Abstract
The politeness of honorific expressions is expressed not only through portions of the utterance such as honorific word forms, but also through structural elements of the complete utterance. In order to quantify the politeness of utterances, we must consider their complete structure and honorific functions irrespective of length, style, or number of sentences. In honorific expressions in current Japanese, if elements with a high level of politeness are used, other elements tend to be interpreted as plite forms for the conformity of the complete utterance. In the present research, a methodology combining the number of elements functioning as polite expressions with the total number of structural elements of the utterance was employed to quantify the politeness of an utterance. Also, categorical regression analyses of social factors(such as personal differences)related to politeness were performed.
