese wedding speeches*

Total Verbs % Subject Total VerbsSpeaker Describing Couple Honorific Describing Speaker % Humble

Go-Between A 62 87% 40 80%Go-Between B 32 63% 17 82%Go-Between D 19 79% 37 54%Go-Between E 58 60% 50 60%Hon. Guest B1 6 50% 25 72%Hon. Guest B2 43 44% 37 49%Hon. Guest C1 21 29% 49 65%Hon. Guest C2 26 58% 23 83%Hon. Guest D1 13 85% 36 67%Hon. Guest D2 8 50% 33 45%Hon. Guest E1 22 5% 17 59%Hon. Guest E2 10 30% 24 42%Friend B1 8 50% 13 62%Friend B2 5 20% 10 20%Friend C1 26 96% 25 80%Friend D1 8 50% 12 25%Friend D2 24 4% 15 27%Friend E1 25 8% 10 30%

* Compound verbs were counted as a single verb and were coded as honorific if any part of the compound contained a referent honorific form.

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hall employees design the reception to make the bride and groom the “stars of theshow,” using theatrical techniques such as costume changes, elaborate spotlitentrances, and staged photo opportunities (Edwards 1989; Goldstein-Gidoni 1997).The guests’ speeches continue this theme through praises of the bride or groom’scharacter and personality. One aspect of this status elevation is the use of referenthonorifics to describe the couple. With the exception of the high school and collegefriends of the couple, the guests asked to speak at the wedding are older and ofhigher status than the couple themselves (generally current or former teachers,workplace superiors, etc.). These people would not generally use referent honorificsto talk about the bride or groom outside of the wedding context. In their speeches,however, wedding guests frequently used subject honorifics to talk about the coupleand humble forms to talk about their own actions in connection with the couple.

For example, the following is the beginning of a typical description of the groom’spersonal history by a go-between who was the groom’s professor. Note the extensiveuse of subject honorifics to describe the groom. (In the following examples, honorificnoun forms, referent honorific verbs, and degozaimasu forms are underlined; verbswithout referent honorifics are in italics. Subject honorifics are marked with H� andhumble forms with H�. Initials are used in place of full names.)4

(1) Go-between A describing the groom7 Ee C-kun wa,/ a o-too-sama,/ F-sama./ o-kaa-sama,/ a G-sama

C TI TOP HP-father-TI F-TI HP-mother-TI G-TIno o choo-nan toshite,/ senkyuuhyaku,/ gojuu/ roku nen nigatsuGEN oldest-son as 1956 year Feb.mikka,/ X-ken T-machi ni oi-te,/third X-prefecture T-town at occur-ando-umare ni,/ nari-mashi-ta./HP-be-born SUBJHON-ADHON-PASTAh C was born (H�) February third, 1956 as the oldest son of hisfather F and mother G in T town, X prefecture.

8 C-kun wa,/ kodomo no koro kara hijoo ni,/ katsudooC-TI TOP child GEN time from very activityteki na,/ a o-ko-san de,/ irassshai-mashi-ta./like HP-child-TI COP be(H�) -ADHON-PASTFrom his childhood C was (H�) a child who engaged in lots ofactivities.

9 Shoo-gakkoo no toki wa,/ ongaku-bu de:,/ kurarinetto ograde-school GEN time TOP music –group in clarinet DOfuk-are-mashi-ta./blow-SUBJHON-ADHON-PASTIn grade school he played (H�) clarinet in the music group.

Deference to the wedding couple was also expressed through the use of humbleforms to describe the speaker’s own actions in relationship to the couple. For exam-ple, another professor used a humble form to describe her role in supervising thebride’s graduation thesis:

(2) Honored guest D26 Ano: T-san ga yo-nen-sei no toki ni watakushi wa,/ ano:um T-TI SU four-year-student NOM time at I TOP umsotsugyoo ronbun zemi de,/ ee T-san ga, ee/no,/ sotsuron:/graduation thesis seminar in T-TI SU GEN graduation-thesisno shidoo o itashi-mashi-ta./GEN guidance DO do(H-)-ADHON-PASTUm when T was a senior I was (H-) the advisor for her senior the-sis in my senior thesis seminar.

