A comparative study on the gratitude expressions of japanese and korean college students

Abstract

This study surveyed gratitude expressions used by Korean and Japanese college students, with the goal of analyzing differences and their causes between the two groups. Three results were obtained from the study. First, the vast majority of Korean college students felt gratitude (77.3%) when a more senior college student helped them. In such a case, they used the gratitude expression “gomaweoyo (thank you)” type. Further, 56.8% of the Japanese college students felt gratitude and 30% of them felt sorry for the situation. The expressions of gratitude used in association with these emotions were the “arigatou (thank you)” type and “mousiwakenai (I’m sorry)” type, respectively. These results indicate that the Japanese college students feel a significant sense of “apology” toward the person from whom they receive assistance. Second, the Korean college students routinely used the gratitude expression “sada (to buy)” type, in the context of telling their helper that they will “buy” a meal or coffee (tea) in return for the assistance. In contrast, the Japanese college students did not use the equivalent expression, “ogoru (to buy)” type to express gratitude for help. Third, only 1.3% of the Korean college students thought that they had inconvenienced their helper, but a significantly higher proportion of the Japanese college students (10.1%) thought they did.