Sociological concepts and their impact on rhetoric: Japanese language concepts

Communication principles are culturally determined and are, without doubt, omnipresent in every dialogue. In some languages, these culturally determined principles can directly be linked to sociocultural concepts. These concepts are wellelaborated in Japan. In this article, I shall emphasize three concepts: harmony as the communication ideal, visceral communication and intuitive understanding (concept of haragei and inshin denshin), and the different roles of the individual depending on social distance honne (private, true self) vs. tatemae (official, mask).

Published online: 09 October 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.2.16gre