Developing understanding of how the desu/masu and plain forms express one's stance

Developing effective interactional skills in a foreign language (FL) entails developing the ability to express one's stance by selecting linguistic resources in the target language (TL), and it is crucial that the outcome of this selection is socially acceptable and mutually identifiable to both the learner him/herself and the members of the TL community (Yoshimi, 2004). According to Ochs (1996), "stance" is "a socially recognized point of view or attitude" (p. 288) and includes epistemic attitudes, e.g., one's degree of un/certainty about some proposition (Chafe & Nichols, 1986), and affective attitudes, e.g., one's mood, feeling or disposition (Ochs, 1996). Displaying stance is a crucial resource in the social construction of a range of dimensions of one's social personae, including social status, social role, and interpersonal relationship. However, as Ochs (1996) discusses in her Local Culture Principle, the ways in which stance is displayed varies from community to community. That is, the ways in which language is used to index stance are closely tied to the local cultural expectations and preferences concerning the stance to be displayed. Thus, a stranger to a particular community or a FL learner entering a new community would need to be aware of such local cultural expectations and preferences and the kinds of social personae associated with particular stances in order to accurately convey his or her point of view or attitude to other members of that community. For instance, while expressing a less formal stance by calling a professor by his or her first name in a graduate school setting may be allowed in the U.S., it is expected that a professor in a Japanese setting is to be called by his or her last name with the title sensei attached, otherwise the student would be viewed as rude by not paying the expected respect. Thus, when an American learner of Japanese enters a Japanese graduate school community, he or she needs to be aware of such expectations and discover other ways in which a less formal stance could be expressed to a professor in Japanese.