Manual keigo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Manual keigo (マニュアル敬語?), is a controversial form of honorifics (keigo) in the Japanese language. Employers such as fast-food and convenience-store chains publish training manuals for employees, especially young part-timers who have little experience with honorifics. These manuals incorporate nonstandard formulas for servers and cashiers to use when addressing customers, most often by using alternate expression which are longer and vaguer than the standard expression, which is mistakenly thought to be more polite. Manual keigo opposed by language purists on the grounds that keigo has fixed, unchangable grammatical constructions.

Other terms for the same phenomenon include "part-timer's (baito) keigo," "convenience-store keigo," and "family-restaurant keigo."

Contents

[edit] Forms

[edit] X no hō wa/ga

The use of X no hō wa originally refers to direction. In a constracting sentence it is used to express preference to one thing instead of another. (Example: X yori Y no hō ga suki da. ("More than X, [I] like Y.") In baito keigo, X no hō wa/ga is used to refer to the way to a seat (which is technically correct usage because it refers to the seat's direction) and also to refer to customer's preference between several options. (Example: gamushiroppu no hō ga ikaga desu ka? ("as for gum syrup, how about [it]?") The latter usage is disputed because instead of X no hō wa/ga, the particle wa in X wa has the standard meaning of "as for X."

[edit] X ni narimasu

The use of X ni narimasu (X is a noun) to mean desu is manual keigo. For example, in a restaurant, a server brings the customer's food and says ebi doria ni narimasu. Here, the meaning is simply ebi doria desu ("[this] is shrimp doria") rather than ("[this] becomes shrimp doria"). Opponents argue ni narimasu as a substitute for desu is obsolete in modern Japanese. Additionally, in modern Japanese narimasu is a polite construction for the verb naru, meaning "to become," but nothing in X ni narimasu is transforming or becoming something else.

[edit] X kara

Cashiers frequently accept a sum of money from a customer and acknowledge receipt by saying, for example, ichi man en kara oazukari shimasu . This use of the form X kara is a form of manual keigo, as kara means "from", thus causing the sentence to mean "[I] temporarily take into custody from 10,000 yen." The proper form is "ichi man en o chōdai shimasu," as chōdai shimasu is the standard, humble expression for accepting money. ichi man en o itadakimasu ("[I] humbly accept 10,000 yen") is also used.

[edit] Oazukari shimasu

In accepting money from a customer, oazukari shimasu is also nonstandard keigo. The verb azukaru implies that the recipient will return the thing he or she received, but cashiers do not return the total to customers. The proper form is x en wo chōdai shimasu.

[edit] Irrashaimase konnichi wa

The double greeting is a form of manual keigo, as is the evening pattern irrashaimase konban wa. It sounds like "welcomegoodafternoon" or "welcomegoodevening." Irrashaimase is the proper greeting.

[edit] Otsugi no okyaku-sama

"[The] honorable next honorable customer" is also nonstandard keigo. Purists maintain non-polite words can not be indiscriminately made polite by merely adding o or go(both prefixes meaning "honorable.") Although okyaku-sama (literally "Mr. Honorable Customer") is an accepted form of address of respect to a customer, adding o to tsugi ("next") is baito keigo. Likewise, "[name of food ordered] + no okyaku-sama" (example: ebi doria no okyaku-sama ("shrimp doria customer")) is disputed because the customer is not literally shrimp doria.

[edit] Sources

[edit] Further reading

  • "Sono baito keigo wa yamenasai" (Satoko Kobayashi, ed.) Nikkei Publishing 2004[1]
  • "The Use of "Baitokeigo" on Part-time Jobs by Young People : State of Mind of Speakers and Impression of Listeners" (Shin Horasawa and Eriko Oka) Bulletin of the Faculty of Regional Studies, Gifu University vol. 19 pp. 1–31[2]
Languages