TENSE IN JAPANESE THANKS. A comparison between the 1970s and 2021

Abstract

In this study, we compare how the two expressions arigatou gozaimasu (present tense) and arigatou gozaimashita (past tense) are used during sessions of the Diet of Japan in the 1970s and in 2021. We find that usage, apart from having generally increased, has shifted from predominantly past tense to mainly present tense. This shift is mostly resisted in the case where an expression of thanks is accompanied by an explicitly voiced desire to end a conversation or a topic. We believe that this is caused by Japanese people understanding the use of the past tense as a form of ending marker. In all other situations, we observe a substantial influence of personal preference on the choice of tense, which may or may not be caused by demographic factors. In consequence, we urge that future research use sample sizes large enough to avoid spurious results caused by an unfortunate selection of samples.