The main purpose of the thesis is to explore the characteristics of politeness which are conveyed by the use of Japanese honorific forms (i.e honorific politeness). The perspective of the research is as follows: 1) the concept of politeness is regarded as being wider in scope than in major past studies of linguistic politeness in the West (e.g Leech 1983); 2) unlike many past studies of politeness related to Japanese honorific fonns, the research attempts to study the social effect of the use of an honorific form rather than the grammatical or semantic properties of such forms; 3) the analysis of honorific politeness is based on the findings about the mechanism by which honorific politeness mitigates discomfitlrre, and on the metalinguistic evaluations of honorific forms made by native speakers. Results from a questionnaire, which investigated the types of discomfiture which result from various kinds of inappropriate linguistic behaviom, suggested that the lise of an honorific form can mitigate two main types of discomfitme, which differ in degree of seriousness, depending on the social features of the situation in which the use occms. It is pointed out that the mitigation of either type of discomfiture should be regarded as flowing from a common type of linguistic choice, that is, compliance with a social nom1 goveming the appropriate use oflanguage in different kinds of communication situations, i.e. register rules. Furthermore, based on observations of the use of linguistic forms other than honorific ones, it is argued that honorific forms are one of many linguistic devices for realizing register differences, i.e. register markers. Results from the other questionnaire, which probed native speaker's evaluation of different types of language use for the communication of politeness, indicate that native speakers tend to place special aesthetic value on honorific forms and their use, independently of the seriousness of the discomfiture they can mitigate. Based on an analysis of the background to this tendency, it is argued that the value can be appropriately regarded as sharing many properties with the value which language users place on a certain part of register markers in a diglossic conmmunity. It is thus concluded that honorific politeness is a form of diglossia.

Spoken and written data were analysed to examine the use of first person pronouns (1PP) in Japanese by non-native speakers (NNS), and then compared to 1PP use by native speakers (NS). For English NS who are used to obligatory subjects in their L1, Japanese 1PP poses challenges since Japanese 1PP are used rarely by NS and often brought about by pragmatic motivations. The results indicated that NNS initially overuse 1PP but their frequency of use becomes closer to that of NS over time. When looking at the postpositional particles used, similarities existed between NNS and NS in the written data. However, NNS in the spoken data more closely resembled the written NS data than the spoken data when marking the subject or topic. It was also found that NNS most often used 1PP for emphasis in the written data and for referential reasons in the spoken. / Japanese Language and Linguistics

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of English, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-154).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Birgit Harley.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lunds universitet, April 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-219).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio State University, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 322-336). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1994. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Terry Orr. Dissertation Committee: Frank L. Smith. Includes tables. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-169).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45-51).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1990.