The Chinese FA Test Responses

employed: ‘If you commit a crime, you will have a guilty’ (JP12). As observed in the case of the responses from the British participants, the more distant and unfamiliar a situation or offence is to the participants, the more abstract their descriptions and examples become, i.e. it is more difficult for them to specify the acts and situations with which they have little or no experience. Perhaps this is also why they only use I with non-criminal, less serious, and not necessarily morally related wrongdoings and situations. This may be understood as a means of distancing themselves from serious offences in order to avoid evaluation and negative appraisal by others.

To sum up, the Japanese responses describe and use the word guiltyboth in relation to being guilty of a criminal offence according to the law, as well as feeling ‘guilty’ of a non-criminal offence.

However, overall the Japanese participants understand and use guiltymostly to describe feelings in relation to non-criminal violations of (unwritten) social norms, though not moral ones. Therefore, the general understanding of the English word guilty by the Japanese participants can be summed up as follows: feeling bad or sorry for doing something which may affect other people in a negative way and which is condemned by the surrounding community. The situations that are described by means of guilty by the Japanese are mostly minor social and personal violations such as making mistakes, not completing one’s work on time, and eating too many snacks.

people or just yourself because you did something wrong’ (CN8), ‘Guilty can have several meanings. Firstly, the word “guilty” can mean someone has made mistakes or commit a crime. It also means that someone feels sorry for what he has done’ (CN9),

‘…or have made mistakes’ (CN11), ‘When I behave badly before many people and lose my face’ (CN12), ‘In my opinion, “guilty” means having done something wrong legally or morally, and it has the opposite meaning with “innocent”’ (CN13), ‘The feeling people have when they do things which don’t suit their own principles or hurt others’ (CN14), ‘It is a kind of feeling sorry, regretting’ (CN17), ‘Feeling sorry for someone about something you should not have done in the first place’ (CN19),

‘Somebody is responsible for a bad thing…’ (CN20), ‘Somebody does something bad’

(CN22), ‘Guilty is the feeling what when someone did something he or she feels it was wrong and they feel ashamed or regreted [regret]’ (CN23)

As can be seen from the responses above, being or feeling guilty about committing bad or wrong actions implies feeling sorry for committing the acts, i.e. a sense of regret and remorse. In line with the two other groups, the Chinese participants also use the word guilty in relation to criminal offences. Out of a total of 46 written responses, there are 15 references to being guilty of criminal offences divided evenly between the General Descriptions and the Examples. Compare the two types below:

‘Guilty can have several meanings. Firstly, the word “guilty” can mean someone has made mistakes or commit a crime’ (CN9), ‘Someone who has committed crimes…’

(CN11), ‘In my opinion, “guilty” means having done something wrong legally or morally and, it has the opposite meaning with “innocent”’ (CN13), ‘Guilty is doing something immoral or illegal’ (CN16), ‘Behaving illegally or immorally…’ (CN18),

‘Somebody is responsible for a bad thing, especially a crime’ (CN20), ‘Or he is accused of a crime’ (CN22),

‘The judge sentenced his guilty’ (CN7), ‘The boy felt guilty for the crime he has committed’ (CN9), ‘A murderer was caught by the police, and the evidence showed

that the murderer did killed a person. So the person was proved guilty’ (CN11), ‘John is guilty of stealing the money from the old lady’ (CN13), ‘He is proved guilty in court’ (CN18), ‘Jone is found guilty for the crime’ (CN20), ‘He was guilty because he had murdered his brother’ (CN22), ‘Out of a sense of guilty, the thief returned the ID card in the purse to Mr. Jones’ (CN23).

Although the descriptions above have been chosen solely on account of their reference to the word guiltyin relation to criminal offences, many of them also express an entirely different aspect which appears to be prevalent in the Chinese responses: the aspect of morality and principles:

‘If I do not obey my own principles, I will feel guilty’ (CN4), ‘A sense of sin, or a feeling of deplore’ (CN6), ‘…having done something wrong legally and morally…’

(CN13), ‘The feelings people have when they do things which don’t suit their own principles…’ (CN14), ‘When I do something [that] go against my conscience or social codes of conduct’ (CN15), ‘Guilty is doing something immoral or illegal’ (CN16),

‘Behaving illegally or immorally…’ (CN18), ‘Doing something that is against my conscience and my personal principle about life’ (CN21), ‘Guilty can be very deep and burning feelings….and may lead to confessions, a sequence of condempting [condemning] behaviors’ (CN23)

