Another interesting report on crosscultural differences between Japanese and Americans from Kate Elwood's Cultural Conundrums column:
While there are no "open sesame" key expressions or approaches, if you will, to getting appropriate reparations when you feel something has been handled badly, and while much relies on the specifics of the situation, researchers have found some interesting differences in the execution of speech for complaints between Japanese and Americans. The applied linguist Yukiko Tokano asked Japanese students to write what they would say in both Japanese and English in nine complaint situations. Then she asked the American students to write in English what they would say in the same situations. The situations included those in which the speaker was of higher status than the hearer, those in which the speaker was of lower status, and those in which the speaker and hearer were of equal status.Tokano found that in situations in which the speaker of higher status, the Americans were much more likely to clarify the hearer's intention or situation, saying something like, "I'm wondering if you've made any progress on...," an off-record means of indicating responsibility on the part of the hearer. Almost twice as many Americans used this strategy as Japanese writing in Japanese and more than three times that of the Japanese writing in English. Generally, the Japanese writing in both languages was more direct when the speaker was of higher status.
When the hearer was of higher status, as well, about a quarter of the American respondents used the clarification strategy, while few in either Japanese group did. About the same percentage of the Americans also showed consideration, for example, by thanking the hearer for his or her help, a strategy which was also used by the same number of the Japanese writing in Japanese but which was used half as often by the Japanese writing in English. Even though the hearer was of higher status than the speaker, the Japanese in both groups still used a direct request for improvement of the situation often while fewer than half as many Americans did so.
When the two interlocutors were of equal status, all groups frequently asked for improvement directly, yet the Americans were nonetheless not as likely to do so. Here, too, the Americans preferred to clarify the hearer's intention or situation, with about a third using this strategy, slightly more than the Japanese writing in Japanese and three times as frequently as the Japanese writing in English.
As Tokano notes, these results are likely to surprise Japanese learners of English who often have an image of Americans as being very direct. However, the saying "You catch more flies with honey" seems to continue to operate as a basic policy of interaction in many American complaint situations. Tokano asked further follow-up questions of the respondents and found that the Japanese groups felt more hesitation to complain but at the same time wanted the problem fixed as quickly as possible in order to get beyond the uncomfortable situation.
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