A study of communication : Application for academic Japanese

This research shows that role-playing alone is not enough for students to learn the basic honorific expression skills that are needed in the workplace. In my study of university students, I looked at the usage of Japanese honorific expressions by a group of 39 Native speakers (NS) and 52 Non-native speakers (NNS). Overall, I found 55% of NS and 78% of NNS making mistakes in their usage of honorific expressions. Common mistakes made by NS include (1) the redundant use of respect forms and (2) the use of humble forms as respect forms. Common mistakes made by NNS include (l) the use of humble form (‘o～suru’) as respect form, (2) use of humble prefixes (such as ‘o～’, as in ‘omeni kakaru’) as respect forms, (3) use of formal expressions, and (4) use of direct expressions rather than indirect expressions. I found a particularly high error rate (83%) by NNS for the expressions ‘ii desu’ and ‘kekkou desu’. Essentially, these expressions mean “that's enough” or “I'm Ok. ” Japanese language instructors usually teach this basic meaning. However, based on this research, I believe that instructors need to use both oral and written expressions in classroom instruction so that NNS will become more adapt at using polite expressions suitable for communication in business situations