Sensei - Usage With Negative Connotations

Usage With Negative Connotations

Sensei can also be used with negative connotations. Sometimes enthusiastic supporters and admirers use it fawningly, as when addressing or talking about charismatic business, political, and spiritual leaders. Japanese speakers are particularly sensitive to this usage when it concerns members of an in-group who spontaneously associate or identify sensei with a particular person—many if not most Japanese speakers readily see this usage as indicative of adherents speaking of a charismatic spiritual or cult leader. When talking about such situations, Japanese speakers will sometimes use the term sarcastically to ridicule overblown adulation, and the Japanese media frequently invoke it to highlight the megalomania of those who allow themselves to be addressed in this manner. In speech, a sarcastic sensei is intoned for emphasis, whereas in print it is rendered in katakana, akin to scare quotes or italics in English.