Politeness in Sign Expressions: A Comparison of English, German, and Japanese

金沢大学人間社会研究域経済学経営学系The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to compare functionally equivalent English, German, and Japanese sign expressions in public spaces with respect to politeness and (2) to reveal whether and how politeness is formulated in sign expressions in each language in relation to explicitness. A total of 208 Japanese and 198 German sign expressions were collected through fieldwork. Among them, 35 functionally equivalent correspondence pairs between the two languages were confirmed, and they were compared, along with their English equivalents, with respect to politeness. The results showed that English signs tend to use explicit expressions, whereas Japanese signs frequently contain honorific items, and German signs use infinitive phrases to avoid mentioning personal relationships. Based on these findings, it is pointed out that each language has its preferred styles of politeness, even for sign expressions, which are expected to give relevant information or instructions to passengers in a clear, direct manner