Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Discourse and Pragmatics
Discourse and Pragmatics
• Showing ‘respect’
• using titles, not making assumptions,
apologizing, using formal language
• Called ‘Negative’ Face Strategies
Negative Face Strategies
• Use titles
• Use formal language
• Don’t make assumptions
• Apologize
• Be indirect
• Try to minimize imposition
• Hedge
• Talk about things not having to do with us
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
• Why is politeness
dangerous?
Paradox of Face
• We all want to be liked and respected
at the same time
• We have to manage
positive and negative face strategies at once
• You always run the risk of being too hot or too cold
• Different groups might favor different strategies
Role Plays
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)
Deference Face System
• -P, +D
• symmetrical (equal)
• participants see themselves as at same
social level
• distant
• both would use mostly independence
strategies
Solidarity Face System
• -P, -D
• symmetrical
• close
• both participants likely to use more
involvement strategies
Hierarchical Face System
• +P, +/-D
• asymmetrical (unequal)
• asymmetrical face strategies
• higher uses more involvement
• lower uses more independence
Deference
Speaker<-----------------Independence--------------->Speaker
Solidarity
Speaker<--Involvement-->Speaker
Hierarchical
Speaker
(involvement)
Speaker
(independence)
But it’s really not that simple...
• There is another factor
• W
• Weight of imposition
• W+/ W-
To make it even more
complicated
• We usually use a COMBINATION of
strategies
• We negotiate system/strategies with the
people we are talking to
Video
• Watch the video
• Note how the characters use politeness
strategies
• Are they successful?
• What’s the problem?
Conflicting Strategies/Mixed up
systems
• Two businessmen meeting for the first time
• Mr R: (reading Mr. Wong’s business card which says
Wong Hon Fai) Hi, Hon Fai. I’m 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 doesn’t want to be my friend.
He’s not very nice.
• expects solidarity system, hears deference system
Task
• Look at the situations and rate them
according to P, D, and W
• Discuss how you might act in these
situations
VIRTUALLY ALL SOCIAL
ACTS…
Case Studies
Chart two: Complete System
How do we decide which
strategy to use?
• Power (P)
• Distance (D)
• Weight of Imposition (W)
Power
• What’s the difference between how you do
FTAs towards your parents and your younger
sister? Your teacher and your classmate?
• -P
• positive politeness (involvement)
• +P
• lower person: negative politeness (respect)
• higher person: positive politeness
Distance
• What’s the difference between the way
you do FTA’s towards your friend and
towards a stranger?
• -D
• positive politeness (involvement)
• +D
• negative politeness (independence)
Weight of imposition
• What’s the difference between how you
do big FTAs and small FTAs?
• -W
• positive politeness
• +W
• negative politeness
Combinations
• +P, -D, +W
• -P, +D, -W
• -P, -D, +W
• Values are never absolute
• We always use a combination of
strategies
Face and ‘Culture’
• Different cultures have different ways to
judge P, D, and W
• Different cultures have different ways of
expressing negative politeness and
positive politeness
• Effect of power, status, age and gender
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
Two kinds of Chinese Face
• Mianzi (prestige, reputation, either
earned or ascribed)
• Lian (respect for a person’s underlying
moral character)
• Morality defined as subordinating one’s
own face wants to those of the group
Mianzi vs. Lian
• Losing mianzi
• loss of one’s reputation because of failure or misfortune
• Losing lian
• loss of one’s moral standing in the community
• Lian more important than mianzi
• Mianzi can have negative connotations (being overly
concerned with self-image)
Mianzi vs. Lian
• Possible to lose Mianzi but gain lian
• Example: J.J. Chan
• to gain mianzi at the expense of lian in
the end will cost one both (Mao 1994)
Task
• Go to a shop and pretend you want to
buy something. Notice how the shop
attendant manages politeness
strategies and FTA’s (also notice how
you do it!)
Conclusion
• Politeness is the way we communicate
our relationship in interaction
• There is no ‘faceless’ communication
• the ‘paradox of face’