The use of honorifics in Japanese disaster warnings on social media

What is it about?

This study examines the social meanings of Japanese honorifics when they are used in disaster warnings that are disseminated by local authorities on social media. While some researchers claim the use of honorifics is a linguistic strategy that fulfills the addressee's desire to be unimpeded (Brown & Levinson, 1987), why are honorific request constructions used in Japanese disaster warnings? Given that social media is now an indispensable channel of communication, the current study takes a usage-based analysis to examine the honorific request constructions in Japanese disaster warnings on Twitter (now rebranded to X). The current study found two honorific request constructions, Verb-te kudasai and O-Verb kudasai constructions, to be dominant directives used in call-to-action statements in the disaster warnings that are disseminated by Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Twitter between January 2017 and May 2019. Furthermore, discourse analysis of the warnings with the honorific request constructions found the two constructions signaling different level of severity of the impending threats based on co-occurring contextual features, such as the label of the tweet (i.e., "weather information" or "announcement"), the specific safety instructions, and the mention of the time frame to be on alert.

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Photo by Jonathan Ford on Unsplash

Photo by Jonathan Ford on Unsplash

Why is it important?

What makes the current study unique is that it uses corpus and discourse analysis to examine language use within the discourse context of disaster warnings on social media. Along with the corpus analysis of the frequency of specific forms of directives in disaster warnings, a close examination of the interactional context demonstrates the use of honorifics as an index of institutional voice. In other words, the use of honorifics appeared to be used to gain public trust by marking the warning sender's social role as a public institution within the interactional context on Twitter. Thus, the findings of this study demonstrate the use of honorifics, marking other social meanings beyond the "avoidance-based" negative politeness strategy in a digitally mediated discourse context. While warning compliance is a pressing issue in emergency management, this study demonstrates the use of two honorific request constructions creating different social realities within the context of natural disasters by marking different degrees of severity of the impending threat. The findings contribute to our knowledge of warnings that frame urgency in public discourse.