I don’t think English has any way of speaking formally that is at all similar to the huge dichotomy found in Japanese. It’s pretty much all informal; although you can speak more or less politely (and some dialects are considered more formal), there’s just not that big of a difference, overall.
…thou hast used the English equivalent of a formal form in thy own post. IANA linguist, but my understanding is that English used to have both a formal and informal 2nd person, just like the Romance languages. “Thee/thou/thy/thine” was informal/singular, and “you/you/your/yours” was formal/plural. The two had different verb conjugations (e.g. have/hast) and everything. This died out some time in the 18th century, I believe.
The way it worked then (and the way it still works today in Romance languages like French) was that if you were familiar enough with a person to use his first name, you’d call him “thee.” If you on only a last-name basis with him, or if you were addressing multiple people, you would use “you.”
So if you’re ever trying to sound more formal around the Queen, don’t refer to her as “thee,” no matter how tempting it may be.
I’ve studied a little bit of Japanese independently, and no - the English language doesn’t have the same explicit concept of formal vs. informal as Japanese does. Implicit, yes - formal and informal language in both depends on the circumstances and who you’re talking to; for instance you wouldn’t say “Yo Lizzie, what up beeyotch?” were you to find yourself in an audience with the queen of England, nor would you use the Japanese equivalent in front of Aikihito. But in Japanese, it’s essentially a set of synonyms - words that mean the exact same thing but are only used in certain circumstances, depending on whether you perceive yourself to be part of the listener’s social grouping, and whether or not the listener is of the same social status as yourself.
Fluent/native Japanese speakers, I await your corrections.
Not really, not in the sense of a fundamental language change - the main difference between formal and informal as you might think of it in English is one of the vocabulary set used.
I can’t speak of Japanese, but in Spanish the “formal” or “polite” address is the equivalent of using the third-person singular to address someone (literally a short form of “your highness”) instead of the second-person (“you”). This is something we definitely don’t do in English, and I always feel a little awkward using it even though I know it is the more accepted way of speaking to adult strangers, and even friends and family if they are not intimate relations.
Japanese is different from English in two respects. As others have pointed out, the different levels of language is formalized, and it has multiple forms (keigo: sonkeigo, kensongo and teineigo). So, for instance, you have one form of a verb for casual use, one for polite, and yet another to indicate social status (either to minimize your level or elevate theirs). When you begin learning Japanese, you are generally taught the “-masu” form of verbs, because it’s polite enough to be broadly useful (and Japanese would probably not be offended by inappropriate use of that form by foreigners).
To use an example:
nomu - plain form of the verb “drink” nomimasu - polite form meshi-agaru - sonkeigo form itadaku - teineigo form
Similarly, nouns and adjectives are often prefixed with o- or go- to indicate politeness (this is more commonly used by women more casual situations, but is always appropriate in situations where politeness is expected). For example, you might ask a close friend genki desu-ka (“Are you well?”), but you would ask a business colleague o-genki desu-ka.
Hmmm… a lot of that’s probably not all that relevant to what the OP was asking, but now that I’ve typed it, I’ll leave it.
Cerowyn, I think you’ve actually hit the nail on the head. If English had the same concept of formality, the language would probably look something like this:
To a friend: “You want something to chug?”
To a co-worker: “Do you want something to quaff?”
To the boss: “Do you want something to drink?”
To a person of more elevated social status: “Do you want something to imbibe?”
…where using “imbibe” with your buddies would not just sound affected and odd, but make you sound like you were completely debasing yourself before them.
The closest thing we have in English, IMO, is business-speak. We’re developing an equivalent set of vocabulary (substituting ‘reach out’ for ‘contact’, as an example example) that adds no information except creating an atmosphere of increased formality.
I don’t know as it’s formality they’re creating rather than jargon. If it became universal in English to the point where “reach out” was used solely in one set of social circumstances (regardless of environment) and “contact” in another (again regardless of environment) then you’d have a point. The case you’re making is the reverse - it’s used solely in one environment regardless of social circumstances.
Actually we do have formal language in, British English at least. The difference is that we don’t have defined boxes containing the decreed language for specific situations but a range of language along a cline and the individual can decide which form/word to use. More and more people go for the more relaxed version.
Take Olentzero’s examples - I’d change more than just lexical items. If we change the direct “present simple” of “Do you want …?” to the hypothetical “conditional” form of “Would you like … ?” we implicate a distance or respect.
“Could” is seen as being more polite than “Can”.
“Would you mind …” than “Do you mind …”
etc.
Also IMHO our lack of the formal and informal “you” forms leads to the gymnastics of a particularly “British” way of speaking to avoid possible offence if you’re too direct - hence “I’m afraid I quite didn’t understand …” “Could I just ask if …?” “He’s not very tall” “I wanted to ask if you could … ?”
True enough. I suspect Japanese does the same thing; I was just providing a rough example for illustration. If Cerowyn is still reading this, however, I would like to see how Japanese would phrase the offer “Do you want something to drink?” in the four forms. Does just “drink” change as shown, or do other elements of the sentence change as well?
but isn’t there a difference between English “formal speech” and Japanese “FORMAL SPEECH” ?(which is almost a separate language)
In England, you might sound somewhat awkward, but you would not be totally disdained, for saying “do you want” instead of “Would you like”.
Apparently in Japan you would be destroying your career if you use the wrong dialect
Yes as I said in the first line of my previous post
“The difference is that we don’t have defined boxes containing the decreed language for specific situations but a range of language along a cline and the individual can decide which form/word to use.”
Added to which English style (English here meaning the language rather than the national adjective) is not unified across the different populations and cultires which use the language. In some areas you will get a bad reaction and be seen as pompous if you sound too formal.
Japanese honorifics are mainly about substituting the correct verb, but nouns are also modified by prefixing them with o- or go- (depending on the spelling). The prefixing seems so simple as to be insiginificant, but is unbelievably effective in softening a statement. In fact, some words require softening in almost every situation… o-tearai (toilet), for example.
As a side note, keigo verbs do not depend on the conditional to achieve politeness; i.e. in Japanese it is not necessary to say “would you like” to express politeness as we must in English. In Japanese it’s adequate to employ the correct verb, which may be expressed in whatever tense is necessary to communicate the meaning. Of course, it’s generally considered polite to add an indirect or counterfactual component, which is well-suited to conditional, but that is more a matter of style rather than protocol or grammar.
Don’t know if they are along the same line or not but Spanish has formal and informal forms.
¿Como esta usted?
¿Como estas tu?
Both translate to English as “How are you?’ The first form is the formal, used when meeting strangers or addressing people such as teachers and doctors, in formal business meetings, etc. The second is used with friends and family.
I learned a little Spanish while living in Mexico for a couple of years. I once made the mistake (after knowing her for several months) of addressing my girlfriend’s mother using the “usted” form and it was a very big deal … seems she thought it meant I didn’t think of her as, uh, “close” or something … she was very upset.