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Recall that the use of humble forms indexes deference to the person who is therecipient or beneficiary of the action. By using humble forms to describe her super-vision of the bride, the speaker reversed the normal status pattern and presentedherself, the professor, as of lower status than her student. Similarly, another profes-sor at another wedding also used humble forms to describe her perceptions of thebride’s personality:

(3) Honored guest B26 De:, / M-san o,/ itsu mo haiken shite-ru to,�and M-TI DO when even see(H-) do-and-be whenAnd whenever I see (H-) M,

7 �honto ni,/ o-too-sama no—/ yoi,/ o-hitogara,/ sorereally HP-father-TI GEN good HP-personality thatkara,/ (go)katei no yoosa ga,/ sono mama ni araware-te,/from HP-family GEN goodness SU that as-is in appear -andher father’s good personality and also her family’s goodness aredirectly apparent and,

8 maa nan to:, subarashii o-joo-san de aru ka to,/well what QT splendid HP-daughter-TI COP exist QM QTsoo iu koto,/(o) higoro kara omo-tte ori-mashi-ta node,/thatsay thing DO everyday from think-and be(H-)-ADHON-PAST sincesince I’ve always thought (H-) my what a wonderful daughter she is,

For a high-status person such as a professor, company president, or high-rankingmanager to express deference to the couple through the use of subject honorifics andhumble forms is a considerable elevation of the couple’s status. According to tradi-tional grammatical analyses, the use of referent honorifics is triggered by havingsomeone of “socially superior status” as the referent of the utterance (e.g., Harada1976). Yet the use of referent honorifics to elevate the newlyweds is a clear example ofhow honorific use may create as well as presuppose high status (cf. Silverstein 1976on presupposing versus creative indexes). The high status of the bride and groom isactively created by the stage-managing of the wedding hall and the speeches of thewedding guests, including their use of honorific forms. At the same time, this eleva-tion is a socially normative part of the wedding celebration; wedding speakers knowthat they are expected to praise the couple and to use honorific language in doing so.

Humble Forms to Elevate the Audience

Although one function of the honorific use in wedding speeches is to index deference to, and hence elevate, the status of the couple, this is not the only use ofreferent honorifics in these speeches. Wedding speakers also used humble forms to signal deference to the audience as well as the couple. For example, one of the professors described above began her speech by using a humble form to introduceherself to the audience:

(4) Honored guest D21 Ee tadaima go-shookai ni azukari-mashi-ta,/

just-now HP-introduction as receive-ADHON-PASTN daigaku eibun gakka no,/ S to mooshi-masu. //N university English dept. GEN S QT say(H-)-ADHONAs introduced, I am called (H-) S of the N University EnglishLiterature Department.

Similarly, go-between A used humble forms to announce that he would introducethe couple’s biographies:

(5) Go-between A6 Ee sore de wa,/ aa shikirei ni,/ yori-mashi-te,/ ee

that COP TOP customary to according-ADHON-and

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(o)futari no: oo ryaku-reki o,/ oo go-shookai,/two-people GEN personal-history DO HP-introduction

mooshiage-masu./say(H-) -ADHONAh then according to custom I will introduce (H-) the couple’spersonal history.

In both of these examples the speech acts are directed toward the audience, not thecouple, and it is the audience that is the target of the deference expressed by thehumble verb forms.

Humble Forms to Index the Wedding Speech Genre

The use of elaborate honorific language including humble forms also serves thefunction of marking the speech event itself as an instance of a ceremonial speechgenre. In contrast to the direct indexicality described above, this third pragmaticfunction involves what Silverstein (1996) has called “second-order indexicality.” It is well known that indexical forms derive their “meaning” from their regular co-occurrence with specific contextual features. This contextual association allowsthe linguistic sign to “point to” some feature of the speech situation in either a pre-supposing or creative way. Silverstein argues that once a sign has particular indexi-cal signification at one level (n), it then can then take on additional “n � 1” indexicalfunctions through routinized uses that create associations with other contextual features. For example, in addition to the first-order indexicality of marking defer-ence, honorific forms may take on a second-order indexical function of marking the speaker’s own social class and refinement (Hendry 1992; Silverstein 1996). Theuse of honorific language to mark situational formality is another example of suchsecond-order indexicality.

