A Comparison of Chinese and Japanese Consolation Behaviors

—An Analysis of Consolatory Speech Acts against Interlocutor Suffering Unfortunate Things—

Abstract

In cross-cultural communications, aside from grammar and pronunciation, the influence of cultural background also causes misunderstandings. For smooth communications, it is important for Japanese language learners and native speakers of Japanese to understand not only each other's language specifications, but also socio-cultural norms.

In this paper, we carried out a comparative analysis of different consolation behaviors between Chinese and Japanese. The results show that Chinese learners of Japanese pay more attention to unknown information request, encouragement, advice, and short phrase. On the other hand, Japanese pay more attention to information confirmation, empathy, and narration.

Considering the influences of different socio-cultural factors, the Chinese learners prefer the positive face and actively give suggestions and adopt positive politeness strategies. Whereas, the native speakers of Japanese prefer the negative face, adopt negative politeness strategies without imposing on the interlocutor's position.