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For fear of drifting too far away from the empirical focus of this particular
study though, I want to draw this chapter to a close by considering the analytical
purchase afforded by this suggested framework for the analysis facework as
alignment in within sociable episodes within the two particular speech communities
discussed in chapter two, viz., the Germans and the English. Work reviewed in
Chapters 1 and 2 has shown that persons from different cultures regularly engage
in differing conversational styles. For example, Goffman's notion of 'lip service'
demonstrated how much convivial interaction in middle class American social
circles was characterised by mutual support and agreement within a framework of
'working consensus. This can be directly contrasted with work by scholars such as
Katriel (11986), Schiffrin (1984), Tannen (1981 b; b), and of course work conducted
on German conversational style (see Chapter 2) which has demonstrated how
conversation may be conducted equally as sociably within a wider framework of
essentially 'working dissent'. Both cultural variations are characteristic of sociability
in the broader sense. At one end of the spectrum, some cultures seem to go to
great lengths to avoid any expression of selves as autonomous, while, at the other
end, others seem to regularly engage in combative style argumentation where
individual selves are pitted directly against each other. Such styles can be regarded
as culturally safe ways to realise face concerns within a wider framework of ritual
equilibrium. How then might the observations and argument outlined above be
employed to explain these differing cultural orientations?
In order to fully understand the differences between English and German
communicative style using the facework as alignment approach, we need to ask a
fundamental set of questions. First, we might ask what is the nature of positive
and negative claims in both sociable milieu? That is, in what ways do German
and English participants in sociable episodes make conversational claims to
sameness and difference, solidarity and autonomy. Second, how does sociable
conversation manifest these claims as they are ratified and supported in the
achievement of sociable equilibrium. Third, and perhaps most fundamentally,
what is the nature of conversational selves mobilised in the doing of sociable
conversation, particularly, how is the self as image employed as part of
facework as alignment, and how can the self as construal be seen to be guiding
facework practices? In addressing theses questions, I believe we might move
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