This emphasis on moral principles and conscience, public as well as personal, is something peculiar to the Chinese responses. Whereas both the British and Japanese data refer to ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’

actions, the Chinese refer directly to immoral behaviour and acts, as well as behaviours that go against personal principles. However, the fact that the two other groups do not explicitly specify their offences as immoral does not mean that the so-called bad and wrong actions – which the Chinese also mention – are not immoral. Nevertheless, it is striking that the aspect of (im)morality is directly addressed by many of the Chinese participants in their responses, and not at all by either the British or the Japanese. That being said, if we examine more closely what acts and situations the Chinese participants use as examples when they employ the word guilty in relation to committing immoral acts, or behaviour that goes against their personal (moral) principles, it appears that many

of the situations are in fact not so different from the examples of bad and wrong behaviour and situations given by the two other groups:

‘He should feel guilty because he slept with other woman’ (CN4), ‘John is guilty of stealing the money from the old lady’ (CN13), ‘If what I did hurts my friend’s feeling, I would use guilty’ (CN14), ‘It is guilty not to return the money found on the ground. I feel guilty when I cheat at the exam’ (CN15), ‘I feel guilty for cheating you’ (CN16),

‘I felt guilty after I had criticized her’ (CN18), ‘I don’t give the seat to an older lady in the bus’ (CN21)

It appears that there is a marginal difference in the acts considered to be immoral as compared with the offences that are merely wrong and bad. When describing guilty in relation to committing immoral offences, or not obeying one’s own principles, the examples given are: cheating on a partner, stealing money, not returning money found, cheating at an exam, criticising other people, and not offering one’s seat to the elderly. While some of these can definitely be viewed as moral transgressions, others may belong to the varied pool of social and cultural unwritten rules and norms. Nevertheless, many of the examples given when simply describing feeling or being guilty as a response to doing something wrong or bad, e.g. lying and stealing, are similar to the so-called moral transgressions. Though many of the actions and situations are similar or identical to the examples mentioned by the Japanese and British participants, these situations and actions are not described as immoral by the Japanese and British, but simply as wrong or bad actions. Except for a few immoral offences, such as cheating people and cheating at an exam, the examples appear mostly to be violations of social and cultural rules and norms. In fact, looking at the rest of the Examples given by the Chinese, i.e. when they do not refer specifically to immoral behaviour but merely to wrong and bad behaviour, it appears that there is no ostensible distinction between immoral and wrong or bad actions and behaviours:

‘I broke my friends glass, I feel guilty’ (CN2), ‘The doctor felt guilty as he failed to save the dying man’ (CN3), ‘When I blame innocent persons; when I have hurted [hurt] someone physically or psychologically (CN5), ‘He is full of guilty. His guilty is

so heavy’ (CN6), ‘For example, I make a mistake and this caused my friend to suffer from this result, and then I will feel very guilty for her’ (CN8), ‘I feel guilty because I have broken a glass’ (CN9), ‘In class I cannot answer the question while others all know the answer’ (CN12), ‘I feel guilty to waste food’ (CN17), ‘I feel guilty using up my sister’s makeup without telling her (CN19), ‘As a young baby as Sam, he feels guilty after pushing his sister to the floor’ (CN23)

In these examples, with no specific reference to morality, situations such as making mistakes, breaking glasses, and wasting food, are lumped together with more serious situations pertaining to life and death and hurting other people emotionally as well as physically. Furthermore, quite a few of the situations described in the Examples are in fact unintentional and not necessarily moral.

Thus, perhaps immorality is presumed to be a natural component of a wrongdoing whether it is intentional or not. Either way, compared to the other groups, the Chinese participants seem more concerned with morality.

The Chinese participants also use guiltyin combination with both feelingand being guilty, i.e. they refer to guilty both as an emotion as well as a characteristic personal feature. Although they use both collocations, the majority prefer feel guilty in 25 instances. These can be seen in the General Descriptions:

‘Guilty is a feeling…’ (CN1), ’If I did something wrong, I may feel guilty’ (CN2), If someone has done something wrong, he may feel guilty’ (CN3), ‘If I do not obey my own principles, I will feel guilty’ (CN4), ‘Guilty means that you feel very sorry…’

