Politeness Strategies in Japanese and Hungarian: Thanking and Apologizing

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine how thanking and apologizing works in Hungarian and in Japanese through the Universal Politeness Theory of Brown and Levinson. The paper explains both Japanese and Hungarian politeness, i.e. keigo and tegeződés & magázódás, accordingly, by providing examples and using other sources besides the theory. Then, a comparison takes place between the two languages with the aspect of arguing that apologizing appears in Hungarian as a form of thanking, as well. This will be compared to how this phenomenon manifests in Japanese.