I argue that it is this secondary level of indexicality that is primarily involved inthe style shifting between humble and non-humble forms in the data consideredhere. When speaking at a wedding, guests perform in a ceremonial speech style thatis associated with ceremonial occasions such as weddings and adopt the social roleof a “speaker at a wedding reception.” Using humble forms to express deference tothe couple and the audience is one way of enacting this social role and framing theevent as a wedding speech. In the following sections, I demonstrate that speech actswhich are a conventionalized part of the wedding speaker role were particularlylikely to be performed using humble forms, while less conventionalized parts of thewedding speeches exhibited considerably more individual variation. Furthermore,even speakers who used a high frequency of humble forms sometimes shifted to non-humble forms to mark a momentary stepping out of the wedding speaker role in order to comment on it from a more personal perspective. Shifts betweenhumble and non-humble verb forms thus indexed shifts in the speaker’s stance andself-presentation vis-à-vis the audience.

Speech Acts with High Frequencies of Humble Forms

In the videotapes examined here, speakers were particularly likely to use humbleforms when they were engaging in speech acts that are a conventionalized part of therole of wedding speaker. Opening and closing sections of wedding speeches arehighly conventionalized, consisting of a relatively narrow range of typical speechacts. Wedding speeches generally open with some combination of a self-introduction,congratulations to the couple and their families, apologies for speaking before moredistinguished guests, and a metalinguistic announcement of what the speaker plansto say. Similarly, speeches typically end with a wish or request for the couple’s futurefollowed by an announcement of the ending of the speech and a closing phrase ofthanks or congratulations. These conventionalized opening and closing speech actswere particularly likely to be performed using a high level of honorific language.

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Even speakers who did not use referent honorifics elsewhere in their speeches usedthem in these opening and closing phrases.

For example, self-introductions and congratulations to the couple and their familieswere invariably performed using humble forms or very formal forms of the copula.Example 4, above, shows the use of humble forms for a self-introduction, whileexample 6 shows the use of both gozaimasu and humble forms to congratulate thecouple and their families.

(6) Friend D2Ee, Y-kun, T-san, go-kekkon omedetoo gozai-masu.

Y-TI T-TI HP-marriage congratulations HPOLITE-DISTCongratulations to Y and T on your wedding.Mata,/ go-ryoo-ke no mina-sama-gata ni,/also HP-both-families GEN everyone-TI-PL tokokoro kara o-iwai mooshiage-masu. /heart from HP-congratulations say(H-) -DISTAlso, I say(H-) congratulations from the heart to everyone inboth families.

Speakers also used humble and (de)gozaimasu forms for such speech acts asannouncing the wedding, thanking the assembled guests for coming, expressing grat-itude for being asked to speak, and apologizing for speaking before more senior guests.

One common pattern in these speeches was for speakers to use metalinguisticverbs to announce the speech act in which they were currently engaging or wereabout to engage. These metalinguistic announcements were almost always in hum-ble form. For example, speakers used humble forms to announce that they wereabout to tell the audience something about the couple (example 5), offer the couplewords of advice (7), or pray for their happiness (8).

(7) Honored guest D2Ano: sore kara: ee,/ maa,/ saigo ni,/ o-iwaium that from well lastly HP-congratulationsno kotoba to iu ka./ ano hanamuke no kotoba o, /GEN words QT say QM um farewell-gift GEN words DOhito-koto,/o-futari ni,/ sashiage-tai to omoi-masu./one -thing HP-two-people to give(H-)-want QT think-DISTAnd then well finally there’s just one thing I think I want tooffer(H-) them as words of congratulations or um a parting gift.

