The behavior of talking about “class” is the specialty of “adults” (“elderly” and “senior citizen” characters) living in the mundane world, but it is not typical for “children” (“baby” and “youth” characters). Besides “class,” “children” are not very good at expressing judgments on things in general.

In the Japanese-speaking community, the behavior of “expressing a judgment” is basically the purview of people of high “status.”

For example, a higher ranked employee might say “Tanaka, you work fast,” thus expressing a judgment about his/her underling’s (Tanaka’s) abilities. However, in Japan it would be considered rude for underlings to express a judgment about their superior’s abilities ――“Boss, you work fast”―― even if this judgment is positive. (Take heed, all you newly employed corporate drones.) Similarly, Japanese professors are not comforted when a foreign student says to them, “Your class was very good, professor,” because they aren’t accustomed to students, whose “status” is presumed to be low, offering a judgment.

On the other hand, things are completely different if these same things are said out of an emotional response: “Boss, you work fast!” “Your class was very good, professor!” “Emotional responses” from people of low “status” are not a problem. While characters with high status, such as “God” or Golgo 13(1), do not have “emotional responses,” such responses are the specialty of the low “status” character. An “emotional response” is not merely a strongly positive “judgment,” as “judgments” and “emotional responses” are separate verbal behaviors.

Let us imagine that in judo, there are technically two, not one, components to a throw――grabbing the opponent’s arm, and flipping the opponent over your back. Are these two actions components of a single technique, or are they separate techniques? Making a judgment on this would provide us a hint on what makes a “good judoka” or “poor judoka.” Insofar as there are many judoka who are good at one component of throwing down an opponent, but not at the other, these appear to be two separate techniques. “Judgments” and “emotional responses” are similar in that they are verbal behaviors that are considered to be separate. The acts of thinking about verbal characters and thinking about verbal behaviors have a close relationship.

The inability of a character whose “status” is low to pronounce judgments can be seen in not just the verbal characters discussed above, but also in expression characters. Consider:

“The participants smacked their lips as they ate the chef’s vaunted dessert.”

“The audience listened to the singer’s transparent voice with half-closed eyes.”

These sentences are not particularly unnatural, but what if we replaced “participants” and “audience” with “children” and “grade-schoolers?”

“The children smacked their lips as they ate the chef’s vaunted dessert.”

“The grade-schoolers listened to the singer’s transparent voice with half-closed eyes.”

Whoa! Are you kids a bunch of old men? The sentences sound unnatural. It is impossible to explain this unnaturalness on the level of “reality,” for example, by claiming that unlike adults, children do not smack their lips, or listen to music with their eyes half closed. In fact, very few adults make an audible smacking sound when eating a delicious food, and not many but some children probably half-close their eyes while listening to music.

It’s fairly common. In rather low priority press coverage of certain events, journalists use various conventions to say “everyone enjoyed themselves a lot.” At an exhibition of Heian furnishings, they might say “the sightseers nostalgically thought about the distant Heian era.” At the public opening of some ancient ruins, they might say “the visitors were intoxicated by the romance of the past.” These are conventional embellishments. They are the kind of sentence we want to address though. Thus, we cannot explain on the level of “reality” the naturalness or unnaturalness of these sentences, but rather on the level of “convention.” Adults smack their lips or half-close their eyes. Children normally have low status, and by convention do not do these things. These “conventions” have been embellished by the mass media, and in essence have become a part of our consciousness.

So, smacking one’s lips or half-closing one’s eyes are “judgmental” behaviors, in which something is being calmly experienced, while more “emotional responses,” such as “jumping for joy” are completely fine for elementary school students.

“The grade-schoolers jumped for joy at the chef’s vaunted dessert.”

So long as everyone was visibly happy, it is fine to say this even if nobody actually physically jumped. This is a conventional expression, you see.

*　*　*