Are honorifics used for addressees and referents as well all the time?

Will you come to the meeting?
会議にいらっしゃいますか？
Both addressee and referent honorifics can be used simultaneously, can't they?
When the addressee and the referent are the same person the honorific verb is used anyway, isn't it?

Somewhere in a textbook it says that honorific verbs are special verbs used to show respect to the REFERENT. However I've come across examples used towards the addressees, such as お元気でいらっしゃいますか (How are you?). So they are used for both in all circumstances, aren' t they?

Is it possible or is there any chance that Japanese speaking people speak to one another or each other with honorific expressions when they share the same high status such as teacher to teacher or doctor to doctor? I guess that polite form would suffice, but please comment.

Would one refer to people worthy of such respect from our (speaker's) point of view or addressee's point of view with honorific expressions? I'm thinking of something like mother talking to her children refers to her husband as お父さん. So would one talking to their colleagues refer to their boss with honorific terms?

healer said:

Will you come to the meeting?
会議にいらっしゃいますか？
Both addressee and referent honorifics can be used simultaneously, can't they?
When the addressee and the referent are the same person the honorific verb is used anyway, isn't it?

Somewhere in a textbook it says that honorific verbs are special verbs used to show respect to the REFERENT. However I've come across examples used towards the addressees, such as お元気でいらっしゃいますか (How are you?). So they are used for both in all circumstances, aren' t they?

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When the speaker shows their respect only to the referent, and not to the one they are talking to, non-polite form of honorific verbs is used.
e.g.
お父さんはお元気でいらっしゃる？
(Think about a situation where you are asking a child about their father's condition.)

healer said:

Is it possible or is there any chance that Japanese speaking people speak to one another or each other with honorific expressions when they share the same high status such as teacher to teacher or doctor to doctor? I guess that polite form would suffice, but please comment.

Click to expand...

The form is decided by the relation between the two people, as same as people in general. If they are close friends, casual forms are used, and if they don't know each other, honorifics or polite forms are used.

healer said:

Would one refer to people worthy of such respect from our (speaker's) point of view or addressee's point of view with honorific expressions? I'm thinking of something like mother talking to her children refers to her husband as お父さん. So would one talking to their colleagues refer to their boss with honorific terms?

Click to expand...

It differs depending on the situation. For instance, honorifics are used in a formal meeting, honorific or polite forms are used in their office where other people might hear their conversation, but casual forms and even just the name without honorific titles (e.g. just 田中 instead of 田中部長 or 田中さん) might be used in their private conversation in an izakaya(= bar) when speaking evil of him/her.

Toritoribe said:

When the speaker shows their respect only to the referent, and not to the one they are talking to, non-polite form of honorific verbs is used.
e.g.
お父さんはお元気でいらっしゃる？
(Think about a situation where you are asking a child about their father's condition.)

Click to expand...

What is non-polite form of honorific verbs?
I have come across only casual, plain, polite, honorific forms only.
I had supposed non-polite form refers to plain form.

yeah, plain/dictionary form of the honorific verbs, AKA 普通形 > 丁寧形 like:
いらっしゃる > いらっしゃいます
なさる > なさいます
召し上る > 召し上がります
くださる > くださいます
おっしゃる > おっしゃいます
ご存知だ > ご存知です
ご覧になる > ご覧になります
pretty much anything +になる, and so on.

In Toritoribe's example, you're showing respect for the father by using the honorific verb, but not to the child by using the plain form of the verb. If you were talking to an adult and wanted to be deferential to them as well, you might ask 元気でいらっしゃいますか。

In addition to honorifics (尊敬語), there's also humbling verbs (謙譲語) you'd use for yourself to show respect to the listener like 申す、頂く、and うかがう。Technically there are now like five "kinds" of keigo, how fun!

nice gaijin said:

yeah, plain/dictionary form of the honorific verbs,

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Are you saying the non-polite form of honorific verbs is their plain/dictionary form?

I see. Toritoribe san was referring to using "いらっしゃる" instead of "いらっしゃいます".

Thanks!

Yes, that's right. I don't think dictionary form is appropriate, though. This term usually refers to the present form of the verb, but plain/non-polite/casual/short form includes its conjugation forms like past. negative, past-negative, etc..