(8) Friend C1O-futari no,/ sue nagai/ o-shiawase o,/ kokoro yoriHP-two-people GEN future long HP-happiness DO heart fromo-inori mooshiage-masu.HP-pray say(H-) -DISTI pray(H-)for their long-lasting happiness from the bottom ofmy heart.

The ending of the speech typically includes wishes or advice for the couple’s futurephrased as requests. Because they are an inherently face-threatening act (Brown andLevinson 1987), requests are sometimes made in honorific form even among, forexample, family members who do not normally use honorifics with each other (Sukle1994). All of the requests in the wedding speeches involved the use of humble forms.

(9) Go-between BShiawase na go-katei o kizui-te itadaki-tai to zonji-masu./Happiness HP-home DO build-and receive(H-)-want QT think(H-)-DISTI think(H-) I would like(H-) them to build a happy home.


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(10) Honored guest B1Sue-nagaku tanoshii,/ go-katei o kizui-tefuture-long fun HP-home DO build-anditadaki-masu yoo,/ o-negai itashi-mashi-te,/receive(H-)-DIST manner HP-request do(H-)-DIST-andI request(H-) that they build a long-lasting and happy home and,

Many of the speech acts described above are quite formulaic, although there areoften different ways of phrasing the same sentiment. The speech acts that are a con-ventionalized part of the performance of a wedding speaker role were almost alwaysperformed within the ceremonial speech style, even by speakers who seldom usedreferent honorifics or degozaimasu forms elsewhere in their speeches.

Style Shifting and the Use of Non-Humble Verb Forms

Although Japanese wedding speeches are highly conventionalized, the degree ofconventionalization varies across different parts of the speech. Wedding speechesbegin and close with a narrow range of conventionalized speech acts, but other sec-tions in which speakers describe their personal relationship with the couple are con-siderably less standardized. To a large extent, the variation in referent honorific usetracks these varying degrees of conventionalization. Speech acts that are a standardpart of the wedding speaker role exhibited frequent use of humble forms and othermarkers of the ceremonial speech style. By contrast, the accounts of speakers’ per-sonal interactions with the couple were more varied. It was this less conventional-ized part of the wedding speeches that exhibited the most individual variation in theuse of referent honorifics. Although all of the speakers used the ceremonial speechstyle to open and close their speeches, some of the younger speakers in particularshifted out of this style during the main body of their speech. For these speakers, theuse of referent honorifics functioned primarily as a metalinguistic framing device.High levels of referent honorific use at the beginning and end framed the speech asan instance of the wedding speech genre, while the main body of the speech was performed in a less formal style involving frequent use of distal forms but only occasional use of referent honorifics.

Other speakers maintained the ceremonial speech style throughout most of theirspeech including the frequent use of subject honorifics, humble forms, and thedegozaimasu form of the copula. However, even these speakers sometimes shifted tonon-humble verb forms to talk about themselves. Because these speakers generallydid use humble forms throughout their entire speech, it is worth asking what com-municative work was being done by the periodic use of non-humble forms. Whilethere are multiple grammatical and social factors that may influence shifts betweenhumble and non-humble, I will demonstrate that one type of style shifting involvedmomentary shifts out of the conventional “wedding speaker” role in order to com-ment on that role from a more personal perspective.

In the following example, a professor had just finished praising the bride’s univer-sity education. In doing so, she used humble forms to describe her university’s historyand educational mission. However, her description could also be interpreted as self-praise of her own institution, which is not appropriately modest behavior. Followingher description of the bride’s education, the speaker shifted away from the ceremonialspeech style to say that it might sound as if she was offering propaganda for her uni-versity. Here non-humble forms were used to reveal a more personal and emotionalperspective through which the speaker commented on, and perhaps apologized for,her performance in the “wedding speaker” role. (Non-humble verbs are in italics.)

