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Notes to Chapter 3
1 See also Brown and Levinson's (1987,1-51) own comprehensive overview of some of the criticisms
between the original publication of their work (1978) and the 1987 volume.
2 These functions tend to be employed in the literature in dichotomous pairs, for example respect-
contempt (Penman 1990; 1994) aggravation-mitigation (McLaughlin et al 1983), co-operationantagonism
(Craig et al 1986), and honour-threat (Shimanoff 1987).
3 See for example Cupach and Metts' (1994) discussion of 'personal idioms' employed by intimates
in the presence of others.
4 See Spiers (1998) who coherently employs the technique of 'substruction'- a diagrammatic
presentation moving from constructs and concepts at the theoretical level, down through empirical
indicators at the empirical level.
5 See Chapter 3 for more discussion of the identification of episodes as units for analysis.
a For example Penman's work was carried out in courtroom settings, and Woods and Kroger address
letters of recommendation.
71 take this last notion of equality to participate from work by Wilson (1987) who sees the mutual
granting of equal rights to speak as a fundamental form of positive facework underlying conversation
? er se (p. 30 n. 1).
There is a much cited analogy of human interaction which reflects these tendencies of
conversation. Participants in talk can be seen to be akin to 'cuddling hedgehogs'. The creatures have
a need to avoid being too far away from each other and isolated, but in coming together can come
only so close as to avoid injuring each other with their spines. In other words, human interaction
involves both not getting to close or too far away from one another.
9 See Earley (1997,120ff. ) for an excellent discussion on the concept of equilibrium and how it
relates to face.
'0 1 will develop further this model as the analysis proceeds.
11 1 must state that I am not positing negative alignment as detachment from, but rather autonomy
with others. This rendering of the concept of negative face defined as need for expression of
individuality / autonomy vis-A-vis the topic / relationship with others co-present may well be more
applicable to collectivist cultures as this implies not a detachment of the biological self from wider
society, but a realisation of the symbolic self through and as involvement in interactional communion.
12 What this model adds to the individualistic notion of face (i. e. the individual possessing negative
and positive face needs - see 1.1), is to demonstrate how the need for solidarity and autonomy are
equally 'conversational needs'. This goes some way to demonstrate how, as Goffman has previously
noted, the structure of conversation and the structure of the self are intimately related.
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