(CN8), ‘…someone feels sorry for what he has done’ (CN9), ‘Why are you feel guilty?’ (CN10), ‘The feeling people have…’ (CN14), ‘It is a kind of feeling of sorry…’ (CN17), ‘…or just feeling bad alone’ (CN18), ‘Feeling sorry for someone about something you should not have done…’ (CN19), ‘Guilty is the feeling…Guilty can be very deep and burning feelings…’ (CN23)

They can also be seen in the Examples:

‘I just lied to him and I feel really guilty’ (CN1), ‘I broke my friends glass, I feel guilty’ (CN2), ‘The doctor felt guilty as he failed to save the dying man’ (CN3), ‘He should feel guilty…’ (CN4), ‘…and then I will feel very guilty for her’ (CN8), ‘The boy felt guilty for the crime…’ (CN9), ‘I feel guilty because I have broken a glass’

(CN10), ‘I feel guilty when I cheat at the exam’ (CN15), ‘I feel guilty for cheating you’ (CN16), ‘I feel guilty to waste food’ (CN17), ‘I felt guilty after I had criticized her’ (CN18), ‘I feel guilty using up my sister’s makeup…’(CN19), ‘…he feels guilt after pushing his sister…you don’t have to feel guilty…’ (CN23).

As can be seen from these examples, most of the uses of feel guiltyoccur in combination with I. By contrast, the responses that include guiltyas a descriptor, i.e. is guilty, mostly useheas the subject:

‘He is full of guilty. His guilty is so heavy’ (CN7), ‘John is guilty of stealing money…’ (CN13), ‘It is guilty not to return the money found on the ground’ (CN15),

‘Guilty is doing something immoral or illegal’ (CN16), ‘He was guilty because he had murdered his brother’ (CN22),

It is worth noting that, similar to the Japanese, the Chinese also refer to the offence itself – rather than the offender – as being guilty. However, by carrying out the guilty act the person also becomes guilty.

With regard to the use of the personal pronoun I, the Chinese participants combine it with feeling or being guilty much more frequently than do the two other groups. In the General Descriptions there are 12 instances of the pronouns someone,somebody,you, and they, and five instances of I:

‘If I did something, I may feel guilty’ (CN2), ‘If I do not obey my own principles, I will feel guilty’ (CN3), ‘When I behave badly before many people and lose my face’

(CN12), ‘When I do something go against my conscience or social codes of conduct’

(CN15), ‘Doing something that is against my conscience and my personal principle about life’ (CN21)⁹

In the Examples there are no fewer than 13 instances of the use of I:

‘I just lied to him and I feel really guilty’ (CN1), ‘I broke my friends glass, I feel guilty’ (CN2), ‘…when I have hurted [hurt] someone physically or psychologically’

(CN5), ‘For example, I make mistake and this cause my friend to suffer from this result, and then I will feel very guilty for her’ (CN8), ‘I feel guilty because I have broken a glass’ (CN10), ‘In class, I cannot answer the question while others all know the answer’ (CN12), ‘If what I did hurt my friend’s feeling, I would use guilty’

(CN14), ‘I feel guilty when I cheat at the exam’ (CN15), ‘I feel guilty for cheating you’ (CN16), ‘It feel guilty to waste food’ (CN17), ‘I feel guilty after I had criticised her’ (CN18), ‘I feel guilty using up my sister’s makeup without telling her’ (CN19), ‘I don’t give the seat to an older lady in the bus’ (CN21).

The Chinese participants use I in combination with non-criminal, relatively trivial and harmless offences that do not involve other people, such as breaking a glass, not knowing the answer to questions, wasting food, cheating at an exam, etc. However, unlike the other groups, the Chinese also include situations and offences which affect other people and can be said to be immoral and go against social codes of conduct, e.g. lying, hurting others physically and psychologically, cheating others, using other people’s things without asking, criticising other people, and not offering a seat to the elderly. Based on this, it seems that the Chinese participants are not afraid of associating themselves with immoral and antisocial behaviour. Nevertheless, the responses containing examples with actual criminal offences are still without I (see that paragraph above for quotes pertaining to criminal behaviour only).

To sum up, according to the FA test, the Chinese participants understand and use the word guiltyin relation to committing immoral, wrong, bad, and illegal actions that hurt other people and which

9Though the participant does not specifically write I, the use of the phrase my conscience and my personal principle

they regret committing. As can be seen above, the situations in which the Chinese participants use the word guiltyare quite varied, and cover everything from breaking a glass to cheating on people, and that is excluding all the criminal offences such as stealing and murdering people.