(11) Honored guest D219 De sono yoo na ano:/ maa,/ naka de,/ n konna

and that type um well within at this-way

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seki de made watakushi, jibun no daigaku no,/seat at up-to I oneself GEN university GENsenden shi-te -ru-nde,/propaganda do -and-be-sinceWithin this well um even in this position [as wedding speaker]I’m spreading propaganda for my university,

20 ano: ware-nagara aikoo seishin nium myself-while love-school spirit asmoe-te-iru to omou-n desu kedo,/burn-and-be QT think-NOM COP(DIST) butum I am very passionate about my school if I do say so myself but,

This shift from the ceremonial speech style to a more everyday style was markedin several ways. In line 19, the speaker used the verb suru (do) rather than the hum-ble form itasu, and there was also no use of humble forms in line 20.5 The speakerused the distal form desu, but not the more deferential degozaimasu form. The shift toa less formal style was also marked by the use of contractions. In line 19, the predi-cate was contracted to shite-ru-nde rather than the full form shite-iru node, and in line20, the speaker used the abbreviated form kedo (but) rather than keredo or keredomo.6

As this example shows, speakers often shifted away from the ceremonial speechstyle when commenting on their own speech and revealing a more personal or back-stage aspect of the self. Shifts to a less formal style sometimes signaled an ironic distancing from the wedding speaker role even as the speaker performed it. In thefollowing example, a workplace superior of the groom momentarily shifted into amore informal style to comment on the social expectations placed upon him as aspeaker and then shifted back into his speech-making “voice” with the humble formof the verb “say.” The use of a non-humble verb also coincided with the contractionof the form iwanakya ikan from the fuller iwanakereba ikenai.

(12) Honored guest C1104 nani ka,/ senpai rashii koto o iwa-na-kya

something QM senior appear thing DO say-not-ifikan (deshoo) kara.forbidden (perhaps) becausesince I probably have to say something that sounds like a senior.

105 Mooshiage-tai to omou-n desu (kedo/ga).say(H-) -want QT think-NOM COP(DIST)I think I’d like to say(H-) something but.

The next example requires some explanation of the use of titles in Japanese.Japanese has a number of titles that can be added as suffixes to someone’s name. Thetitle -san is a respectful term that can be used for people of any gender and marital status; -sama is even more deferential. The title -kun is used for men of equal or juniorstatus to the speaker. In example 13, the go-between, a workplace superior of thegroom, was talking about “Mr. Y,” the groom. He commented that he kept wanting torefer to the groom as Y-kun, the more informal form, which is probably the term he typ-ically used for the groom in the workplace. The speaker evidently saw this form asinappropriate in the wedding speech context. He used the modifying verb shimau,which has the meaning of doing something inadvertently and therefore cannot occurin humble form. In drawing attention to his own use, he both evoked a different speechcontext (in which the use of -kun would be normal) and momentarily stepped out ofthe “go-between” persona to comment on his own usage in a more informal style:

(13) Go-between E8 Mazu,/ ((clears throat))/ shinroo no oo,/ Y,/ uu kun to

first groom GEN Y TI QT

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iu fuu ni yon-de shimau-n desu ga,/say style as call-and end-up-NOM COP(DIST) butFirst concerning the groom um I keep calling him um Y-kun but,

Although speakers frequently avoided humble forms when commenting on theirlinguistic performances, this should not be understood as a “rule” that requiresspeakers to shift levels. It is in fact quite possible for speakers to engage in metalin-guistic commentary while remaining in a formal speech mode. In contrast to the styleshift in example 13, the same speaker later in his speech once again apologized forcalling the groom Y-kun, but this time he did so using humble forms:

(14) Go-between E15 De ee,/ Y,/ kun to mo-- <@ mooshiage-sashi-te

and Y TI QT say(H�) -permit-anditadaki-masu ga @>,/receive(H�)-DIST butAnd uh Y--, kun <@ if I may be permitted to call him that @>,

Thus it is not the case that speaker asides or metalinguistic commentary necessar-ily prevent the use of humble forms. However, the shift to a less formal style includ-ing contractions and the use of non-humble forms does appear to index a speakingvoice or persona from “outside” the wedding context, and this more everyday voicewas particularly likely to appear when speakers momentarily stepped outside of andcommented on their performance as wedding speakers.

