| In order examine how advanced learners of Japanese realize the Japanese honorific system in an actual conversation, the present study focuses on their use of polite and non-polite forms. The study aims at exploring the actual effect of these usages by learners, but not limited to viewing them from a traditional perspective, which emphasizes the level of politeness at a sentence level, but by investigating characteristic discourse features in Japanese such as speech level. The study employs a case study methodology within a qualitative research framework. The participants, who are advanced learners of Japanese, conversed with a native Japanese speaker who is a stranger to them. Results from the study show deviations from the Japanese norm, but they also suggest that learners may have their own value system and employ it in conversation with Japanese. Some implications for cross-cultural communication and language teaching are drawn from these findings. |
