This thesis aims to provide a simple comparison between Slovene and Japanese in expressing politeness in language. I wished to find differences and similarities in how and when politeness is expressed, and how such differences had been transposed in the target language. I compared articles, textbooks, and manuals about politeness for both languages. I further analysed the original and the translation of the novels Noruee no mori (Norwegian Wood) by Murakami Haruki and Hlapec Jernej in njegova pravica (The Bailiff Yerney and His Rights) by Ivan Cankar. In both languages, similar strategies are used with demands, requests or invitations, which lessen the speaker’s imposition and leave the addressee more freedom. In Japanese, potential forms are not common in such context, while in Slovene there are fewer denial forms. In both languages, the use of politeness is influenced by status, age, acquaintance, and gender. In Japanese, respect can be expressed only to the referent. I predicted that the Japanese have several ways of expressing politeness and respect, that allow them to form sentences of various degrees of politeness, which, however, are translated into Slovene in the same way. This was confirmed. I further anticipated that, as a result, translators would have to choose various other strategies to convey greater deference. I could not confirm this, as the translators in the selected works mostly adjusted the level of courtesy to domestic use, which in Slovene does not provide for as many differences in levels of courtesy. Thus, the same level of courtesy is maintained in both replicas (the V form, i.e., vikanje) or a distinction is made between formal and informal forms (the formal V form, i.e., vikanje, and the informal T form, i.e., tikanje).
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