Speakers also tended to use non-humble verb forms when making commentsabout what were characterized as “personal” matters. Consider the following exam-ple in which one of the guests noted a similarity between his marital experiences andthose of the groom. In lines 43–44, he used humble forms to express his perceptionsof the couple within the immediate context of the wedding reception. He thenswitched to non-humble forms to comment on the fact that he had gotten marriedaround the same age as the groom and, like the groom, had met his spouse throughan arranged introduction or miai (lines 45–48).

(15) Honored guest D143 sakihodo-rai, o --o-futari ga aa,/ kono yoo ni

recently-since HP HP-two-people SU this manner innarab-are-te su-su–suwa-tte rassharu no odisplay-PASS-and sit -and be(H�) GEN DOhaiken itashi-mashi-te,/see(H�) do(H-)-DIST-andjust now I saw(H-) them sitting(H�) displayed here and,

44 masa ni taihen o-niai no kappuru to,/ iuexactly as very HP-matched GEN couple QT sayfuu ni kanji-i-tte ori-mashi-ta./manner in feel enter-and be(H�)-DIST-PASTI felt(H-) that they are really a very well-matched couple.

45 E tokoro de,/ watakushi mo chotto--/ watakushi-gotoby-the-way I also a-little personal-matterso chotto hasa-nde kyooshuku desu ga,�DO a-little insert-and embarrassed COP(DIST) butBy the way I also--I’m embarrassed to be talking a bit about myselfhere but,

46 �jitsu wa watakushi mo,/ N-kun to,/ onaji toshi niactually TOP I also N-TI as same year indesu ne <@ miai shi-te �COP(DIST)IP miai do -andactually I also at the same age as N <@ did miai and

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47 �kekkon shi-te-masu./ @�marry do -and-DISTgot married.@�

48 <@ Sakihodo go-baishakunin-sama no go-setsumeirecently HP-go-between(s)-TI GEN HP-explanationde @� waka-tt-an desu ga,/by understand-PAST-NOM COP(DIST) butI just understood this from the previous explanation by the go-between but,

49 Desu kara aa,/ ma jooshi to iu yori mo,/ onajiCOP(DIST) because well superior QT say less even samepataan de kekkon shi-ta,/senpai toshite,/hanashi o (sukoshi)pattern by marry do -PAST senior as speech DO a-littlesase-te itadaki-masu./permit-and receive(H-)-DISTTherefore please permit me to speak (H-) (a little) less as hissuperior than as a senior colleague who married in the samepattern.

In line 45 the speaker announced and apologized for the fact that he was about todiscuss his personal experiences. In describing that personal experience in lines 46 and 47, he used the non-humble forms miai shite (I did miai) and kekkon shitemasu(I am married), before shifting back to the use of referent honorifics in lines 48 and 49.7

Another speaker also shifted to non-humble forms to describe what was charac-terized as watashigoto or talking about oneself. In this case the go-between began hisconventional role of describing the groom’s biography by using humble forms forhimself and subject honorifics for the groom:

(16) Go-between D11 shinroo shinpu no, go-shookai o sase-te itadaki-masu.

groom bride GEN HP-introduction DO do(CAUS)-and receive(H-)-ADHONI will be permitted to introduce (H-) the groom and bride.

12 Mazu shinroo: N, Y-kun wa, N-ke no, go-choo-nan toshite,first groom N Y-TI TOP N-family GEN HP-oldest-son asshoowa X nen, gogatsu X nichi, M ken Y nishoowa X year May X day M prefecture Y ato -umare ni nari-mashi-ta.HP-be-born SUBJHON-ADHON-PASTFirst the groom NY was born (H�) the eldest son (H�) of the N fam-ily on the Xth of May, Showa year X in Y City, M Prefecture.

The speaker then continued to use subject honorifics while describing the groom’seducation and workplace history. A few lines later, however, he diverged fromdescribing the groom’s biography to add a comment about his own connection to thegroom. As in example 15 above, the interjection of this “personal” aside coincidedwith the use of non-humble verbs.

