We have to make inferences (guesses) about what people mean

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Intercultural Communication

• Lecture 3
• Interpersonal politeness and power

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Face Strategies and Systems

• Language is ambiguous
• One way we reduce ambiguity is to make
  assumptions about the people we are talking to
  and our relationship with them
• Face
• The paradox of face
• Face strategies
• Face systems

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Politeness and Face

• Popular Meanings
• Face mian zi, min ji, mentsu, chae myon
• Concept of honour
• Politeness Being nice, following certain
  rules of social conduct (li_
• Popular ideas of politeness and face are usually
  governed by expectations about scripts and
  adjacency pairs

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Face and Politeness

• Linguistic meaning
• Face
• the negotiated public image mutually granted each
  other by participants in communication
• Politeness
• How we signal our relationship with and feelings
  towards those we are communicating with in our
  language use

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Is this polite?

• Ms. Cheung, I wonder if you could please get
  back to me on this matter at your earliest
  convenience

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Is this polite?
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Is this polite?

• A Hello.
• B Hi Rodney. Can you guess who this is?

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Is this polite

• Wow, you look awful today! Is there anything
  wrong?
• To you best friend?
• To your boss?

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• My Mother in England

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The Paradox of Face
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The Paradox of Face

• We want people to like us
• We want people to respect us
• Respect and intimacy are expressed in different
  ways
• Different groups may have different ways of
  expressing intimacy and respect

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Two kinds of face

• Negative face (desire for autonomy, personal
  space,freedom from imposition, freedom of action)
  
• THE SHIELD
• Positive face (desire for self-image to be
  acknowledged and approved of)
• THE SPEAR
• Each are addressed with specific formsof
  facework

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Two kinds of face

• Negative face (desire for autonomy, personal
  space,freedom from imposition, freedom of action)
  
• Positive face (desire for self-image to be
  acknowledged and approved of)
• Each are addressed with specific formsof face
  work

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Two Kinds of Face Strategies

• Involvement
• Solidarity
• Showing closeness or solidarity
• using first name, expressing interest, claiming
  common point of view, using informal language

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Two Kinds of Face Strategy

• Independence
• Showing respect
• using titles, not making assumptions,
  apologizing, using formal language

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Independence and Involvement

• In any interaction we usually use both
  independence and involvement strategies
• The problem is deciding how and when to use these
  strategies
• Based on
• who we are talking to
• why we are talking to them

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Face Systems

• Face systems are based on three different aspects
  of the situation
• Power (P power difference, -P no power
  difference)
• Distance (D distant, -D close)
• Weight of Imposition (how important topic is for
  speakers, W important, -W not very important)
• Values exist on a scale (not absolute)

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Deference Face System

• -P, D
• symmetrical (equal)
• participants see themselves as at same social
  level
• distant
• both would use mostly independence strategies

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Solidarity Face System

• -P, -D
• symmetrical
• close
• both participants likely to use more involvement
  strategies

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Hierarchical Face System

• P, /-D
• asymmetrical (unequal)
• asymmetrical face strategies
• higher uses more involvement
• lower uses more independence

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Deference Speakerlt-----------------Independence--
-------------gtSpeaker Solidarity
Speakerlt--Involvement--gtSpeaker Hierarchical Spea
ker (involvement)
Speaker

(independence)
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Communication problems

• The calculation of the appropriate face
  strategies is usually based on a calculation of
  power
• When two participants differ in their assessment
  of face strategies it will tend to be perceived
  as a difference in power

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Conflicting Strategies/Mixed up systems

• Two businessmen meeting for the first time
• Mr R (reading Mr. Wongs business card which
  says Wong Hon Fai) Hi, Hon Fai. Im Bill
  Richardson. My friends call me Bill.
• Mr W How do you do Mr. Richardson.
• Mr. Wong thinks That guy is acting too familiar,
  who does he think he is?
• expects deference system, hears hierarchical
  system
• Mr. R. thinks This guy doesnt want to be my
  friend. Hes not very nice.
• expects solidarity system, hears deference system

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Task

• Watch the video and discuss how participants
  choice of face strategies leads to
  miscommunication

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Face and Culture

• Kinship
• Concept of self
• In-group/Out-group relationships
• Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft

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Kinship

• Hierarchy
• Collectivistic relationships
• Love and duty
• Honesty and harmony

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Face and Self

• differences in assumptions about the self
• Individualism and collectivism
• Body-Self-Person

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Ingroup-Outgroup Relationships

• Nei and Wai
• How strong are group boundaries
• How permanent are groups
• Group identification

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Gemeinshaft and Gesellshaft

• Community and society
• Gemeinshaft
• Traditional, organic, based on kinship bonds,
  shared history, common traditions
• Gesellshaft
• Contractual, rational, instrumental, based on
  rules and laws

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Chinese conceptions of face

• Face not seen to belong to self alone, but also
  to group (family)
• Politeness strategies characterized by
  self-denigration and respect (negative politeness
  (li)
• Heavily encoded in the language

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Two kinds of Chinese Face (Mao 1994)

• Mianzi (prestige, reputation, either earned or
  ascribed)
• Lian (respect for a persons underlying moral
  character)
• Morality defined as subordinating ones own face
  wants to those of the group

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Mianzi vs. Lian

• Losing mianzi
• loss of ones reputation because of failure or
  misfortune
• Losing lian
• loss of ones moral standing in the community
• Lian more important than mianzi
• Mianzi can have negative connotations (being
  overly concerned with self-image)
• to gain mianzi at the expense of lian in the end
  will cost one both (Mao 1994)

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Mianzi vs. Lian

• Possible to lose Mianzi but gain lian
• Example J.J. Chan
• Courageous Disc-Jockey Give AIDS Campaign a
  Friendly Spin
• A 25-year old local disc-jockey suffering from
  AIDS is sharing his story to help educate the
  public about the disease.
• J J Chans family is proof that AIDS is no
  hindrance to a happy home life, even after its
  youngest member got the killer virus four years
  ago.
• "I told my family, thinking that they might throw
  me out. But on the contrary, my sister and
  brother encouraged me. They told me I had not
  committed a crime and it was just a kind of
  illness."
• Isnt he worried that his television appearance
  could cause people to stare at him in the
  streets?
• "No. Just let them stare. I want to educate the
  next generation. Todays youngsters are very
  promiscuous," he says, adding that promoting sex
  education is not enough.

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Researching interdiscourse communication

• Exploring the interaction order
• What is the basis of power?
• What is the basis of intimacy?
• What are the default face systems/strategies for
  different situations?
• What is the potential for miscommunication?