(17) Go-between D (continued)18 De, ni nen no shigatsu ni desu ne, watashidomo D

and two year GEN April in COP(DIST) IP I Dkabushiki-gaisha, M seihin kenkyuu -jo, dai -nistock company M products research lab number twokenkyuu -shitsu e, nyuu -sha sare -te ori -masu.research-room to enter-company H� -and be(H-) -DISTAnd in April of Heisei year 2 [the groom] entered(H�) the secondlab of the M product research section of our D company.

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19 ma watakushi -goto na-n desu ga,well personal -thing COP-NOM COP(DIST) butWell it’s a personal matter but,

20 kare to wa, kono toki kara, issho ni jitsu wa,he with TOP this time from together as actually TOPshigoto o ya-tte-ru wake desu.work DO do-and-be situation COP(DIST)it’s actually since that time that I have worked together with him.

A final situation in which speakers were less likely to use the humble form waswhen they were interjecting their personal opinions using the phrase “I think.” Outof 106 total uses of the verb “think,” only 26 were in humble form. Speakers some-times used the non-humble form of “I think” even when humble forms were usedearlier in the phrase (e.g., examples 7 and 12). When the humble forms did appear, itwas often in the context of praise for the couple (example 3) or other speech acts thatare a conventionalized part of the wedding genre such as requests for the couple’sfuture (example 9) or congratulating the couple (example 18).

(18) Honored guest B19 hito koto o-iwai o mooshiage-tai to zonji-masu./

one word HP-congratulations DO say(H-) -want QT think(H-)-ADHONI think (H-) I would like to say (H-) a few words ofcongratulations.

It is certainly not the case that speakers always used humble forms of “think”when describing their opinions of the couple or performing speech acts such asrequesting and congratulating. When humble forms of “think” did appear, however,it was always in these contexts. This is further evidence that certain contexts makethe use of humble forms particularly likely and these include both praising the cou-ple and performing speech acts that are a conventionalized part of the weddingspeech genre.

Conclusions

The use of humble forms at wedding receptions is one aspect of a ceremonialspeech style frequently found in public celebrations of life events. This article hasdescribed several features of this style including the use of distal forms in both mainand subordinate clauses, degozaimasu and other very formal forms of the copula, sub-ject honorifics, and humble forms. The documentation of this style across a variety of different speakers and weddings provides a useful baseline for futurecomparison with other registers.

The article also described several pragmatic functions of the use of humble formswithin the context of wedding receptions. Wedding speakers use humble forms toexpress deference to, and hence elevate, both the couple and the audience. Thenorms of the wedding speech genre call for the use of referent honorifics for the brideand groom even by people who would normally be considered of higher status,demonstrating that honorific use can create as well as reflect social status, and thatsuch statuses may be situation specific.

Wedding speakers did not consistently use humble forms throughout their entirespeech, but rather shifted between the ceremonial speech style and a somewhat lessformal style. Although speakers engaged in style shifting to varying degrees, therewere certain commonalities in terms of when speakers were particularly likely to use or not use humble forms. Humble forms were most common when speakerswere engaging in speech acts that are a conventionalized part of the weddingspeaker role including congratulations, self-introductions, prayers or requests for the couple’s happiness, and so on. Outside of these conventionalized speech acts,


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there was considerably more individual variation in the use of humble forms andspeakers maintained the ceremonial speech style to varying degrees. Even speakerswho used high levels of humble forms throughout their speeches occasionallyshifted to non-humble forms to momentarily step out of the wedding speaker roleand interject a more personal commentary. Although different speakers varied intheir overall frequency of referent honorific use, they used humble (and non-humble) for similar pragmatic functions. The main difference among the speakerswas the extent to which they consistently remained within the wedding speaker rolethroughout their entire speech.

The analysis of actual discourse reveals a complexity of patterns of honorific usethat cannot be accounted for by traditional structural models. Although the basicfunction of honorifics is to index deference, speakers use this deference-expression(or its absence) to perform a variety of pragmatic functions in different discourse sit-uations. Understanding honorific use at this level requires us to move beyond nativespeaker intuitions and questionnaire data to examine honorific use in a variety ofnaturally occurring situations. The current analysis of the pragmatic functions ofhumble forms is situationally specific to wedding speeches and similar celebratoryspeech events. The pragmatic function of humble use in conversational contexts,customer-service interactions, and so on is likely to be somewhat different andrequires empirical investigation. Examining how speakers actually use honorificforms to accomplish socially meaningful action will require the analysis of actual dis-course in a variety of speech contexts by a variety of speakers. Attending to the com-plex patterns of honorific use in actual discourse will allow us to better understandhow speakers use these forms to negotiate social roles and relationships across awide variety of contexts.

Notes

Acknowledgments. Data collection was supported by grants from the National ScienceFoundation and the Japanese Association of University Women. Analysis and writing weresupported by Summer Research Grants from the College of Social and Behavioral Science andthe Graduate College of the University of Northern Iowa. I am grateful to Hidenori Fuji andYukiko Ebara for assistance with transcription and translation. I also thank the CSBS WritingGroup, the editor, and anonymous reviewers for helping me to clarify the argument. A por-tion of the analysis appeared previously as Dunn 2005.

1. Glossing: COP copula; DIST distal form; DO direct object; GEN genitive; H� humbleform; H� subject honorific; HP honorific prefix; HPOLITE hyperpolite; IP interactional parti-cle; NOM nominalizer; PAST past; PL plural; QT quotative; TI title; TOP topic marker.

2. This second type of referent honorifics has been variously termed object honorifics(Harada 1976; Shibatani 1990), nonsubject honorifics (Kuno 1987; Hamano 1993), or humbleforms (Jorden and Noda 1987; Mizutani and Mizutani 1987). Since my main focus is the contrast between the use and nonuse of these forms, I have chosen to use “humble” and “non-humble” as the most convenient way of referring to the distinction.

3. Agha (1993) cites Shils (1982) in distinguishing social status as the objective position of anindividual within the social structure from deference entitlement, which involves one person’scomportment toward another in specific interactions. Although both are ultimately sociallyconstructed, Agha makes the point that deference entitlements are more easily manipulatedby speakers than is social status.

4. Following Maynard 1989, / marks a pause-bounded phrasal unit. � is used when thereis no pause between lines. Punctuation is used to show intonation. �@ @� encloses segmentswhere the speaker was laughing. : indicates lengthening. Unclear segments are enclosed insingle parentheses while double parentheses are for transcriber comments.

5. Use of the humble o-Vstem-suru form is restricted to voluntary actions that are done to orfor the benefit of another person (Mori 1993; Matsumoto 1997). Therefore moeru (to burn)would not normally take the o-Vstem suru form. However, the speaker could have made thephrase humble by using a Vte orimasu form (rather than Vte-iru), using a humble form of“think,” or using the degozaimasu form of the copula. All three strategies are found elsewherein these data.


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6. In this and many of the following examples, the speaker frames what he or she is sayingas an aside, and it is noteworthy that many of the non-humble forms occur in subordinateclauses prior to conjunctions. However, humble forms can also occur in this position (e.g., example 3). Limiting the analysis to clauses describing the speaker, humble forms werefound in 60 percent of sentence-final clauses but in only 46 percent of clauses ending in con-junctions. Clauses ending in Vstem and Vte forms were 62 percent humble. Thus, the gram-matical form of the clause appears to have some conditioning effect on the use of humble forms.

7. There are two verbs in this example that appear in non-humble form for reasons unrelated to style shifting. The first is wakaru in line 48. As noted above, verbs describing nonvolitional states or actions normally do not take the o-Vstem suru form and the verb“understand” does not have a suppletive humble form. Similarly, in line 45 the phrasewatashigoto o chotto hasande (insert personal matters) does not have a human beneficiary andthe o-Vstem suru form would not be appropriate. However, in lines 45–47, the speaker couldhave used a ceremonial speech style by substituting phrases such as kyooshiku degozaimasu,miai itashimashite, and kekkon shite orimasu for the relevant predicates. Thus, the choice to usenon-humble forms of these phrases is meaningful.

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Pragmatic Functions of Humble Forms in Japanese Ceremonial Discourse

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